The new ECL season kicked off on Sunday 21st with Northants taking on Essex. The league now uses a continuous scale for VPs hence all the decimal places.

The A team lost 7.58 - 12.42 but both B and C teams won  13.28-6.72 and 19.22 - 0.78 respectively.

All 4 C team partnerships finished in the top 7 in the X IMP rankings - well played them. All 4 B team partnerships had positive X IMPS as well. 

Full results may be found here.

Yet again NCBA is indebted to Rob Miller for providing an analysis of an interesting hand. This one is from the recent Pachabo Cup. Rob highlights the peculiar scoring system and, as usual, finishes with a helpful tip. You can read his article here.

The Pachabo Cup was held on RealBridge over the weekend of 13/14th June. This is an inter county event for teams of four. Northants are represented by the winners of the Broke Cup who this year were Bill Chadwick, Don McFarlane, Tim Durdin and Trevor Thrower. Rob Miller joined the team as Trevor expected he would need to sit out and, in fact, Rob played 3 of the 4 sessions. There were 27 teams entered and 4 board matches are played against each of the  26 opponents -  a gruelling 104 boards in total. The scoring is an unusual hybrid of IMPs and point a board, each contributing 8 of the 16 points available per match. This makes it difficult to decide on strategy - play safe to land the contract or take a risk for an overtrick and gain the points for winning the board.

Northants spent most of the weekend in the middle of the pack but an excellent final session saw the team finish 8th=. Full results may be seen here.

The EBU's Corwen Trophy is a match pointed pairs competition held over 2 days. This year it was on Sat / Sun 30/31 May at Telford Hotel and Spa. Northants can enter three pairs. Following their success in the Eden Cup this year, we were represented by Tim Durdin / Chris Wormleighton, Graham Froggett / Gerry Kingston and Jane Reeve / Mark Hodgson. When the dust settled after an exhausting 96 boards Jane and Mark were our highest finishers with a highly commendable score of 51.91% securing them 29th place (out of 83) and 3 green points. Our other 2 pairs finished in the bottom half of the field. Well done to all 3 pairs. The full results may be seen here.. 

Jane has written some thoughts on her 'Spa weekend' along with the details of an interesting hand. You can read her account here.

David Ogg and Stuart Sharp represented Northants in the EBU's Nine High Corwen played online on Sat 30th May. Their final score of 53.86% earned them a green point and an excellent 15th place out of 55 pairs who competed. Well done David and Stuart. Full results may be seen here.

The Northants Swiss Pairs event attracted a capacity field of 30 pairs to Northampton BC on Saturday 16th. The winners were Mark Hodgson  and Paul Collins. So far ahead were they, that they could have left early, missed the last round and still won. As Paul commented after collecting the first prize 'it was just a perfect session'. Well done to them and congratulations too to runners up Tony Hill and Alastair Catchpole and Ufuk Cotuk and Chris Wormleighton who finished third.

Full results may be seen here.

Rob Miller has written up a hand of interest and, as ever, his comments are very informative. Read his contribution here.

An IT glitch and subsequent delay meant that only 6 of the planned 7 rounds could be played. NCBA apologise to all for this and hope that their enjoyment of the day was not unduly impaired.

The winning pair (Mark on the left, Paul on the right) are pictured below. Photo courtesy of David Ogg.

Congratulations to the Miller team (Rob, Dan Baines, Ufuk Cotuk, Chris Wormleighton) who won the Betts Bowl by beating Churchill (Brian, Claire Winfrey, Jane Reeve, Elise Aliston, Paul Collins) in a closely fought final.

Winners are pictured L to R: Dan, Ufuk, Rob, Chris

Rob has kindly analysed a hand of interest from the final. You can read his comments here.

The 3 divisions are almost complete.

Congratulations to Bourne A (Chris and Christina Heames, Ian Clarke and  Christine White) who finished top of division one, having been promoted just last year. A first for the Bourne club.

Division 2 has ended in a 3 way tie at the top. Stamford B, Stamford C and Towcester all finished on 69 VPs. The tie is resolved by adding the VPs in the head to head matches between these 3. All this means  many congratulations  to Towcester who finish first and are promoted to division one. Towcester were represented by Brent Hill. Mike Penny, Jean Raven, Derek Wright, Graham Lott, Ray Heath, Virginia Crouch, Myra Tippping, Bob Ansell, Louise Boyle, Lynda Riecken  and Alan Yates.

Well done Stamford F (Fiona Parker, Lynda McNally, Jenny Harding, Anne Ramamoorthy) who won Division 3.  They needed 7 VPs or more from their final match to finish top and although they lost their 8 VPs saw them home.

Many thanks to all the many players who represented their clubs in the 16 teams  that entered this year. Special thanks to team captains for organising the fixtures and to Gary Upton, the league secretary.

This year's final of the Broke Cup (County teams of 4 knock out) was a re-run of last year's Betts Bowl final, Chadwick (Bill, Don McFarlane, Trevor Thrower, Tim Durdin) v Gibson (Joan, Ben Gibson, David Banks, Marlene Jones). The two matches proceeded on similar lines. In both cases, Chadwick took an early lead only to be pegged back. Their half time lead of 17 IMPs soon evaporated and with 4 boards to play Gibson led by 7. However, a late rally saw Chadwick home by 8 IMPs. 

Thanks to Mark Tilley for directing a match played in the right spirit.

The victorious team pictured below (L to R Bill, Don, Tim, Trevor) qualify to represent Northants in the Pachabo Cup.

Many congratulation to Maggie Jones and Dan Baines who won the Eden Cup and are crowned County Pairs Champions. They finished with the impressive score of 62.78% after 45 boards. 

Well done also to second placed pair Chris Wormleighton and Tim Durdin and to Graham Froggett and Gerry Kingston who finished third.

Full results may be found here.

The winners are pictured smiling below.

After a late withdrawal, eight teams of four competed for the Kettering Cup on Sunday 15th.

Congratulations to the Towcester team of Derek Wright, Jean Raven, Lynne and Chris Button who finished well clear of the field.

L to R: James Spencer, Angela Abbott, Helen Skelton, Paul Collins, Doreen Simpson, Jane Reeve, Martin Brayshaw, Gill Webb

Congratulations to the Stamford B team who won the Lakeland on 15 February 2026 and qualified for the Garden Cities Regional Final.

The result:

Stamford B, 56 VPs
Kettering, 55
Stamford A, 49
Northampton, 35
Bourne, 5

Trevor Thrower has decided to stand down as county selector now the current season is over. This was Trevor's second spell in the hot seat, beginning when he took over from Mike Trask in 2018. He has done a tremendous job: organising, encouraging, communicating and leading by example.

Trevor will continue on the committee as match secretary, calendar secretary, director, EBU shareholder and Stamford BC rep so we will still keep him busy!

The good news is that county Vice Chairman, Rob Miller, has agreed to take over as selector. 

Rob writes: I am keen to widen the pool of available players. If you are interested in paying for the county and don't already do so, please contact me at robmbridge@aol.com

He adds: county matches are friendly, played online on Sunday afternoons and there are only six a year. You can play as many or as few as you wish. The first match of the new season is in June.

Thank you, Trevor and good luck Rob. 

The ECL season concluded with two matches in a fortninght.

First up were Norfolk on Jan 18th. The A team won 11-9, the B team won 14- 6 but the C team lost 5-15.

Two weeks later on 1st Feb we played Hertfordshire and all 3 sides lost. 9-11,6-14 and 3-17 respectively.

The final tables may be seen here.

My thanks to all those players who represented the county over the season. I hope you enjoyed doing so.

Sunday Nov 30th saw Northants take on Suffolk in the ECL. The A team won 13-7, the B team drew 10-10 but the C team lost 3-17. 

The standout pair were Tim Durdin and Chris Wormleighton who topped the cross imps table and led the A team to victory.

Full results may be seen here.

The weekend of the 8/9th November saw Northants compete in the Tollemache qualifier on RealBridge. We were drawn in the 'green' section with 14 other teams including several big hitters: London, Surrey, Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire amongst others. Over the weekend the team of eight plays 7 board matches against each of the other teams - an exhausting 98 boards in total. Luckily, with a team of twelve only one pair played them all. There were some highlights; in particular a 19-1 thrashing of the runaway winners, Surrey, and a narrower victory over old rivals Cambridgeshire. However with only 6 wins out of 14 we were never in contention and finished 13th.

Thanks to all the players and, in particular, to NPC Trevor Thrower who kept us all in order. 

Full results may be seen here.

Rob Miller's analysis of a hand that went very badly for us is attached. It contains an important lesson for some of us! Read it here.

Sunday 5th October saw Northants take on Cambs and Hunts in the ECL on RealBridge. Well done to the B team who won their match 14-6. The A and C teams slipped to defeats 5-15 and 7-13 respectively. 

Full results may be seen here.

Following the county simultaneous played earlier this month, NCBA was able to donate £750 to the Northants and Warwicks Air Ambulance. Thank you to all our members who played in the event and who generously contributed to this impressive total. 

You can see the receipt from the Air Ambulance here.

Well done to all 58 pairs across 5 clubs who participated in the County Sims on Monday 8th Sept. Special congratulations to the winners, Stamford BC pair Paul Double and John Prior, who both received a bottle of wine from the chairman.

Full results and Rob Miller's excellent commentary on the hands may be found here.

The total raised for our local air ambulance will be posted here as soon as it is known.