Go in Britain: 1978
An Anglo-USSR phone match sponsored by Japan Air Lines was drawn 2-2, and a Anglo-USA phone match sponsored by Hoskyns lost 1:2. Trigantius was won by K. Matsumoto (4 dan) and the British Lightning at Oxford went to Macfadyen. The 11th British Go Congress was held at Owens Park Manchester and won by Jon Diamond. Overseas, Goddard won in Ljubljana and Macfadyen in Amsterdam.
On May 13th 1978 the "dan count" passing 100 was celebrated by a dinner with Mrs. Barrs as guest of honour. Matthew Macfadyen won the Challenger's with 6/7, but Brian Castledine had to win a play-off with Adam Pirani in order to reach the match for the vacant British title. At the London Go Centre Jim Bates won the June Tournament and Kim In, 8 dan, brought a party of Korean players. Iwamoto, 9 dan, visited for two weeks in August, probably the highlight of the Centre's existence, as the Centre closed for good in the autumn.
At the European in Paris, European Champion was Helmut Hasibeder ahead of Rebattu and Macfadyen. The open tournament was won by Ron Snyder from America; Stuart Dowsey was fifth. Terry Stacey won the 1 dan section and Chris Stevenson the 1 kyu. Chris went on to have a good Northern beating Macfadyen, but ending up on second place behind him. Adam Pirani won the Wessex.
The London Open at the end of 1978 was held at the Inter-Varsity Club in Covent Garden. Miss Kung, Mr Wu and Mr Huang, all of professional level from China, played giving handicaps in the tournament. Macfadyen was the only person to beat one of them, forcing a resignation against Huang. Jim Bates was the Division 1 winner to get his name on the trophy.
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