Loud, bustling and jovial, Boris Spassky doesn't fit many of the stereotypes people associate with chess grandmasters, let alone former world champions.

A key member of the Soviet chess machine which dominated world chess for much of this century, Spassky has all but given up the professional circuit.

Nowadays he seems perfectly content with his new life in Paris, where he lives with his third wife. As a roving chess ambassador he makes frequent trips to popularise the game and this weekend he is bringing his chess skills to Kilkenny.

"I've been to Kilkenny before and was appointed honorary president of its chess club almost 10 years ago," he said.

"It hosts a nice tournament, and I'm free to participate or not as I like."

Spassky will host the Norkom European Chess Masters at Kilkenny Castle, which will feature at least three of the world's grandmasters.

Spassky and the eccentric American champion, Bobby Fischer, made international headlines with their explosive world championship match in Iceland in 1972. In what was billed as "the chess match of the century", Spassky, the reigning world champion since 1969, slugged it out over the board for several months with the argumentative US challenger.

The acrimonious battle pitted communism against capitalism and Soviet against American during the height of the Cold War. Small wonder it gripped world attention more than any other match before or since.

"During the match I didn't feel a lot of pressure from the political people, which surrounded me," Spassky insists.

"The KGB were involved but they didn't help me and were only involved in monitoring the hall during play.

"The interesting pressure was that I was forbidden to choose my group properly and had only three coaches," Spassky said.. "Unfortunately, I was not a communist, and there was more distance between the state and myself, unlike, say, Karpov, who was a party member and had a team of about 40 when he was world champion.

"As a champion of the world I was not trusted as a communist reliable player. But I tried to be a loyal champion for the country," Spassky said.

"I never would have defected as some other Soviet players did because I was a king in Russia."

"Communism paid attention to chess and made it an ideological weapon," he said. "Most sports such as tennis, horseracing and even skating stopped after the Revolution. But the Soviet government paid attention to chess."

Chess players were well paid, and no expense was spared training young players. Spassky joined the chess section of the Palace of Pioneers in 1947 and trained on average five hours a day. At 18 he became the youngest grandmaster in Russian history.

Since he was a non-communist, several conditions were placed on Spassky during his high-profile match with Fischer. The most crucial, according to Spassky, was that he could not appoint his own independent spokesman to counter Fischer's propaganda stunts.

The official Soviet news agency, TASS, handled his public relations. The gruelling 21-game match with Fischer, which Spassky lost by a four-game margin, marked a turning-point in Spassky's career. He never again competed for the world championship.

But Spassky holds no grudges against the eccentric US player, Bobby Fischer, who lives as a recluse somewhere in eastern Europe.

"Always, even since my youth at about 22, 23 years of age, I had a good impression of Bobby. He was always very honest and said exactly what he thinks," Spassky said.

He has good reason to like Fischer. The US player, who refused to defend his world title and didn't play a tournament for 20 years, finally came back to the board in 1992 for a $5 million rematch with Spassky. Spassky lost the match but picked up more than $1 million in appearance fees.

The rematch proved almost as controversial as their first battle. Co-hosted in Montenegro and Belgrade during the war in Bosnia, it broke UN sanctions, causing a serious rift between Fischer and the US government.

"I remember it well. Fischer got into trouble after spitting on one of their official American documents," Spassky said.

"I had no difficulties with playing in Yugoslavia and I was really happy to play the match with Bobby. No one official person in France said anything about that."

Spassky's self-imposed exile in Paris ended when he returned to Russia and his native St Petersburg recently for a holiday. Clearly not impressed by the changes since the fall of communism, he betrays a nostalgia for the old regime.

"It's a very difficult life now for the Russian people, and about one million people die every year," he said.

"The USSR was a state, but now it is just a number of different colonies.

"I was fighting against communism before but if I could have predicted the way things would go then I would have become a member of the Communist Party."

Is there any chance of a comeback at 63 years of age?

"I prefer to be outside of the fight now because I have completely lost my fighting spirit. I am just a typical retired person," Spassky insisted.

Rumour has it, though, that he will play at Kilkenny Castle on Sunday night. For budding enthusiasts it could be the last chance to pick a fight with one of the stars of "the chess match of the century".