London Go Centre
Current London Go Centre
TMark Hall bequeathed a legacy with which he wished a new London Go Centre (LGC) to be established. The opportunity arose to co-locate with the Young Chelsea Bridge Club (YCBC), and so in 2018 LGC re-opened in Goldhawk Road.
Today LGC is part owner of a former Salvation Army building which has been converted to enable a range of mindsports to be played there London Mindsports Centre. LGC is still in close co-operation with YCBC. The building is about a 3 minute walk from Ravenscourt Park tube station and is located at 21 Dalling Road, London W6 0JD.
LGC hosts social Go on Wednesday evening and Saturday afternoon and holds tournaments throughout the year including the London Open Go Congress (28-31 December) and a complimentary tournament in May: Not The London Open".
LGC has a website and a Twitter account and a YouTube channel.
History
The original London Go Centre opened in March 1975 and closed on 31 October 1978. It was located at 18 Lambolle Place, Belsize Park, NW3.
The center was open from midday to 11PM every day of the year but 25 December. Stuart Dowsey established the Centre with funds raised in Japan through a committee of influential go players headed by Iwamoto Kaoru. It had only two other employees (David Mitchell and later Alison Cross). Membership peaked at around 250 players.
The Centre ran a championship tournament each year. The winners were:
1976 Y. Ohtsuka and S. Godfrey 1977 A. Ito 1978 Jim Bates
After 2 ½ years it became clear that in spite of the success the Go Centre had in promoting Go in the UK, it could not survive without a further injection of funds from Japan. Efforts were made to find new more central premises in the Covent Garden area and nearby. Initially these efforts were supported by the Nihon Kiin but as time wore on a new board of directors was elected to the Kiin and they vetoed the idea. For this reason, funds were not forthcoming, and the Centre was forced to close. Strangely enough Iwamoto Kaoru visited the centre for 2 weeks in August, just before it closed.
The Central London Go Club emerged from the original London Go Centre. The initial move was to the Inter-Varsity Club in London, from where it migrated to various other locations as time went by. It used to meet at the new London Go Centre until it was dissolved and its assets merged with those of LGC.
announcement of opening:
- website: http://www.britgo.org/bgj/bgj027.html
- pdf: http://www.britgo.org/files/bgj/bgj027.pdf (page 16)