‘Have you noticed,” says Jonathan Rowson, “the way that chess is depicted in books and films? It’s always slightly unreal, or otherworldly. Like it’s only ever played by people who are about to commit a murder, or who have lost touch with reality. It’s very odd.”

Lots of things about chess are odd. We’re not exactly blessed with sports champions here in Scotland. Such is their paucity, you would think that, when we have one, we would treasure him or her pretty highly. Rowson, very much a Scot, is the reigning British chess champion. At the beginning of next month, he’ll be defending his title in the Isle of Man. But unless you are a chess fan, it’s very possible you’ve never heard of him.

“It’s a curious thing,” agrees Rowson. “I’m equally fascinated and troubled by it. Chess suffers a kind of benign neglect. People like the game. They’re intrigued by it. When it’s on the telly it gets decent ratings and online, at the British Championship last year, hits were close to a million.”

Yet it has never been a mainstream sport, in this country at least. “In Iceland, you can be quite a star,” Rowson points out. “In India or Germany, you’re just a sportsman. In this country, I think we just don’t know how to place it. It doesn’t have an anchor in our cultural categories. It’s not an art, nor a sport, nor an educational tool. It’s a bit of everything. What bookshelf does it go on? What part of the newspaper does it go into? Nobody is quite sure.”

Rowson, 28, is from Aberdeen. He is one of only three Scottish chess grandmasters. The other two — Paul Motwani, 43, and Colin McNab, 44, — were present when the younger pretender won his grandmaster status at the Scottish championship in 1999.

Last summer, in Scarborough, Rowson took the British title — the first Scot to do so for 58 years. This year, although he won’t quite confirm it himself, he’s the favourite, tipped to hold it.

Wiry and slightly intense, Rowson meets me in leafy Barnes, southwest London, close to where he now lives. He is unsurprisingly passionate about his game, but also seems to be pleased to have a chance to chat about chess to a journalist who is not involved in it. Rowson is the author of three chess books. They have won plaudits for being accessible, self-deprecating and light-hearted — words which do not sit easily alongside the clichéd view of the nervy chess pro.

“There’s no way of saying this without sounding really pleased with myself,” says Rowson, “but I’m probably fairly well balanced for a chess player. A lot of them are quite obsessive personalities.”

There does seem a whiff of obsessiveness about Rowson, to be fair, though he is not in the same league as Bobby Fischer, the eccentric American chess genius whose precise pre-match requirements and objections to everything from the lights and curtains to the height of the lavatories are legendary.

Rowson, however, wears his obsession lightly. He’s extremely neat, wearing sensible trousers and a sensible shirt with the conservative air of a youthful academic. He’s tall, and while his hair is wild, it’s not wild enough to make him look like an evil genius.

His words are very considered and thoughtful. He has a habit of striking the table on every syllable of an important point, which makes me think of a chess player, hitting a clock after each move. There’s an edge here, but it’s all done with eloquence and a friendly wit. His latest book is called Chess for Zebras and is all about the differences between playing white and black.

“Chess is not like writing,” he says. “There is always somebody else’s competing narrative, coming back at you.”

Rowson admits he used to get quite emotional during games, and terribly uptight beforehand. “Last year, I had to change hotel rooms in the middle of the championships.

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