This game and Staunton vs Loewenthal, 1858 were the reason why Staunton never played Morphy.

Staunton was going to use Birmingham as practice to get his eye in for the Morphy match.

Löwenthal had just been walloped by Morphy 9-3. and now Löwenthal takes Staunton 2-0.

It would have been just too embarrassing and given his ever growing number of enemies something to gloriously gloat over.

I have a house full of chess books and they were mislaid all over the place.

I'm often seen wandering from room to room looking for a missing book which needs consulting. Recently I found a lost copy of 'The Chess Mind' by Abrahams behind the pop up toaster.

So in despair I recently organised my entire collection into one room and placed them in order in some freshly purchased library cabinets. (£10.00 job lot from a Charity Shop + £5.00 delivery fee.)

Games Collections, Openings, (I have 100's of these things), endings (very few) and Miscellaneous (where I discovered I have quite a few doublers including a tripler of 'Simple Chess' by Michael Stean. )

With everything neat and tidy I noticed I had a small gap amongst my 'Game Collections' which includes all World Championship matches. (1972 including doublers takes up an entire shelf).

So I'm shuffling the books about trying to fill the gap and I attempt to squeeze Part II of 'My Great Predecessors' the one covering Euwe to Tal into the gap when the side of the library case splits open (2nd hand junk) and I'm covered and smothered in a deluge of chess books.

If Staunton had played Morphy there would have been a book and it would have fitted perfectly into that gap.

I'm blaming Löwenthal.

(Staunton was the umpire for the Morphy - Löwenthal match. He could see at close quarters what he was up against. Staunton was a good player in his day but he had rested on his laurels for too long and it's not a crime to grow old.)