 Club Champion Mike Johnson (L) receives the Robinson Trophy from President Ian Potter (R), 1998 With sadness we have to record the death of our President Mike Johnson. He passed away at Nottingham City Hospital, 12th of October 2021 aged 59.
Mike was a lifelong Chesterfield resident. From an early age he attended the chess club. He was a club member from 1974 until his death in 2021, almost half a century. He became President of the Club in 2003 and played a huge part in making it successful. He was a talented chess player. He won the Club Championship on no less than eight occasions. He also played chess for Derbyshire and for Sheffield in the Woodhouse Cup. We shall miss him very much. A note from David Latham: I was at work when I read this awful news, I thought I`d kept it together but was instantly surrounded by worried people asking what on earth had happened. A gentle and beautiful soul has left us; how cruel untimely. it will not be easy to tell my wife and children, who knew him well. I trust he thought of us all kindly as we thought of him..... given the sort of man he was, he probably thought well of us whether we deserved it or not. it was a great honour to have been in the same room as Mike Johnson. Grief is a price we pay for love. Tribute from Andy Mort: When I first joined Chesterfield Chess Club, Mike was a member of the strong Chesterfield Juniors team which dominated the (long defunct) Chesterfield League. He subsequently progressed to become a member of the Sheffield League A Team, whom he represented till his death. A late developer, mainly because of his time-trouble addiction, he became a formidable opponent in his thirties, and a regularly occupied one of the higher boards in the team as well as representing Derbyshire. Although he never overcome his love affair with time-trouble, he mastered it in time, thriving on the adrenaline it produced, and often winning by luring his opponents into a false sense of security. Expanding his horizons, he started to play in the Yorkshire League, and was a member of the 1978-79 Rotherham team which won the Woodhouse Cup. Subsequently, Mike played in the same competition for Sheffield, and was a keen member of several League-winning teams. However, it was in the 4NCL that Mike found his ultimate metier when I persuaded him to strengthen the Spirit of Atticus squad. Not only did he love the attendant social life, but the slow time-limit was absolutely suited to his attritional style of play (he always valued knights above bishops, and often made appropriate exchanges in the opening). Mike was prepared to `grind out` endlessly positions in which he had minimal edge, to gain a crucial extra half point for the team (though it often left his team mates hungry). More than once, his game was the very last in the room to finish, and interestingly, he seemed to reserve his `Spanish Torture` for Bradford players, his three most notable marathon victims being Mike Bramsom, Dave Patrick and Harry Baxter. Outside chess, it is well known that Mike was a fanatical - and possibly deluded - Derby County supporter, but less well known is that, before a leg injury, he was a runner - a marathon runner, unsurprisingly, who once failed only narrowly to achieve a prestigious sub-three hours` time. As President of Chesterfield Chess Club and a team captain, he was a tireless worker. An absolute gentleman, he will be missed by team members and adversaries alike.
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