Longest career as a chess columnist
- Who
- Leonard Barden
- What
- 69:362 year(s):day(s)
- Where
- United Kingdom
- When
- 01 September 2025
The longest career as a chess columnist is 69 years 362 days, by Leonard Barden (UK), who wrote his first column for The Guardian on 8 September 1955, and most recently for The Guardian on 5 September 2025.
Barden (b. 1929) is a chess master. He won the British Under-18 Championship in 1946 and shared the British Championship title in 1954. After studying law at Oxford University and working briefly in publishing, he devoted his career to chess journalism and promotion, becoming one of the game’s most influential popularisers in Britain.
Since 1955, Barden has written a weekly chess column for The Guardian, as well as a daily column for the Evening Standard from 1956 to 2020, and a weekly column for the Financial Times from 1974 to the present (as of September 2025).