David Brodie in the middle, with the U1500 Cup, May 2016.
David Brodie, who died on 25 May aged 56, was an absolute stalwart of Stirling chess club, one of its most significant members during the past couple of decades. He was much liked and respected by his fellow players and also by members of the other clubs across the league.
Although never a particularly strong player, David was very solid and reliable in the lower/middle grades and gradually worked his way up from 1100ish strength (which is what he was during his pre-Stirling time at the old Alloa club) to maintain a grade in the upper 1300s / lower 1400s. The highest he reached was 1416 in 2005–06, closely followed by 1413 in 2009–10, and after a dip into the 1200s he was back up to 1381 in what was to prove his final season. He enjoyed fast chess too, and his allegro grades followed a similar path, peaking at 1396 this past season.
The numbers tell only a fraction of the story, however. David was the embodiment of a good team man in terms of his commitment to the club and his strong sense of fair play. He was the ideal C team captain and oversaw a steady improvement in the lower-grade players and keen juniors. He rightly took pleasure in good results – for example a draw and then (last November) a win against the strong Dunfermline B team. One result he particularly savoured was Stirling C’s victory against Stirling B in January 2014, when he scored a fine win in his individual game (see below). His last match was a 3-2 win for the Cs at Cumbernauld B in early February, and even though he was too ill to play thereafter he was pleased to hear that the Cs had finished third in division 2, their best result for many years. Much of this was down to the groundwork David had put in.
He was also a very reliable reserve for the B team, scoring a lot of points and half-points at that level, and he succeeded Robert Togneri as captain of the under-1500 cup team – which picked up the silverware this season for the third time in a row and for the eighth time in ten attempts, a remarkable record. David played in most of those winning campaigns, and the trophy was taken to him in hospital the day after it had been retained. He also captained the Stirling Wallace allegro team for a number of seasons, and provided valuable input as a member of the club committee.
In terms of the internal club competitions, David won the Lindsay Cup twice, in 2000–01 and 2007–08, but overall he was a curiously unlucky player, losing four consecutive Lindsay finals from 2009-10 and similarly four Thornton Cup finals from 2010–11. He was runner-up in the Thornton (and its predecessor the President’s Prize) in six seasons out of eight during this period. Sometimes he met a stronger player in these finals and lost after giving it his best shot, but on other occasions he was simply unfortunate, as when reaching a winning position in a final against Jonathan Blake only to lose on time after having misunderstood how the new-fangled digital clocks added the extra period, an easy mistake to make in the early days of such devices.
His lowish grade but good overall grasp of the game meant he was well placed in the annual Christmas handicap tournament, the Keddie Cup, and he duly won this in 2007. Whatever the format, fast or slow, David was a very competent player and always dignified afterwards regardless of the result. He was also a hard worker in terms of the more mundane aspects of the club, for instance, helping to put out the tables at the start and staying until the end to pack up. He was forever offering people lifts home, even if this took him out of his way.
David had a strong sense of loyalty, and a feature of his captaincy was a preference for selecting members who attended on a regular basis and thus showed willing, rather than those who tended to only be available on match nights. While this might sometimes have reduced the theoretical strength of a team, it had the undoubted benefit of fostering good spirit and making those who did play feel valued. Certainly the way the C and u1500 teams have progressed in recent seasons is testament to the merits of this approach, and the club is healthier for it.
In closing, two anecdotes to give an indication of the value David placed on respect for opponents, and also his commitment to the teams. The first story – which David told while in hospital – dates from his time at the Alloa club. He was graded only 1050 or so at the time and was part of a team that visited Wandering Dragons at the Edinburgh Polish club. His opponent – graded in the 1800s then as now – arrived at the board with, as David put it, “a baby in one hand and a pint in the other”. This, David noted, was "somewhat disrespectful". The game didn’t go well for the home player, and "first he put the baby to one side, then the pint". In due course David won; it remained his best scalp and clearly – from the wry pleasure with which he told the story even when very ill – provided long-term satisfaction about how doing things properly can get its reward.
The second story dates from March last year. David worked as an electrical engineer and was often required to travel considerable distances. He had misread the fixture list – “an error of judgement on my part”, a very polite David phrase, that – and found himself in Lochinver, on the west coast of Sutherland, the same day he was due to captain the C team at Cumbernauld. No matter – after finishing work in the afternoon he drove all the way back to win his game and lead the team to a 4½-½ victory. This was beyond the call of duty – no one would have objected had David asked another club member to stand in for him – but his attendance was never in doubt and he didn’t expect any applause for it.
David was always good company, a cheery and positive presence around the club, and he was almost always there: before his illness, in his couple of decades as a Stirling member he had missed very few nights. He would often as not be engaged in endless allegro games with his great friend Gordon Allcock; the two of them must have played each other hundreds of times over the years, on free evenings and in idle moments between rounds during tournaments or after everyone else had finished.
The club felt odd during the spring session when David’s declining health meant that he wasn’t able to attend, and there will be a significant gap when we face the start of the new season without him. His kindly enthusiasm and commitment is an enormous loss to the club and to the league – and of course to Christine and the rest of the family, to whom sincere condolences are sent.
