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Paul Soloway

Paul Soloway of Seattle, who has died aged 66, was one of the world's leading bridge-players. He won the Bermuda Bowl, the World Open Teams title, on five occasions and took silver in two Bermuda Bowls and two Olympiads.

View full obituary here.

Naturalists V Scientists

A unique and interesting game of bridge took place in London on 1 until 2 November, pitting together the bridge playing talents of some of the greatest and world renowned players. Stakes were high and tensions were at an optimum level.

Final scores were:
Thursday was won by the Scientists by 78 imps.
Friday was won by the Scientists by 58 rubber points.

The two days of bridge were played by the “Naturalists” and the “Scientists” - both at very different spectrums of the game and who last met 15 years ago. The “Naturalists” are a team from the traditional Portland bridge club in London, who believe in playing an old fashioned version of bridge from the pre-conventions age; whilst the “Scientists” favour the playing of modern bridge. It made the two days very interesting and a challenge of two extremes for high stakes.

Playing in the “Scientists” team were some of the best known international bridge players, captained by Zia Mahmood (world champion). The other players were Andrew Robson (author and world champion), Boye Brogeland (2007 world champion from the Norway team) and English internationals - Gunnar Hallberg and David Gold. The “Naturalists” were captained by ship owner, Dimitri Marchessini, with his team of Giles Hargreave, Patrick Lawrence and David Wolfson.

Our press release can be found here.

John Sadler

John Sadler died on 30 October at the age of 74, after battling cancer for the last 7 years.

John’s highest achievements at bridge were gained in partnerships with Doug Smerdon and Tony Waterlow. In the seventies, John reached the final of the Gold Cup playing with Doug Smerdon. In the early eighties, with Doug as his partner and Tony Waterlow-Derek Oram as team-mates, John won Crockfords. Then the following year the team came within a whisker of retaining the Crockfords Cup, losing the top spot on a split-tie.

View full Obituary here.

AGM Results - 2007

Annual General Meeting of the English Bridge Union

As members may know, the Annual General Meeting of the English Bridge Union took place on Wednesday October 3rd in London.

The election results were announced at 2.00 p.m. and they were as follows:-
1. Peter Stocken - 65
2. Sally Bugden - 63
3. Martin Pool - 62
4. Michael Hill - 61
5. Alan Nelson - 59
6. Jeff Morris - 57
7. John Carter - 52
8. Graham Jepson - 51
9. Malcolm Oliver - 46
10. Philip Mason - 43

Andrew Petrie was nominated but just missed out on being elected with 42 votes.

After that vote was complete there was another vote for the three Officers of the EBU and the result was as follows:-
Chairman - Peter Stocken
Vice Chairman - Sally Bugden
Treasurer - Michael Hill

Voting took place and the following members were elected:-

Laws & Ethics Committee for a three year term of office:-
David Burn (re-elected)
Frances Hinden
David Martin (re-elected)

Selection Committee the top two for three year term of office and the third for one year:-
Heather Dhondy
Paul Hackett
Gerard Faulkner (re-elected)

Tournament Committee the top three for a three year term of office and the fourth for two years:-
Margaret Curtis (re-elected)
Philip Mason
Andrew Petrie
Addis Page (re-elected)

Dimmie Fleming Awards 2007

The English Bridge Union is proud to announce that the following have been awarded the prestigious Dimmie Fleming award for services to bridge. The awards are made specifically to publicly recognise those who have worked hard promoting bridge locally at County and Club level.

The winners for 2007 are:
Kay Batting - Sussex
Paul Hammond - Worcestershire
Margaret Hatch - Berks & Bucks
Peter Thompson - Gloucestershire
Colin Tuton - Northamptonshire

Please click on their names for a mini-biography of each winner.

Last years winners can be found here.

2007 European Youth Championships

The 21st European Youth Team Championships for Bridge were held in Jesolo, Italy from 11 to 21 July 2007.

As ever, the championships were very challenging with the England Junior team playing a total of 21 rounds and the England Girls and Schools teams playing 16 rounds each. All teams performed well and completed the championships in the top ten.

Full results here.

Diana Williams

We are saddened to inform members of the death of Diana Williams of Worcestershire, a former England Ladies International and a great supporter of English bridge.

Full Obituary here.

New Communications Officer for the EBU

Matt Betts joins the EBU Team as Communications Officer.

Elaine Clague

Bridge in the Isle of Man lost a great supporter and ambassador when Elaine Clague died at the age of 89 at the end of June this year. Elaine and her husband John (who died in 2005) were founder members of both the Douglas Bridge Club and the Manx Bridge Union and both put a lifetime's work into the game, holding executive positions in both the club and the Union over many years. They were involved in the running of the Isle of Man Bridge Congress and both received Dimmie Flemming awards for their services in 2003.

Read full obituary here.

Tom Bradley Award 2007

The Tom Bradley Award was created after the death of the former Treasurer of the EBU, who was a champion of attracting new persons into the game of Bridge and was particularly supportive of endeavours which were aimed at the younger player. Tom left a legacy in his will.

For several years the Alec Salisbury Award was presented to a school teacher who had made a significant contribution to promoting Bridge in schools, but there was not any form of award for non-school teachers. Tom Bradley's legacy has enabled this omission to be remedied and this is the second year of its presentation, the first recipient being Cedric Cockcroft from Harrogate and the Yorkshire Contract Bridge Association.

I am pleased to announce and to present on behalf of the EBU the Tom Bradley Award for this year to Dave Bessant from the Isle of Wight.

Dave started running MiniBridge at some of the Islands middle schools and achieved some extremely good results. He is nothing if not persistent and contacted the Island's education authorities, who were so impressed with what he had done, particularly in its benefits to mental arithmetic that with their encouragement Dave managed to get MiniBridge into all the Island's middle schools in curriculum time. Along side this he created a flourishing Saturday morning Bridge School for youngsters which he held at the Ryde Bridge Club.

Since then he has been working with the writers of Bridge Baron to produce material in software form suitable for schools to use as well as providing an alternative game for youngsters to learn and play on their computers.

I hardly need to tell you of the importance and significance of Daveâ's achievement. Capturing the hearts and minds of the young in their early days is essential. They may not become Club players immediately, but there is a strong possibility that they will return later in their lives to the game that they enjoyed in their youth.

Thank you Dave and very well done. It gives me very great pleasure to present you with the Tom Bradley trophy and the citation certificate.

More information on the Tom Bradley Award here.

Lords V Commons 2007

The annual Lords v Commons match took place on Friday 11th May at Crockfords Club in Mayfair. Click here for a photo gallery.

This was the 33rd match of the series (started in 1975) and a resounding win by the Lords has put them ahead 17 - 16.

A sound start by the Commons put them 1480 ahead after the first stanza but this soon disappeared as the Lords hit back with +2460 to lead by 980 at lunch. Another +2460 in the third stanza put the Lords well ahead and they followed this with +1380 to win the match by 4820.

Michael Phillips of London Export Ltd (the sponsors) presented the Jack Perry Trophy to the winning captain, Lord Skelmersdale.

Lord May and Lady Henig had the best card for the winners with a score of +2295 against par. The best performers for the losing side were John Marek and Bridget Prentice.

The adjudication of the best played hand was made by Andrew Robson and he awarded the Anthony Berry Memorial Trophy to Lord Caithness.

Many thanks are due to Stephen Perry of London Export for the sponsorship and to Crockfords Club for hosting the day.

Peter Jordan (EBU)

New Youth Officer

Mike Amos will be joining the staff of the EBU to become the EBU Youth Officer from April 16th. Mike will be working mostly from home in Oswestry and for 1.5 days per week. His duties will be all things to do with bridge in schools, universities and liaising with the Junior Squad managers.

Welcome, Mike!

Dorothy Shanahan

Dorothy Shanahan, who has died aged 91, was, for three decades, part of British women's teams recording the most successful haul of medals for the nation.

View full Obituary here.

New Editor for English Bridge

The English Bridge Union is delighted to announce that the well known bridge journalist and Editor, Elena Jeronimidis is to take up the role of Editor of English Bridge from the August issue.

Elena has been involved in editing the highly respected Bridge Plus magazine since 1989 as well as other magazines, books and the bridge teletext pages of Channel 4.

At the same time we would like to thank Brian Cook for the great work he has done over the past six years. He has overseen some major changes in the magazine and hands the baton over to Elena with the journal in great shape. Thanks Brian!

2007 Corn Cairdis Trophy

England played Ireland in Galway, Ireland in the latest of the Corn Cairdis (Cup of Friendship) Series on the weekend of 30 March / 1 April 2007.

This friendly International is played between The English Bridge Union and the Contract Bridge Association of Ireland. Each country competes with three teams: a County Team, a Club team and an Officials team. Click here for the team lists.

On this, the 15th occasion of the annual event England beat Ireland by twelve Victory points ending a run of three successive wins by Ireland.


The three teams:
(left to right) Back Row: Barry Capal, Simon Cocheme, Peter Stocken, John Neville, Jeff Smith, Tim Gauld, Roy Garthwaite, Ted Latham; Front Row: Sally Bugden, Jackie Pye, Janet Latham, Heather Hobson

Click here for the full results (PDF format)

Worcestershire Club wins Lottery Grant

The members of Pershore Duplicate Bridge Club are celebrating this week on having been awarded a grant in excess of £3,000 from the National Lottery, Awards for All scheme. Their application was to purchase an automated dealing machine enabling club members to play hands which have been pre-dealt and for which statistical and analytical reports can be made available after play. The picture shows (from the left) Pat Whitehurst, Neil Richardson, Alan Boyes and Maggie Davison with the dealing machine.

Commenting on the Award, Chairman Alan Boyes said "This is a tremendous breakthrough for bridge clubs. Bridge is extremely inexpensive and smaller clubs have therefore not previously had the funds to take advantage of the increasing use of technology in the bridge world. This will greatly benefit our members, and it's good to be one of the first to get an award."

Pershore DBC identified that the machine would also significantly aid their teaching programmes as well as being a major advantage for members who found shuffling and dealing cards physically difficult. The machine also enables more joint ventures to be held with other bridge clubs, as some types of event, for example Swiss events, have not been possible in the past due to the number of hands that have to be pre-prepared.

Alan paid tribute to Pershore Councillor Dave Shaw and English Bridge Union "Bridge for All" Manager, John Pain both of whom supported the club's application for Lottery funding.

Recognising the ground breaking nature of the club's achievement, Barry Capal General Manager of the EBU commented: "We congratulate Pershore on their success raising money from the Lottery and know their new machine will provide value added services to their members. This is the first such grant we know of awarded to bridge clubs and we hope it is the beginning of a new trend. We wish Pershore the very best of luck with their club in the future and thank them for their continued support of the EBU."

John Taylor, Big Lottery Fund Head for the West Midlands commented: "Awards for All is a great way of directing small Lottery grants to local groups. It just goes to show the breadth of different projects that these small grants can reach."

Pershore Duplicate Bridge Club meets at 7pm every Wednesday at Lower Moor and welcomes visitors. For more information see the club's web site www.pershorebridge.co.uk

EBU Survey Winner

We are delighted to announce that Linda Macfarlane has won our membership survey draw for the £500 Bridge Overseas holiday voucher.

The survey has proved to be very popular with over 3500 members completing it. We will give a report of your responses in the April issue of English Bridge when we will have had time to analyse the results.

In the meantime we would like to thank Bridge Overseas for their sponsorship of the survey and to all of you for taking the time to give us your