Sheffield & District Chess Association

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01/11/2023

Michael F J Grimsley

1944 - 2023

 

News has come from Hillsborough Chess Club of the death of Mike Grimsley.

 

Michael F J Grimsley was born in the first half of 1944, in St. Albans.  Though usually known as “Mike Grimsley”, his “F” was used in more-formal chess records while he was at Eccesall club, and his “J” was reserved only for official documents.  He moved to Sheffield, possibly to take up a post at Sheffield City Polytechnic as it was known then, and he seems to have remained resident in Sheffield ever since.  He married wife Ruth in Sheffield in 1977, and the couple went on to have three Sheffield-born children.

 

He appears to have been an academic in the field of statistical research.

(This link appears to be refer to our man, or else he had a namesake: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000674.)

 

Mike had been a member of Ecclesall Chess Club up to about 1997, at which point he seems to have taken a break from competitive chess for about 11 seasons, seemingly up to the point of retirement from work.  On resumption, he joined Stannington Chess Club which has since evolved into Hillsborough Chess Club.  He played for Stannington from 2009 to 2017, but then ceased competitive chess.

 

Pete Locking advised of Mike’s passing in an e-mail dated 19th October with the following words:

 

Yesterday's very sad news about the passing of our friend Mike.

He was a member of Stannington / Hillsborough C. C. for many years.

A great friend to all our club members and will be sadly missed.

Kind regards.

Pete Locking.

Hillsborough C. C.

 

Mike was evidently a Sheffield Wednesday supporter, as Geoff Frost has commented:

 

Very sad.  I saw him at SWFC on the concourse of the N stand during last season.  We stood and had a chat.

 

Mike evidently also appreciated classical music as I (Steve Mann) discovered on attending a performance of George Butterworth’s orchestral gem A Shopshire Lad, at St. Marks Church, Broomhill, having seen an advert in the Star.  Low and behold, I found that Mike had similarly been drawn to this performance of a piece by the potentially-great young British composer whose career was prematurely cut off when he was killed in World War II.

 

Mike is one of those people who you remember with a smile or broad grin on their face.  I was tempted to put “grindingly tedious” before “statistical research” above, and I like to think that would have induced a broad smile from Mike!