Wasps downward spiral... (18 Viewers)

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Which is fair enough, but generally speaking in England union has largely been driven by private schools originating from how the code split in the first place. League is only really big in England because the other unions didn’t go along with the weird class divide. At least at the private school I went to, and others I know well, football is still banned. Not to forget the rugby crowd at uni drinking pints out of arse cracks each week.

Perhaps I have been pretty unlucky, but each time I dip in to either national or domestic rugby there’s some reference to it being the ‘civilised’ sport along with Nigel Owen’s famous ‘come on this isn’t soccer’.

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There is a lot of that, no doubt, but your comment singled out Cov as one of the offenders, and I'm not having it. Others here have pointed out some of the Woodlands and Coundon Court boys who made it, but there were many many more at Cov, plus many from Barkers' and Broadstreet Sec. Moderns etc. Some of England's finest, and many who 'only' played for the club while working five days a week on factory floors, markets and mines.
The Fairbrothers, Judds, Minshulls, Addletons, Coles, Brodericks, Knoxes, Foulks, etc etc etc would probably like a word in your shell-like.

Edit: I had the honour to play alongside one of those mentioned at Woodlands btw. Posh he certainly wasn't, but it might have helped his international career which stalled at u15 had he been. A superb player for Cov though.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Which is fair enough, but generally speaking in England union has largely been driven by private schools originating from how the code split in the first place. League is only really big in England because the other unions didn’t go along with the weird class divide. At least at the private school I went to, and others I know well, football is still banned. Not to forget the rugby crowd at uni drinking pints out of arse cracks each week.

Perhaps I have been pretty unlucky, but each time I dip in to either national or domestic rugby there’s some reference to it being the ‘civilised’ sport along with Nigel Owen’s famous ‘come on this isn’t soccer’.

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Indeed BSB, I'm not saying you're entirely wrong on it mate, and I don't want to fall out over it that's for sure.

I think part of the reason you get the split at private/state school isn't just a class thing though, it's because state schools don't seem to have the resources (or perhaps willingness) to coach and run rugby teams as well as football teams. It's probably a similar issue with cricket.

That's a real pity in my book, because not every kid is suited to football, and the other games are missing out on a lot of talent.

Off-pitch culture is a weird, bonding thing in rugby, and I'm not sure the obsession with heavy drinking is a great thing. But then the football tours I've been on haven't exactly been models of decorum either!

On pitch though, I'm sticking to my opinion that in general terms rugby does at least try to stick to its values, and for the most part there's a mutual respect between players, refs, and club officials.

Football is losing its way on this I think, and desperately needs a reset. That's not a class thing, btw, it's a cultural thing imho and needs some proper leadership to sort it out. Maybe that's a conversation for another day though...

Kneeza said:

There is a lot of that, no doubt, but your comment singled out Cov as one of the offenders, and I'm not having it. Others here have pointed out some of the Woodlands and Coundon Court boys who made it, but there were many many more at Cov, plus many from Barkers' and Broadstreet Sec. Moderns etc. Some of England's finest, and many who 'only' played for the club while working five days a week on factory floors, markets and mines.
The Fairbrothers, Judds, Minshulls, Addletons, Coles, Brodericks, Knoxes, Foulks, etc etc etc would probably like a word in your shell-like.

Edit: I had the honour to play alongside one of those mentioned at Woodlands btw. Posh he certainly wasn't, but it might have helped his international career which stalled at u15 had he been. A superb player for Cov though.

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I’m sorry if you felt I was trying to disrespect the club. Just at Henry’s in particular you get driven into you all the Cov players who came out of that school.

If there is any bitterness on my part it’s from the years spent being forced to play rugby by arsehole teachers. But definitely it feels like whenever I go to a game or just watch on the telly there’s derogatory comments on football.

Don’t think you can class Darren Garforth as a private school kid either!

LastGarrison said:

Don’t think you can class Darren Garforth as a private school kid either!

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Never played for Cov though. Nor did the arsehole Neil Back, although Richard Cockerell (another arsehole) did, but he went to Harris comp, Rugby.

As a cov kid in the local schools chess league we use to get a kick out of demolishing Bablake and King Henry VIII each year.

To be honest with everyone, it was the only time we ever got out a full team

Philosorapter said:

As a cov kid in the local schools chess league we use to get a kick out of demolishing Bablake and King Henry VIII each year.

To be honest with everyone, it was the only time we ever got out a full team

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The Henry’s team I was in won everything every year. Nothing like local junior chess beef

Brighton Sky Blue said:

The Henry’s team I was in won everything every year. Nothing like local junior chess beef

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I think there may be an age difference here.

Most of us played for CET whoberley at one point whilst doing the schools for the laugh.

Philosorapter said:

Most of us played for CET whoberley at one point whilst doing the schools for the laugh.

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I was in Nuneaton Chess Club as a young teen. Played Whoberley often.

When i was at school the top three schools in the area were ourselves (Goodyers End, Bedworth), Good Shepherd (probably the one in Cov but i'm not sure), and Bentley Heath (Knowle)

Travs said:

I was in Nuneaton Chess Club as a young teen. Played Whoberley often.

When i was at school the top three schools in the area were ourselves (Goodyers End, Bedworth), Good Shepherd (probably the one in Cov but i'm not sure), and Bentley Heath (Knowle)

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Nuneaton Chess Club. The late Roy Woodcock and Colin Green.

Roy did a lot for junior chess in the local area.

The Good Shepherd lot were definitely from Little Heath in Coventry.

You know, they built this great big Arena in the area where the Good Shepherd lot grew up?

The Wasps downward spiral and coventry area chess league thread

Whilst we are on the subject.

Anyone seen the latest of trying to turn this into a televised sport.


Game starts around 11:00
With analysis starting around 13:30

Go knock yourselves out.

The only thing missing is;

Philosorapter said:

Roy did a lot for junior chess in the local area.

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Yes i remember the name well.... i actually emailed someone at Nuneaton a couple of years ago re entering into some local tournaments... but you apparently need to be registered and graded to play in them....

So its just been online chess for me. managed to reach a high of 1850 online, but i'm playing well below that level at the moment... would be really interested to know what my grade was during my teens, because in those days it was definitely measured using a different number system...

Travs said:

Yes i remember the name well.... i actually emailed someone at Nuneaton a couple of years ago re entering into some local tournaments... but you apparently need to be registered and graded to play in them....

So its just been online chess for me. managed to reach a high of 1850 online, but i'm playing well below that level at the moment... would be really interested to know what my grade was during my teens, because in those days it was definitely measured using a different number system...

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Back then, it was the BCF grading.

They've recently changed the grading to something else.

Nuneaton's grading historically are here, but it depends on how far back you actually played.


They look familiar

You can enter almost any local tournament as an ungraded player if you don't have a rating. It would be the old U100 ratings. Would recommend a year or two in a local league first, just to get reacclimatised with playing on a board rather than a computer screen.

Philosorapter said:

Back then, it was the BCF grading.

They've recently changed the grading to something else.

Nuneaton's grading historically are here, but it depends on how far back you actually played.

ECF Rating System

They look familiar

You can enter almost any local tournament as an ungraded player if you don't have a rating. It would be the old U100 ratings. Would recommend a year or two in a local league first, just to get reacclimatised with playing on a board rather than a computer screen.

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I have ratings from 1994-96 on there of 78D, 69C, 69D..... however these appear to be the "revised ECF rating"..... i would need to convert these to the "traditional ECF rating" (no idea how to do this), and then multiply that value by 7.5 and add 700, to get to an equivalent online rating...

Any idea how those above grades work out in either traditional ECF rating or current FIDE rating? i'd imagine they were somewhere between 1500-2000 but no idea where in that range..... i'd find it hard to believe if i'm better now than i was then...!

Travs said:

Yes i remember the name well.... i actually emailed someone at Nuneaton a couple of years ago re entering into some local tournaments... but you apparently need to be registered and graded to play in them....

So its just been online chess for me. managed to reach a high of 1850 online, but i'm playing well below that level at the moment... would be really interested to know what my grade was during my teens, because in those days it was definitely measured using a different number system...

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A separate chess thread is needed, but for reference I'm 2300 online, more like 1900 over the board though and in general most people's online ratings are higher than the 'real' ones. As said before happy to start an SBT group over on chess.com or lichess

Brighton Sky Blue said:

A separate chess thread is needed, but for reference I'm 2300 online, more like 1900 over the board though and in general most people's online ratings are higher than the 'real' ones. As said before happy to start an SBT group over on chess.com or lichess

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Too much like hard work. Just take over thread on here for a while.

The current ECF grading I haven't looked at yet. I have a sneaky suspicion it is not far from what I have been doing on here for the last few years.

I'll have a look.

Brighton Sky Blue said:

A separate chess thread is needed, but for reference I'm 2300 online, more like 1900 over the board though and in general most people's online ratings are higher than the 'real' ones. As said before happy to start an SBT group over on chess.com or lichess

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Yes checkmate!, get another thread.

I've got to snigger a bit. The new ECF system is just Elo.

It is the same as Fide.

The conversion is 1262 Elo/FIDE/new ECF.

The thing about Elo is that your rating is relative to the size and power of the community you play in. So on different chess servers you will get different gradings even if you have the same rating system.

This is why OTB rated chess is important. The community which you play in gives you the true reflection of your strength, which is your Federation grading.

Nice to know Sky Blue talk beat the ECF with an improved system by two years

I leave this here for anyone who is unsure about Elo, and how Glicko-2 fits into this.


And the copy and pasta that no one reads. The advantage to the white player is also known as the fabled home advantage rating in football. This is where the Stephenson Rating system comes in. Glickman wrote about the white players advantage in the paper, but didn't include it in Glicko-2.

Okay, too much info.

The Elo Rating system is a method to rate players in chess and other competitive games. A new player starts with a rating of 1000. This rating will go up if they win games, and go down if they lose games. Over time a player's rating becomes a true reflection of their ability - relative to the population. My video was mostly based on A Comprehensive Guide to Chess Ratings by Prof Mark E Glickman http://www.glicko.net/research/acjpap... Below are some of the things I wanted to talk about, but cut so the video wasn't too long! Some explanations of the Elo rating system say it is based on the normal distribution, which is not quite true. Elo's original idea did model each player's ability as a normal distribution. The difference between the two players strengths would then also be a normal distribution. However, the formula for a normal distribution is a bit messy so today it is preferred to model each player using an extreme value distribution. The difference between the two players strengths is then a logistic distribution. This has the property that if a player has a rating 400 points more than another player they are 10 times more likely to win, this makes the formula nicer to use. Practically, the difference between a logistic distribution and the normal distribution is small. Logistic distribution on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logisti... We replace e with base 10, s=400, mu=R_A - R_B and x=0 in the cdf. For the update formula I say that your rating can increase or decrease by a maximum of 32 points, and I said there was no special reason for that. This value is called the K-factor, and the higher the K-factor the more weight you give to the players tournament performance (and so less weight to their pre-tournament performance). For high level chess tournaments they use a K-factor of 16 as it is believed their pre-tournament rating is about right, so their rating will not fluctuate as much. Some tournaments use different K-factors. In the original Elo system, draws are not included, instead they are considered to be equivalent to half a win and half a loss. The paper by Mark Glickman above contains a formula that includes draws. Similarly the paper contains a formula that includes the advantage to white. Another criticism of Elo is the reliability of the rating. The rating of an infrequent player is a less reliable measure of that player's strength, so to address this problem Mark Glickman devised Glicko and Glicko2. See descriptions of these methods at http://www.glicko.net/glicko.html On the plus side, the Elo system was leagues ahead of what it replaced, known as the Harkness system. I originally intended to explain the Harkness system as well, so here are the paragraphs I cut: "In the Harkness system an average was taken of everyone's rating, then at the end of the tournament if the percentage of games you won was 50% then your new rating was the average rating. If you did better or worse than 50% then 10 points was added or subtracted to the average rating for every percentage point above or below 50. This system was not the best and could produce some strange results. For example, it was possible for a player to lose every game and still gain points."

Brighton Sky Blue said:

A separate chess thread is needed, but for reference I'm 2300 online, more like 1900 over the board though and in general most people's online ratings are higher than the 'real' ones. As said before happy to start an SBT group over on chess.com or lichess

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Do it.

"Let's get ready to Ru..... y Lopez"

I had to Google that. I really don't have the patience for chess, or more likely the capacity. Draughts though, or complex strategy games like Ludo, I'm the unbeaten house champion. In my house.

Anyhow, a little thread drift never hurt anyone, as long as Nick doesn't spot us...

LastGarrison said:

Do it.

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It’s not my move.

I originally had an account on lichess, which is where i hit 1850 (1870 to be precise)..... but although i liked the interface of the platform more than chess.com, i didn't really like the community... always seemed to be people trying to take-back moves, or just let the clock run down rather than resign... and often got the feeling i was playing a cheat/engine.... when you're playing someone in a tourney rated 1400 and they're playing absolute textbook chess, it raises a few questions!

chess.com i don't like the layout as much, but barely recall having any hassle in my games at all.... but building the rating up again from scratch is a lot of work... working my way up, and currently up to about 1500, but its a slow process.... and i think the ratings are slightly inflated on lichess, so doubt i'll ever see 1800 again....

As much as this thread has been derailed, discussing the mechanics of a chess rating system is still more interesting than watching Wasps will ever be.

Might as well share this whilst I am at it.

The ability of teams in the Championship over the course of a season in 40 secs.

Hargreaves Landsowne have reduced the value of the bonds to zero in their portfolio according to the Wasps Bonds chat ADVFN

oldskyblue58 said:

Strange but the wasps holdings group accounts for 2021 were filed on time. But the accounts for ACL, IEC, and ACL 2006 due 31/03 still outstanding at companies house. ACL of course is the company that owns the lease, owes 23m (I think) of the bond finance to wasps finance plc, operates the stadium through owning IEC, guarantees the bond etc.

If they don't have the figures for these subsidiaries then how can they file and sign off the wasps holdings ones on time. Wonder what is going on ? Is the due diligence going on nothing to do with a loan but a potential sale of the stadium and its operation (wasps rugby have 50 year lease to be there so are secure tenants )? Or are assets being moved around for reasons of refinancing?

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Do you think they are possibly looking to restructure the companies?

That's one possibility fp certainly. Selling the stadium part is another. There are other possibilities. I am sure we will find out soon enough

Gynnsthetonic said:

Hargreaves Landsowne have reduced the value of the bonds to zero in their portfolio according to the Wasps Bonds chat ADVFN

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I think that might be because there is now no market for them to be traded on so not possible to put a trading price on them. The only thing left is pay out (or not) to the existing bond holders.