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1958 Netherlands v Great Britain, 25-26 October 1958, Vlissingen

Bd	Netherlands	Rd 1	Rd 2	Great Britain
1b	Dr Max Euwe	½-½	1-0	Jonathan Penrose
2w	Henk J van Donk	0-1		C Hugh O'D Alexander
2b	Jan Hein Donner		1-0
3b	Nicolaas Cortlever	0-1	½-½	Peter H Clarke
4w	Haije Kramer	½-½	½-½	Harry Golombek
5b	Theo D van Scheltinga	0-1	1-0	Leonard W Barden
6w	Willem Jan Mühring	½-½	½-½	P Stuart Milner-Barry
7b	Frits Ernst Roessel	1-0	1-0	John Arthur Fuller
8w	Eduard Spanjaard	0-1	½-½	Frank Parr
9b	Johan Teunis Barendregt	½-½	½-½	Bernard Cafferty
10w	Constant Orbaan	½-½	1-0	Dr Stefan Fazekas
	25-26 October 1958	3½-6½	7½-2½	Round scores
	Vlissingen	11-9		Match score

BCM, December 1958, ppn 327-328

The Anglo-Dutch Match By H. GOLOMBEK

The welcome resumption of this interesting event after a long interval (the previous match of this kind was played in 1952 in London and won easily by the Dutch with a score of 12½-6½) saw a keen struggle that was just won by Holland by 11-9. It was played at Flushing [Vlissingen] on October 25th and 26th and so timed as to enable the members of the Dutch and English teams who had taken part in the Munich International Team Tournament to return home via Flushing and join the remaining players in the ten-a-side teams, thereby saving travelling expenses and allowing each country to put forth its best team. Or so it was in theory; in practice the British team was missing R. G. Wade, who had gone straight from Munich to participate in an international tournament in Israel, whilst the Dutch were without Prins, Bouwmeester, and Van den Berg, the last named also having gone to play in the Israel tournament.

The match was financed by a shipbuilding firm at Flushing, which presented a fine trophy for annual competition consisting of a silver model replica of the famous Dutch warship, the "Seven Provinces," in which Admiral de Ruyter sailed up the Medway in the seventeenth century. As always, the hospitality of our Dutch hosts and the sporting way in which they conducted the match was perfect. In fact, jaded with chess as the four British players from Munich were, yet they still enjoyed this event and it is fervently to be hoped that the series, now resumed, will take place regularly in the future.

Play, and luck, in the first round went all in favour of the British side. The Dutch second board, Donner, mistaking the starting time for five o'clock (it was actually two o'clock on Saturday afternoon), turned up at twenty to five and this meant that his place was taken by a reserve, H. J. van Donk, who was clearly no match for Alexander; though he did put up quite a prolonged resistance and was an unconscionable long time a-dying.

Three other games also proved clear-cut victories for us; on Board 3, where Clarke quite outplayed Cortlever in the middle game; on Board 5, where Barden won with a powerful attack against Van Scheltinga; and on Board 8, where Parr won very well indeed against Spanjaard.

The games on Boards 4 and 9 were early draws, Cafferty managing to equalize after having got into quite a dubious position, and Kramer and I scoring our seventh draw in succession against each other. The draw on Board 1 was a most meritorious performance on the part of Penrose, who turned a rather poor position from the opening into an excellent one by sterling later middle-game play. Two other draws came from games that might well have been wins for us, since both Milner-Barry and Dr. Fazekas had clearly much the better game at one stage against Mühring and Orbaan respectively. In fact, Milner-Barry missed a clear-cut winning continuation.

Holland's one success came on Board 7, where Roesel, who was, one thought, playing too low in the side, won without much difficulty against Fuller. Thus the day ended with us leading by 6½-3½, a most satisfactory state of affairs from our point of view. However, a long experience of these matches has taught me the painful lesson that neither side can be sure of winning, no matter how big their margin may be at the end of the first round.

All the same, it was quite extraordinary to see how completely the tables were turned next day. Nothing would go right for us and we did not win a single game. Roesel again won with some ease against Fuller, who played well below his normal form throughout the match. Though Penrose put up a stout fight he was unable to hold his formidable adversary this time. Barden got into a bad ending against Van Scheltinga, in which his Bishop was practically useless as opposed to the Dutch player's piece; whilst Dr. Fazekas, after obtaining a promising attacking position against Orbaan, made an unsound piece sacrifice.

With the remaining members of our team unable to do more than draw, all depended on the last game to finish—that between Alexander and Donner. This had gone well for the British player for some time and a strong attack brought him the exchange. But Donner is an extremely difficult man to beat and he managed to secure equality by some very good play indeed. At this stage it was clear that only a win for Alexander could save us the match, so he courageously played on in a vain attempt to extract a win from a position which no longer warranted such treatment. The inevitable consequence was that Donner won. Thus we lost this round by 7½-2½ and the Dutch team emerged as the well-merited winners. It was, however, a close call and who knows what may happen in the next encounter. Perhaps we may have just that little extra next year to turn the balance in our favour.

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CHESS, 1 November 1958, Vol.24/326, p22

ENGLAND SHINE THEN FADE by B. Cafferty

England met Holland at Flushing on Oct. 25th and 26th in the welfare club of the Royal "De Schelde" shipping company. The match was sponsored by the company —which accounts for the venue, instead of one of the larger centres of population. It is interesting to hear from Dutch officials how firms are eager to support chess events, in fact sometimes even vie for the honour of doing so. It is proposed to hold the match annually. De Schelde have donated a beautiful trophy for the event and wish to foster it at Flushing each second year.

A late change in the English team was Dr. Fazekas for Wade, who had accepted an invitation to an international tournament at Tel Aviv. Donner thought play in the first round was to begin in the evening, not at 2 p.m. as arranged, so Van Donk had to be substituted on his non-arrival, with twenty-five minutes lost on his clock.

There had been a lot of prior comment on the fact that B. C. F. had come above Holland at Munich but the margin was so slight and it was obvious that the Dutch on their own ground wished to show that this did not imply any superiority! All credit then to the English "Men of Munich" who, although probably fed up with the sight of a chess board, were responsible for a fine first round result, while the rest of the team, who had come out from England, held their own with the Dutch lower boards.

Round 1

The margin might have been even greater for Dr. Fazekas had a positional pull for a long time, and Milner-Barry missed a strong attacking possibility.

The game of the round was Barden's; he hit Van Scheltinga with all the pent-up frustration of having to watch the fight at Munich for three weeks, without being able to play himself. [Barden - van Scheltinga]

Round 2

A catastrophe for England—five Dutch wins without a single reply! The writing was already on the wall early on for, making a great effort, the Dutch soon had an advantage on most boards. Dr. Euwe gave a good example of how to meet the Robatsch Defence, and the only bright spark early on was that both Alexander and Dr. Fazekas had gained an opening advantage.

Then, however, Fazekas chose a wild attacking line, losing a piece for little or no compensation. He went to move 48 before resigning.

I was surprised to see a large crowd following the game with interest. On enquiry I was told this was due to Orbaan being a local player but I believe it was at least as possible that they were marvelling at how long a serious game could go on, with such a disparity of material.

The clock played a big part, as Golombek, Clarke and Milner-Barry all agreed draws just before the control, when decisive results had seemed likely, and Fuller's flag dropped when he had five moves still to make.

The biggest disappointment was Alexander's game with Donner. White's early advantage netted him the exchange, but it may not have been the best to take it, as the ending presented great technical difficulties. Driven to play for a win by the state of the match, Alexander rejected a draw by repetition of moves but lost quickly after that.

His resignation was greeted by a huge burst of applause from the Dutch audience, who had seen a violent swing in one of the most exciting matches of the series.

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Record of GB v Netherlands matches

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File Updated

Date	Notes
2 June 2024	First uploaded as a PGN file.
25 September 2025	Added viewer, scores, etc. The PGN file still has only 5 complete scores and 1 part-game, plus 14 stubs.