About The Club
Troon Chess Club was founded in 1976 by Len Weir who is still an active member of the club. The club quickly established itself as a strong chess-playing club and entered the Ayrshire Chess League.
At the end of that first season in 1977 International Master and personality of BBC TV’s ‘Mastergame’ William Hartston gave a simultaneous demonstration against 25 players representing each club in the League. He won 20, drew 4 and lost to George Mann of the Massey Ferguson team. Robin Templeton of Troon was pleased to draw and still plays in the club.
Impressed by the Walker Halls venue and the capability of Troon’s organisation the Scottish Chess Association held their 1980 and 1982 championships there. They were to return in 1984 for a special International Congress marking the centenary of the Association. A Grandmaster’s dinner was held in Troon and World Champion Anatoly Karpov gave a simultaneous display in Glasgow. Among the players he defeated was David Andrew the Troon Club Champion.
Among the competitors was a young Dundonian, Paul Motwani who had won the World Under 17 Champion title and was to become Scotland’s first Grandmaster. He became a friend of The Troon club and was made an honorary member after several simultaneous displays at the club. We still contest the Motwani Quaich each year. Another simultaneous was given by Jonathon Rowson who resided in Troon but whose job as a chess Grandmaster meant continual traveling.
Troon won the Ayrshire League team title in 1999 and repeated the feat when tying with Kilmarnock in 2019 in an interrupted league programme due to the COVID pandemic.
Refreshed after the enforced break the club is healthy with a team in each of the three divisions. Members compete for the Club championships Gold, Silver and Bronze reflecting the strength of players. In addition there is the Knockout Coronelli and Motwani trophies and the OFP Salver which is really a highly contested friendly contest.
We have been enhanced since re-forming at the resurgence of interest in chess among younger players and the future of the club is looking good with several teenagers making their debut playing for our teams in the Ayrshire League.
The club celebrated it’s 50th anniversary in June 2026 with a dinner at the South Beach Hotel and a simultaneous display by Grandmaster and former British Champion Jonathan Rowson. Len’s son Gary made a speech at the dinner and I have published the text of his speech below.
Gary Weir’s speech at the our 50th anniversary dinner
When people think of the origins of Troon Chess Club, they naturally think of one man: Len.
Before Troon Chess Club even existed, Len was already deeply involved in the chess world. In Glasgow he attended Shettleston Chess Club alongside his friend Pat Drennan, rubbing shoulders with leading Scottish players such as Dougie Bryson and many others.
But when Len moved to Troon with his young family, he found himself in something of a chess desert. There was no local club, no regular competition, and no community of players. For a man who loved chess, the withdrawal symptoms soon began to appear.
So, in 1971, Len did what many great chess enthusiasts do — he started at home. At the age of four, I found myself sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with a chessboard between us while Len patiently taught me the fundamentals of the game.
Before long, however, father-and-son sparring sessions were no longer enough. Len wanted more players, more competition, and more people to share the enjoyment of chess with.
Fortunately, Len was a salesman by trade and a self-starter by nature. He believed in the old saying: “Build it and they will come.”
And so, in 1976, he began creating Troon’s very own “Field of Dreams.”
He placed advertisements in the local library and around the town promoting a new chess club. He hired a small ante-room in the Walker Halls. And, sure enough, they came.
Among those early pioneers were David Andrew, Bob and John Adamson, Ian Dalziel, Jim Hannah, and many others who helped lay the foundations of the club we know today.
Even in that very first season there was silverware to present, prize-givings to organise, and enough excitement to attract the local press photographer, who arrived to record what was, at the time, a wonderfully long-haired gathering of chess enthusiasts.
Len never stopped promoting the club. He bought amber badges with Troon Chess Club emblazoned in black. He wanted it known in the town that chess had arrived. Gradually, Troon Chess Club entered the Ayrshire Chess League, where for many seasons we competed in Division 2 — at a time when the league consisted of only two divisions.
Chess players across Ayrshire soon became accustomed to travelling to the Walker Halls to play. The club’s growing reputation eventually led to the Scottish Chess Association bringing its flagship congresses to Troon in 1980, 1982 and 1984.
There was a genuine buzz around the club. Numbers grew, strength improved, and Troon began to establish itself firmly on the Ayrshire chess map.
But Len was not content with simply organising an adult club on Wednesday evenings.
He also founded the Troon Junior Chess Club, running sessions on Friday nights at Muirhead and Barassie Primary Schools. These evenings included group coaching, junior tournaments, and youth competitions — all organised with the same energy and enthusiasm he brought to everything else.
The junior section became extraordinarily successful. On one memorable evening, 104 youngsters attended.
And this was decades before The Queen’s Gambit gave chess its modern surge in popularity.
As the years passed, the club expanded further. Troon began fielding multiple teams, with Troon A and Troon B battling away in Division 2. The club became a stalwart of the Ayrshire chess scene.
By the 1998–99 season, the club had moved to the Venice Café on the corner of Ayr Street and West Portland Street. With the move came a rebranding: the A team became Troon Venetians. The B team initially retained its original name before later becoming the Troon Ospreys.
Then came one of the proudest moments in the club’s history.
Twenty-five years after Len founded the club, Troon A became champions of Ayrshire in 2001.
For everyone connected with the club it was a special achievement — but for Len, who had built the club from scratch through sheer determination, enthusiasm, and hard work, it was especially meaningful.
Len was the great organiser behind it all.
He constantly created new tournaments and competitions. He made sure fixtures were played, phoning and organising players, ensuring opponents turned up on the right nights. Thanks to his persistence, club competitions enjoyed remarkably high completion rates.
More importantly, Len made things happen.
He organised simultaneous exhibitions with Grandmaster Paul Motwani & Jonathon Rowson, complete with commemorative programmes which he sold to players and spectators on the night.
Never missing an opportunity, Len toured local businesses securing sponsorships and advertisements for the programme, helping generate valuable income for the club.
During my own time as club treasurer, we were able to grow the club’s finances significantly and create a level of security that later proved invaluable whenever we had to change premises. That financial stability owed a great deal to Len’s tireless fundraising efforts.
But perhaps one of Len’s greatest pleasures was publicising the club itself.
Every week he wrote columns for the Troon Times and the Ayrshire Post, updating readers on the latest matches, tournaments, and club events. True to character, he never settled for simply being informative — he wanted the articles to be entertaining too.
That combination of enthusiasm, organisation, humour, and relentless energy is what made Len such an important figure in Ayrshire chess.
Now as we look back over fifty years of chess in Troon – we reflect on the club being Ayrshire champions twice, having an Ayrshire individual champion, having a representative in the Scotland Women’s team (Alice Lampard), having a GM vanquisher, Ayrshire regional team representatives, an exceptional junior club, host to the Ayrshire championships – from the club beginning we can probably say quite simply, without Len, there would be no Troon Chess Club as we know it today. To The Founder we say thank you.
To the club we say for the next fifty years… Many proud memories have been made. Many proud memories remain to be written. Write the next chapter.
Tournament Winners
Coronelli/Len Weir Trophy Winners