by Conrad Landin in Liverpool

CHESS should be recognised as a “mind sport” and taught in schools, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference heard yesterday.

Delegates said the government had rejected classifying the board game as a sport, but claimed there was still a chance for getting state funding.

Proposing the motion, former ATL president Hank Roberts said chess was “a very, very cheap and easy way to give lots of kids an improvement to their thinking.”

He said the government had been “particularly stupid” in rejecting the status of chess as a sport, and warned that Britain’s prowess in the game had declined.

“There was Russia and there was us, right there at the top, and now we’re absolutely nowhere,” he said.

Inner London delegate Azra Haque insisted chess was in fact a “physical sport” and said: “When we work out our body, we neglect our mind.”

But delegate David Brown said the motion was promoting a “pet subject” and asked how giving it a place in the curriculum would be different to promoting “coin collecting” or hockey.

He asked: “Do we really want more prescription from central government?”

Delegates voted narrowly in favour of a motion to lobby the government to “give every child the opportunity to learn how to play [chess] at school.”

Speaking after the debate, Mr Roberts said he was personally in favour of chess being on the curriculum, a move the motion didn’t call for.

But he said official recognition would be an important first step, as chess could do “wonders for self-confidence” among kids.