From the Archive (5)

Following our brief association with Teesside Positive People, we secured a three-year sponsorship deal with engineering firm Davy McKee. This was in 1990.

I believe the Davy part refers back to Sir Humphry Davy, inventor of the miners' safety lamp back in 1815.

With Davy McKee's support, we were able to invest in sweatshirts for our brand new Cleveland Schools' Chess Association. Davy McKee also funded a series of tournaments - three each year - at Southlands Centre, providing medals, trophies, certificates and covering the cost of the venue.

We still needed more funds to be able to enter our junior teams into the county championships. This we did through a large variety of fundraising activities, but it was never an easy task.

The photograph was used in a number of newspapers at the time, the pose gifting them the chance to use the standard headline ''Cheque, mate!'' or similar.

These days we try to avoid cliches. Yes, we avoid them like the plague.