I played my last match for them in about 1978 before leaving the area to seek my fortune. The pipe guy (now a professor emeritus) is still around writing about opera, but I can't find any evidence that he played much after that era himself.
In the mid '70's the board one at Witney was a pipe smoker. I don't know the tobacco brand he used but the smoke always seemed to sink downwards onto the board! I remember one match where an Oxford team pitched their cigar man against him and the smoke swirled round the pieces on the board and then sank off the edges of their table onto the floor. Very surreal. Our guy with the pipe lost and showed me the finish:- he was white in a Queen's Indian and was inveigled into taking the a8 rook with his g2 bishop and the smoke clouds failed to mask the weak squares round his king. Nowadays people have to resort to eating pickles etc to gain the upper hand at OTB.
18 Mar '20 12:34