Friday, May 15, 2009

Standard Clips Barden

Leonard Barden has been writing his daily chess column for the London Evening Standard for over fifty years. He first began in 1958. According to available records, this puts the Englishman just a touch behind George Koltanowski for the honour of writing the "longest-running daily chess column in history". Koltanowski wrote his column in the San Francisco Chronicle for a reported total of 51 years and 9 months.

I mention all this because, while you can still read Barden's daily columns online, the printed version will now appear only once a week - on Fridays! It apparently has to do with the Standard's recently launched new look.

And someone isn't happy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are forgetting Garry Koshnitsky's Sun-Herald column which ran continuously from 1935 to 1994, bar a short break in 1988.

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget Herman Helms, whose chess column in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran from 1892 to 1955.

Kevin Bonham said...

It would be surprising for Edward Winter to forget anything. Winter's article (linked on via the word "reported" in AR's post) notes that Helms' column was discontinued for a few years during that period. As for Koshntisky's, was it daily or weekly?

Anonymous said...

Koshnitsky's column was weekly. Helms's column did indeed have a break of several years. Koltanowski's world record for a daily column was 51 years 9 months and 18 days. Barden's Evening Standard column has been running daily since summer 1956