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

The Junior Channel Trophy 2006

The Junior Channel took place in Lille on 17th & 18th December. It is an annual event, held just before Christmas, between teams from England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with the host country rotating.

The English teams & the final standings were :
Under 25's
Susan Stockdale & Dave Cropper Tom Slater & Andrew Murphy Simon Cope & Stuart Haring NPC: Mel Starkings
1 Netherlands - 122
2 France - 89
3 Belgium - 73.5
4 England - 72

Under 20's
James Thrower & Tom Rainforth Ben Paske & Tom Paske Ed Jones & Bingyuan Yang
NPC: Michael Byrne
Coach: Duncan Happer
1 France - 119
2 England - 98
3 Netherlands - 93
4 Belgium - 50

Click here for the details of the programme, full results and the other participating teams.

Dimmie Fleming Awards 2006

Pictured from left:
Gladys Gittins, Michael Hill, Denis Robson (EBU Chairman), Robbie Roberson & May Langmaid

The intent of the Dimmie Fleming award is to publicly recognise those people who do not hold an official (i.e. EBU) office, but have, for a long time - say, 20 years or so - worked hard for bridge, usually at County and/or Club level. Board Directors, Vice Presidents, EBU employees and Panel Tournament Directors are excluded from nomination. However, after holding office, such people are eligible for an award, but it should not be given just for service in that capacity.

Nominations are made in writing and a panel of 'judges' then decides whether they are eligible for such an award. All nominations should state that the approval of the County Committee has been obtained.There are no restrictions on the number of nominees made by a County in any one year.

This year the following people received Dimmie Fleming Awards:
Gladys Gittins (Cambs & Hunts)

Hector Barker (Lancashire)

Michael Hill (London)

Robbie Roberson (Norfolk)

May Langmaid (Sussex)

Everyone, with the exception of Hector Barker, received their award at the AGM. Hector is to be presented with his award at a later date.

Who was Dimme Fleming?
2008 Winners
2007 Winners
2006 Winners

Tom Bradley Award - 2006

Congratulations to Cedric Cockcroft who has received the first Tom Bradley Award! Cedric has been a great supporter of youth bridge and is a well respected bridge teacher - there is even a waiting list for his teaching!

The Tom Bradley Award was created after the recent death of our 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.