Lancashire Contract Bridge Association is a membership charity (Registration No 1207575).  It provides and enables playing, learning and competing opportunities for players at all levels and works closely with players, clubs, volunteers and officials to help grow the game.

LCBA raises money through various events and competitions and through donations.  All funds are spent on furthering the charity’s purposes.

Changes to LOP from 5 January 2026

Providing a match-point pairs session each week is an important part of LCBA’s service to its members.  Since 2022 this has been delivered through LOP and anyone who has played regularly will be aware of a significant reduction in table numbers over the past three years.  In July 2022 we averaged 11.3 tables, in July 2025 we only managed 8.5, a near 30% reduction.  In recent sessions we have had as few as 7 tables.  LOP is also an important part of LCBA’s income stream, enabling us to invest in education and development, whilst still keeping the county UMS fee at only 2p.

We have therefore decided from 5^th January 2026, to join our Monday LOP session with Oliver Cowan Bridge Club’s Monday session.  This should ensure a regular double figure attendance and protect the session’s long-term future.

This will have the following impact on players:

1) The session on BBO will have LOP in its name, so you can still search for LOP;

2) The number of boards will increase from 18 to 20;

3) The table money will be the current OCBC level of 4.25BBO$;

4) The start time will be 7:15pm.

Andrew Petrie – Chairman LCBA Competitions’ Working Group (WG3)

The Lancashire Congress was held at Bolholt Hotel, Bury on 15-16 Nov 2025.  Full results can be found at Oliver Cowan Site

Winners of the Pairs were Alec Smalley/ Barbara Lewis, with S Berson/F Conquest & S Davies/A Jarvis 2nd=, J Smith/J Pye 3rd. The Consolation Final was won by D Barton/R Goldenfield.
This was also the qualifier for the EBU Corwen. The leading Lancs pairs who qualify were J Smith/J Pye, S Bentley/M Blake and B Loveridge/N Sutcliffe.

The teams was won by Paul & Catherine Fegarty, Jamie & Liam. Second was M Taylor/Justin Hackett, O.Cowan & D Lilleycroft, 3rd R Goldenfield & D Barton, J Smith & J Pye.

Congratulations to our Tournament Secretary Oliver Cowan who, with his partner Bev Godfrey came second in the NEBA Congress Pairs and together with Liz Reese and Bohdan Hydna won the Congress Teams.

LANCASHIRE FESTIVAL OF BRIDGE 2025

Boltholt Country Park Hotel, Bury 14-16 November 2025

Tournament Director: Jonathan Lillycrop

This event is being organised by Oliver Cowan on behalf of and in partnership with the LCBA, at the lovely Boltholt Country Park Hotel.  This venue provides an excellent, friendly setting for this congress and whether you want to come for just 1 session or the full 3 days of bridge there will be something to suit everyone!

For full details click LCBA Festival 2025 Flyer.pdf

LCBA (CIO) – FUNDRAISING SIMULTANEOUS PAIRS 2025

UNFORTUNATELY THIS EVENT HAS HAD TO BE CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF ENTRIES

We are holding a county-wide fundraising simultaneous pairs on Wednesday 26 November, the proceeds will go the LCBA’s Benefactor’s Fund which is restricted only to funding Education & Development across the county.  Entries can only be made by clubs, so if you would like to play, please contact your club secretary but if your club is not able to run a heat then you can play online through Oliver Cowan Bridge Club - click HERE to enter.

LCBA COMPETITIONS

Currently Oliver Cowan undertakes the role of Tournament Secretary on a voluntary basis, and he will continue to do so next year.  Currently he is significantly assisted in this by a number of other volunteers who run various events themselves (LOP, LOTL, LCBA Tof8, LCBA Tof4, LCBA Sim Pairs) and help Oliver to run others.  Due to resignations and other calls on volunteer resources for 2026 we are well short of the number of volunteers required to do this work.  We could of course cancel some competitions and struggle on with others but in order to provide a long term solution, that isn’t dependent on hard-to-come-by volunteers, we have decided, initially on a trial basis, to contract with Oliver’s company (OCBE Ltd) to take on the administration of many of our competitions in 2026.  If this proves satisfactory to both parties, then we will have managed to secure the LCBA Competitions’ programme for the next few years.

Andrew Petrie – LCBA Chairman

An LCBA Relaxed Pairs event funded by LCBA was held by Oliver Cowan at St Annes BC on Sunday 12 October 2025. Entries were full with 16 tables and there was a lovely atmosphere at this event which was intended for learners and non expert players. Congratulations to the NS winners Linda Hitchen & Deb Fairweather and EW winners Susan Kirk & Alan Taylor.  2nd NS Robert & Margaret Sloss, 2nd EW Shirley Saunders & Nicola Holding.

The final NBL 2025 match was played on RealBridge 11th October 2025.

Lancs A team finished 5th of 6 teams. The players were A Lum/D Costich, M Farr/M NIcholson, P Hepworth/R Bentley, S Woodcock/M Fay.  Farr/Nicholson were best on Ximps closely followed by Lum/Costich.
Lancs B team finished 2nd of 6 teams. The players were S Challinor/A Kirby, D Hilton/D Fazckerley, J & I Wilkins, J Dearing/P Richmond. Hilton/Fazackerley were 1st, Challinor/Kirby 3rd on Ximps.
Lancs C Team finished 3rd of 4 teams. The players were P Meadowcroft/H Dent, P Worswick/J Adshead, L Hall/M Blake, S Bentley/K Broadbent.

Final Overall Standings will be at NBL Website

On my calculations, Lancs & Scotland have finished joint winners of the A Division, 2nd (behind Yorkshire) in the B Division and 2nd (behind Merseyside) in the C Division.

Congratulations to the A team and thanks to all the players who have represented Lancashire in the season.

A reminder that the NBL ANNUAL MEETING is on Thursday 16 October 25 at 10am on Google and should not take long. All interested NBL parties welcome.
The link to the Meeting is: 

The annual Lancs v Cumbria match was held at Lancaster BC on Sunday 28th Sep 2025. There were 10 pairs on each side playing 10 x 4 board matches. In a close game, Lancs ran out winners by 259 to 241 VPs.  Best Ximps from Babs Matthews and John Farmer with Mike & Sally Ann Rothwell second. Full results at  Lancs v Cumbria Results 

The Cumbria/ Westmorland annual GP weekend took place at Kendal BC on 20-21 Sep 2025.  Congratulations to J & A Wilkins who won the teams with C Owen/N Cockerill. Second were J Smith & J Pye with D Barton & R Goldenfield. In the pairs, J Smith & J Pye were 2nd. Full results at Cumbria Westmorland GP Event

The 3rd LOTL season 2025 is scheduled to start on 4th September 2025.

There are 2 divisions. Division 1 has 9 teams and Division 2 has 8 teams.

The fixture list can be accessed via the links below.

Div 1                  Div 2

Fixtures and result via links below.

Div1        Div2       Div3

LCBA 2025 DRAFT COMPETITIONS CALENDAR

PLEASE CLICK HERE

Forthcoming Events of Interest outside Lancashire.