Tributes to Michael Franklin on the English Chess Forum

One of Michael Franklin's most notable achievements was recording his first IM norm at the age of 47. The tournament was the March 1978 Aaronson Masters (the download includes the games). I was engaged in a correspondence game with him at the time so wrote to congratulate him after reading the report in the paper...

Michael replied as follows:

A typically neat Michael Franklin scoresheet. He never switched to algebraic notation and was given the dispension to continue keeping score in English descriptive notation by arbiters such as Stewart Reuben. This game was played on 19 March 1995 in the 4NCL...

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File Updated

Date	Notes
6 May 2023	583 games played by Michael Franklin who died aged 92 a few days ago. Very sad news - Michael was a courteous and affable man, and a very fine player. I've assembled these games rather quickly - apologies in advance if there are errors or duplicates.
6 May 2023	17 more games added, bringing the running total up to 600. Many thanks to Kevin Thurlow, Roger de Coverly and James Coleman for sending games.
7 May 2023	Three more games, all against Paul Littlewood, added to the collection. Running total now 603 games.
7 May 2023	14 more games added, contributed by Brian Denman, for which many thanks. Plus three more games between Franklin and Ray Keene, from chessgames.com. Running total now 620 games.
8 May 2023	Mark Page shared his game against Michael Franklin from the 1978 LARA Open in London. Thanks, Mark. Also, Paul Habershon posted a game he played against Michael Franklin in 193 on the English Chess Forum. Total game entries now 622.
10 May 2023	Three more games added: (1) M.Franklin 1-0 D.Raeburn, National Club 1971; (2) M.Surtees 0-1 M.Franklin, National Club 1971; (3) M.Franklin 1-0 G.Botterill, Surrey vs Oxfordshire, 20.10.1971. Many thanks to Ken Norman for submitting the games. Total game entries now 625.
13 May 2023	A further 24 Michael Franklin games added, all from various Frome Opens between 1990 and 2010. These were found at the Frome Congress games archive, for which many thanks to the webmaster. Also, thanks to Ken Norman for pointing me in the right direction.
15 May 2023	Another game added: J.Penrose 1-0 M.Franklin, Ilford Premier, 23.05.1970. Jonathan Penrose was suffering from flu at the time and is believed to have fainted at some point during this long game, as he did later in the year during his game with Ulvestad (Andorra) at the Siegen Olympiad. My thanks to Ken Norman for drawing my attention to this game.
19 May 2023	We now have all 11 of Michael Franklin's scores from the 1961 British Championship, compared to 4 complete games and two part-games previously. The extra games are from the Eric Fisher booklet which has been input and submitted by Andy. My thanks to Eric and Andy.
22 May 2023	Added the game J.Nunn 1-0 M.Franklin, Nottingham Open, March 1979.
19 September 2024	Now includes a large number of (mainly) correspondence games contributed by Tim Harding, for which many thanks. Various cosmetic changes applied, duplicates removed, etc.
20 September 2024	727 games, including 35 stubs, byes and default wins. One more duplicate game removed. I've added some memorabilia related to Michael Franklin.