Let's continue to increase face to face attendance at club sessions. How?

• Continue with the excellent teaching programmes that are going on around the County. It is great to see the attendance of students for the Mercury Cup trophy this year around Leicestershire. The following clubs provided heats: Charnwood bridge teachers, Market Harborough, Ashby, Grantham, Rutland and Oakham, and County Bridge club. Well done to all the organisers and recruiters of those events and let's encourage these students to play in our duplicate sessions. Many clubs are also providing 'transition' sessions for students to progress to duplicate sessions e.g. Supervised play, social bridge, Chicago bridge etc. These are also excellent initiatives as it is a big step to move up from student lessons to duplicate bridge. Let's also encourage all our members to be extra welcoming and kind to students transitioning to club play.
• Patrick Shields (EBU) suggests that EVERYONE teaches mini bridge to 3 or 4 friends in the hope that some of them may become interested enough to start lessons.

Samani Salver Knockout Draw

Samani Silver Plate Knockout Draw

We are sad to report that Margaret Glover (wife of Tim Glover, our Fixtures Secretary), died peacefully at home on Saturday 20th June.

Margaret was a member of Bradgate Bridge Clubwhen she and Tim first moved to Leicester. She was a founding member of Glenfield Bridge Club, becoming its Chair for several years. She was also a member of Blaby Bridge Club for many years.

Margaret will always be remembered as a friendly and welcoming member of the clubs that she belonged to.

The funeral will be at Gilroes at 1pm on Monday 27th July followed by refreshments at Glenfield Methodist Hall. Please let Tim Glover know if you intend to go as he'd like to have an indication of numbers.

Ashby, Charnwood and County Grantham, Market Harborough and Rutland & Oakham Bridge Schools competed in the Mercury Students Trophy in the week 1st-8th June.

Full Results

We are sad to report that Andrew Billson passed away in May. Andrew used to play in our Pairs League (pre-Covid) and attend outr Green Point events. He also had a short spell as one of our County TDs

The Josephs Bowl is Leicestershire's Championship Teams of Four competition. It consists of a Multiple Teams round followed by a knockout phase for the top four teams. Teams that don't make it through to the knockout phase for the Josephs Bowl are entered into the plate competition for the Butterworth-Langley Trophy.

Non-expert teams can enter the Butterworth-Langley Trophy directly, bypassing the Multiple Teams round - but there were none this year who chose to do so.

Round 1 Full Results

Josephs Bowl Knockout Draw

Butterworth-Langley Trophy Knockout Draw

TheJoyce Cup is a mixed pivot teams competition.

Full Results

Division 1 Results Division 2 Results Division 3 Results Division 4 Results

The Gimson Trophy is the LCBA's Championship Pairs competition. it was run as a club qualifier heats, followed by face-to-face final. The various LCBA affiliated clubs were invited to run one heat for each club session, whether face-to-face or online. Pairs who finished in the masterpoints automatically qualifed. There was also a relaxed policy for substitutes where one member of a partnership was either unavailable or qualified multiple times with different partners. In addition there was a reserve list for any pair that finished above 50%, but outside of the masterpoints.

Full Results

Four teams contested The Wilde Cup held at the County Bridge Club on Tue 20 Feb 24.

Due to a problem where the E/W pairs played at the wrong table it was not possible to get a true teams score. It was therefore decided to score it based on the X-IMPs of the two pairs.

Full Results

Congraulations to Ben Norton who was member of Andrew Dyson's Gold Cup winning team in December.

Ben becomes only the third Leicestershire player to win this prestigeous event after Paul Bowyer (1997), and Jim Mason (1999)

The Hyman Crammer Trophy was run as a club qualifier heats, followed by an online final (BBO). The various LCBA affiliated clubs were invited to run one heat for each club session, whether face-to-face or online. Pairs who finished in the masterpoints automatically qualifed. There was also a relaxed policy for substitutes where one member of a partnership was either unavailable or qualified multiple times with different partners. In addition we there was a reserve list for any pair that finished above 50%, but outside of the masterpoints.

Full Results

We are very sad to inform you that Susie Perrett passed away on Saturday 11 October. Susie was an active member of Bradgate, County and Loughborough Bridge Clubs and a keen player in LCBA competitions, including the Winter League. She also regularly played for the County in Midlands League matches and enjoyed taking part in Green Point events throughout the Country.

We send our condolences to Susie's family.

John Wilcox of Loughborough Bridge Club has provided this more detailed obituary.

It is with enormous sadness that we heard of the death of Susie on 11 October 2025 after a sudden illness.

Susie was a valued member of the Loughborough Bridge Club (and several others also). Susie joined the Club Committee in May 2016 and served on it ever since. In that role she threw herself into the social affairs of the club, being a mainstay of the many successful Christmas and summer events that raised money for charities. She was always willing to help out with the supply of refreshments on club nights as well. Several chairmen spoke of just how valuable Susie was in making sure that the Committee remained properly grounded, taking proper notice of the general opinions of club members.

Susie and her regular partner Paul Anderson represented the club in the Winter League ever since 2015 and in recent years represented LCBA in the Midlands League. She and he were also regular players in many other regional and national tournaments and Susie had risen to the level of Regional Master as a result.

At the table she was the perfect opponent – likeable, fun and with a great temperament. We will miss her more than words can say. We extend our deep condolences to Susie’s family. Rest in peace Susie.

Please click on the image above to see the photo album for the AGM.

Thanks to Irene Pacey, our Guest of Honour and Anne Wright, our photographer.

AGM Reports

AGM reports can be found here

Ray LeVesconte passed away on 4th July, age 97. He was a member of Glenfield Bridge Club and a very active member of Westcotes and County Bridge clubs (regularly directing and providing food and drink for Christmas parties etc.) As recently as March 2017 he and his partner Pam Thorne won the Glenfield prize for the highest score with an impressive 69.96%.

His funeral is at Loughborough Crematorium at 12:30 on Monday 18th August.

Did any of you play bridge at Blaby bowls club years ago? If so, do you remember that poem on the wall, ‘What kind of member are you?’. This applies to bridge too; we need your help! The EBU have a target to grow membership by 5%. With the age range of our bridge community, this is a tough target, but with your help it can be done in Leicestershire. Lessons are starting County-wide in the autumn. The clubs are busy advertising, but this is expensive and research has shown that the best Marketing is done by word of mouth by all members. Thanks to those clubs who provide a teaching programme, we have already ceased the decline in numbers, now let’s see if we can increase the numbers of players at our clubs. Please, everyone, tell your friends, relatives and neighbours that bridge lessons are starting soon and invite them to come to lessons; you’ll be doing them a favour because learning bridge is fun. 😊