Did we really think the spirit of Oxfordshire juniors would be deterred by Lockdown? Just because they have no physical school, sport nor any other activity and cannot even see one another? Of course not!

On Sunday afternoon 17th May forty juniors, aged from 9 – 16 years, played in a two hour pairs competition playing fifteen boards on BBO (Bridgebase Online.) Nineteen of these juniors were either current or former members of the Oxford Junior Bridge Club, which now meets regularly (in normal times!) on Sunday afternoons at the Oxford Bridge Club.

Some were old hands at using BBO, but for others it was their first experience of an online competition and, armed with some highly original Usernames, and grim determination, they duly logged on, as instructed, by 1.45pm – well about half of them did, meanwhile my mobile phone and inbox was awash with anxious messages:- “BBO won’t accept my Username”, I can’t remember my password” “Is it too late to enter?” “My partner’s pulled out!” “are usernames case sensitive?” “I can’t find my ipad….”

Huge thanks to Jonathan Lillicrop from the EBU and Kathy Talbot (Kathy52) our TDs, who somehow, miraculously managed to solve all these crises and play duly started, almost on time and proceeded, without further dramas.

Warmest congratulations to Zane Soonawalla and Freddie Beneat, North/South winners  and to Rufus Barnet and Marco Vann, East/West winners. Leo Fleming, aged 9 years and his cousin, Ned Blakemore, were the top scoring pair of the Novices.

Further thanks are due to Jonathan Lillicrop at the EBU, who gave us this competition free of charge, and to Giorgio Provenza and Joan Bennett for rounding up further troopers to compete.It was sad not to be able to give them a lovely tea and to congratulate them ALL but we hope this might be the first of many such junior events.

Holly Kilpatrick, 19th May 2020

For full details of the schools bridge programme, look at this website: www.bridgewebs.com/bridge4schools