First of all, I think you mean the World Mornington Crescent Federation, which is the current ruling body at least as regards tournament play (except for the Harrogate Invitational, for obvious reasons). Secondly, this is an informal game played on a message board using (mainly) MA rules, not an official ranking match, so any notable exceptions, plays, anomalies etc. aren’t going to be canonical and need not unduly concern us.
Speaking of ranking tournaments, obviously the next biggie on the calendar would be the forthcoming European qualifiers. Anyone got any views, favourites, betting etc? I’ve got my eye on the Danish squad. I know they probably won’t win the tournament, but I reckon they’ll put up a good scrap and do themselves great credit. It all depends if they meet Portugal in the early rounds.
Regarding the winning move / dismissal situation, you all seem to have overlooked the ugly scenes in Tashkent in the early '70s. Need I say more?
I don’t rate the Danes that highly. Their steady play has got them this far, but the stamina for the Arctic Summer variant simply isn’t there. Don’t forget that the McCallumdonian Drop is going to be in play.
The Danish MC team is like the Dutch football team - supremely talented individuals (who will ever forget Larsson’s famous move to Hainault?) but incapable of turning this into a good team performance.
My money’s on the Germans - they always win the penalty shoot out in both games. The welsh will be lucky to avoid the wooden spoon.
Remember in the Guildford Square Finals of ‘78, when Geoffries had made a “gentleman’s bet” before the match regarding sips of whisky on lark hand moves or legal green doublings – Denham caught him in a loop of green doublings where the outcome was predictable, but the conditions of his side bet made the number of moves prohibitively… well, he was completely sotted. His subsequent conduct and questionable mental state caused him to be ejected from the field of play because he belligerently refused to make his move. The audience was stunned because his opponent, chafed by something he had mumbled, had made the tactical error of playing Blackfriar’s into a thrusting Wembley while French Turnabout was still fair play. All he had to do was say the name of the game he was playing and he’d win. When he woke up in hospital two days later – the outcome of the match still unresolved due to judges’ arguing over a technicality in the Burberry Tome of Amended Procedural Minutiae – he screamed out “Mornington Crescent!” in sight of three nurses and a doctor. Because the doctor was an amateur-league judge for his District MC Club, the move was ruled to be legally executed.
Unfortunately, the governing bodies eventually agreed that being “ejected from the arena of play on grounds of bad conduct” constituted forfeiture. The ruling was appealed until 1984 to no avail.
Jurph–I understand the governing bodies have recently agreed to review the forfeiture rule based on bad conduct during the 2005-06 plenary convocation in Gothenburg, Sweden, (I’m planning on being there; how about you?) The rumor I hear is that only “moral turpitude” will be accepted as grounds for forfeiture (along with unauthorized use of handguns, of course) and that some of the historic forfeitures will be vacated, as if that will help any of the victims of these poorly-thought-out rules.
Meanwhile, my logical and emotional choice would be** Covent Garden**.
Not objectively the best, but it gives me the opportunity to point out that this is one of only four stations to have no letters in common with the word “arse”.
It’s also the setting of a wonderful movie, Passport to Pimilico, set in a Pimlico that is temporarily outside the United Kingdom, and hence has customs and passport inspections on the Tube line through Pimlico.
OK, that means we need something outside the UK, perhaps West India Quay (since Canada Water has already been played).
I just realized that the Marble Arch rules are similar to the so-called Gold Rush rules of 1898, which fell out of use after the First World War and are now slowly being re-accepted in Pacific Rim tournament play. Without the royal wedding rules, it goes without saying! And with the ban on edged weapons with blades of more than eight inches.
So, that leads us to a sentimental favorite, Buckhurst Hill.
I have been toying with opening a thread to play MC on the New York Subway - it would be a challenge as it would effectively be a blank canvass.
Obviously we’d have to stick to first principles - No repeat doubles, No interlocking moves, No internal reverses etc etc. And we’d need a basic order of precedence - I would suggest Humbolt’s, as it’s the most universal.
Here’s the map - as you will see it offers some intriguing opportunities
As a comparatively recent devotee of MC, I feel we should stick with the London Underground and leave the New York system to those who wish to break entirely new ground. I prefer to continue to explore the rich and ever-changing tapestry before us in the form of the London Underground.
I feel a closeness to MC, having spent a few days in London about ten years ago and am attracted to the purity and the historic richness of the original game. The history! The lore! The great players who advanced–usually–the game! The controversies, the moments of great anguish or triumph, the occasional fistfight–should we now turn our backs on this legacy of sport and start anew in a new land?
Recall the dying words of Vandermeer, one of the game’s greats, when asked if he would miss anything after his demise. “Yes,” he said feebly, with his last breath. “The little chip shop near Leicester square where the blonde bimbo with the big…” at this point his eyes rolled up and he cashed in his last weekly pass. Those in attendance remarked, “Ahh, Leicester Square! His last thought was on the great game! Which chip shop was that, by the way?”
New York? You might as well base a game on the LA freeway off and on ramps! The idea, the notion…excuse me; I need to call my copyright attorney.
Returns a few minutes later I suggest we forget anything I said about LA freeways! Now, then!
I believe this is the apocryphal tale of Samantha’s early career. You never could trust anything that old guy said, apart from when talking about the rules of the game.
Even as a Yank, I can’t help but notice such weak play.
I do believe that a reverse shunt to what I believe you Brits call “disused stations” was permitted, subject to an interpretation made by game judges at the Anglo-Canadian Congress of 1967, as long as it was not to any station of the the former Kingsway tram line, or any of the former deep level shelters shelters that were intended for post-war reuse as Underground stations, but are disconnected from the rest of the system. I think.
Downstreet is a direction, not a station. I do believe the Wimpole Convention, in which the game was irretrievably bastardized by permitting the participation of unschooled, scratching, snot-dripping colonials, does not permit the use of such esoteric tactics. Nor, indeed, should it be necessary to resort to same in order to succeed, eh what?
That said, the London system is so self-contained as to be limiting, and the less-benighted colonials can come to learn it after only a few years. A suggestion that their primitive imitation in New York (a city they did not have enough imagination to grant its own name, but rather used a pastiche of an English city name in a pathetic claim to civilization), is a suggestion to descend to their own level of barbarity.
But there are indeed other stations in Old Blighty that perhaps have never been played before, and may provide the invigoration demanded here. That said, here it is:
Piccadilly. The one in Manchester, blokes. Press on regardless.
