The Corwen Trophy, the inter county pairs championship of England, took place on the weekend of June 15th & 16th at Stone, Staffs. Two pairs represented Northants. John Blakesley / Malcolm Orr-Ewing are the county champions after their victory in the Eden Cup and Don McFarlane / Mark Tilley who also qualified. A late date change by the EBU meant that our third pair, Rob Miller and Dan Baines, could not play. In a very strong field, Don and Mark competed well and were rewarded with a top half finish. John and Malcolm improved after a shaky start but couldn't escape the bottom third. Click here to read about two interesting hands where both our pairs scored well. Click here to see the full results.

The Pachabo Cup is an inter county competition for teams of 4. Northants are represented by the winners of the Broke Cup who, this year, were Bill Chadwick, Don McFarlane, Tim Durdin and Trevor Thrower. They were joined by Mark and Kieran Tilley allowing pairs to have a break. Each team played 3 board matches against each of the other 28 teams spread over 4 sessions os Sat/Sun 7th/8th June. the scoring system is unique to the Pachabo - a hybrid of IMPs converted to VPs and point a board.

After a miserable 1st day, Northants were propping up the field. 29th out of 29. However, things picked up on Sunday and we finished 18th. Full results may be found here.

Congratulations to Stamford A (Bill Chadwick, Marcus Witt, Don McFarlane, Ufuk Cotuk, Chris Wiggins) who finished the inter club league division 1 in top spot. The destination of the title rested on the final match against second placed Kettering. Stamford won 15-5 to clinch first place. Full results and table can be found here

As part of the EBU's Festival of Bridge, Kettering BC are holding a charity event on Saturday 14th September. This promises to be a fun evening with proceeds going to the EBU's charity partner - Cancer Research.

Click  here for details. 

Congratulations to Northants pair Daniel Baines and Rob Miller who won the Swiss Pairs on Saturday 18th May. In a most impressive performance,  Dan and Rob won all 7 of their matches, the first four by near maxima. They were chased hard by the second placed pair, Paul King and Maggie Moore. Ruby Schnalke and Nick Hunter finished in third place. The full result may be found here.

The event was directed by Nicky Bainbridge whose husband Jim did the scoring. They made a great team, did an excellent job and were central to the smooth running of the competition.

NCBA would like to thank Northampton BC for hosting the event and Ross Stacey who, along with Nicky,  did much to plan and organise the event.

Our first ECL match of the new season was against Hertfordshire. The match was played on the RealBridge platform on Sunday 28th April. The A team won 13-7 but both B  and C teams suffered heavy defeats.

You can see the full results here 

The 2024 NCBA AGM was held on Wednesday 17th April. 

You can read the minutes here and the treasurer's report with the accounts here.

With one match still to play the Division 2 champions are Stamford C (John Prior, Claire Winfrey, Brian Churchill, Jane Reeve) who pipped  Towcester by just 6 VPs. Towcester had a great opportunity to go top but lost their final match to Stamford E.

Congratulations to the Webb team (Gill, Bill Simpson, Jane Reeve, Brian Churchill) who won the Betts Bowl beating the Prior team (John, Claire Winfrey, Paul Double, Bob Wakerley) in the final by the narrow margin of 5 IMPs.

As well as winning the latest Lakeland, Kettering also won the trophy the first two times it took place. I am indebted to Brian Barrett, who played in that first competition, for this clipping from 1968. Note the family connection. Geoff Walshaw captained the Kettering team  in these early competitions. His son, John, was in the team that won this year. 

We played our final ECL match of the season against Suffolk on Sunday 17th March. The highlight was a 14-6 win for the A team. Trevor Thrower and Mark Tilley led the way with an excellent cross IMPs score. The B and C teams both slipped to narrow defeats. The full results can be seen here and the final tables here.

To read the Mar 2024 Newsletter, click  here

The county teams of 8 championship, the Lakeland, was held on 18 February 2024 at Northampton bridge club. It was great to have 6 teams taking part for the first time in quite a few years.

Congratulations to Kettering who won the competition and qualify for the Garden Cities regional final. The winning team was Tim Durdin, Chris Wormleighton, Mark Hodgson, John Walshaw, Simon Few, Graham Dolby, Dan Baines and Rob Miller. The full result was:

Hand records:  Session 1   Session 2

Congratulations to the 2024 County Pairs champions and winers of the Eden Cup, John Blakesley and Malcolm Orr-Ewing.

Click Eden Cup 2024.pdf for a report on the action.

Full results are in the Results section.

On Sunday 14th Jan Northants played Cambs in the ECL. The A and B teams both lost but the C team continued their recent good form with a resounding 17-3 victory. Well done and congratulations to the team of Bob Parker, Steve Mossey, Richard Tickle, Andy Heslop, Robin Griffiths, Andrew Bisson, Frank Isack and Gerry Kingston.

Stamford BC stalwart and bridge sage, Marcus Witt, writes a monthly column in the Stamford Mercury. Marcus reports on club news but he also includes his analysis of an interesting hand that has been played at the club. The Mercury have kindly given permission for these articles to be shared through this website. To read Marcus's musings, click on 'Marcus in the Mercury' on the left.