The Avenue BC has won the Garden Cities Trophy, the EBU's national championship for all bridge clubs, in the national final played at West Midlands BC, Solihull on Saturday. To qualify for the national final, the club had to win the Sussex heat and then qualify from the home counties regional final (which in fact we also won).

We had a good lead at half-time, thanks in no small part to a devasting first half from Sally Clark & Gunnar Hallberg and cemented that position in the second half, finishing a comfortable 13 VPs clear of Manchester in second. Very well done to everyone concerned

Team (from left to right): David Dickson, Andy Ryder, Mike Allen, Gunnar Hallberg, Sally Clark, Julian Mitchell, Ken Ford, Peter Clinch.

And Oliver Powell, Stephen Kennedy and Matt Read who played in both the county heat and the regional final.

Given our series of near misses in recent years, when in the past five years we finished as runners-up twice and as third place twice, no-one can argue that this is a deserved success. Until this current success, these results had been the best ever achieved by a Sussex team in the Garden Cities Trophy. Roll on next year!

Hip! Hip! Hurrah!

CLICK on the link below for full results

Garden Cities final overall results