The purpose of this blog is to facilitate you free access to many eBooks about the history of draughts in: https://archive.org/details/@govertw
As an independent researcher Govert Westerveld has so far published 200 books in various branches of history and mind sports (Spanish history, Spanish biographies, history of chess, alquerque, draughts, biographies of prominent figures in draughts, draughts (checkers) playing, etc.) and his works are written in Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and Arabic.
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| Govert Westerveld in front of the river "Segura" in Blanca (Murcia) Spain |
In 1963 he became the youth draughts champion of the Netherlands after beating the child prodigy Ton Sijbrands in the provincial preliminary rounds. In the 1964 Brinta Junior Tournament he achieved a winning position against Andreas Kuijken, but lost decisively to Ton Sijbrands and Harm Wiersma. He predicted that the latter two players would one day become world champions. In 1965 he ended his draughts career with an honourable third place in the North Holland Senior Provincial Championship, ahead of Wim de Jong and Ed Holstvoogd, who had finished first and second in the 1962 Dutch Senior Championship.
He traveled through several countries in Europe to learn languages. With his MBA and knowledge of several languages including Spanish he worked for a few years as a bookkeeper at an international trading firm in Amsterdam, which was then one of the 500 most important companies in the Netherlands and of the Jewish origin. In 1974 he settled permanently in Spain and in 1978 co-founded the company Zoster S.A. with many professors. He was in charge of selling natural extracts in the countries of export and developing new products. The company was sold to the multinational Grupo Ferrer which then belonged to Carlos Ferrer Salat, who was the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee between 1987 and 1998. Govert Westerveld then worked since 2000 with former biochemists from Zoster S.A. in the formation of Nutrafur S.A. and there again engaged in the export and development of natural extracts. The company was sold to an Israeli multinational in 2015 also thanks to his contribution to the development of an important new product.
In 2002 he was appointed the Official Chronicler of Blanca (Murcia, Spain) jointly with his friend Ángel Ríos Martínez for his historical work in the village. In the same year he was named an Academician by the Real Academia Alfonso X el Sabio in Murcia for his historical research. He is a member of the Spanish Association of Official Chroniclers in Madrid and the Association of Official Chroniclers in the Region of Murcia. He is Hispanist Emeritus (Instituto Cervantes): Hispanist of the International Association of Hispanists (AIH) and the Association of Hispanists of the Benelux (AHBX). He was a member of the history committee of the Spanish Chess Federation in Madrid for many years. Finally, he is one of the two official historians of the World Draughts Federation (FMJD).
