History of Bridge Clubs in Oakham
Until 2024 there were four separate bridge clubs in Oakham. Related, yes, but each had its distinctive character. And it is to Rita Duckham, who used to live locally, that we owe many thanks for helping develop these clubs, teaching bridge to so many players there and now, with an excellent memory, summarising their history.
Oakham Bridge Club
The Club was founded by Daisy Gemmal, who put an advert in the Stamford Mercury in 1965 and was surprised and pleased to get about a dozen replies. So a bridge club was set up and it met at the George Hotel in town. ACOL was only just being introduced so the bidding was quite mixed up at times - some of the players had been playing regularly before the WW2 and didn't hold with what they thought were fancy systems. There were usually two or three tables of RubberBridge, where players ‘cut in’ if anyone was sitting out. Members played for pennies – old ones then –the table money was 2/6d (about 12p now) and the subs £1.00 p.a. later changing to £3.00 p.a. As the club grew it moved several times: sometimes into members‘ homes, for a time at the Boulton’s Hotel (now the Old Wisteria), then in 1972 it moved to the Whipper Inn (now The George again) and in 1982 it moved again to the Crown Hotel (which no longer exists) in Crown Walk. Later members played at St John’s and St Anne’s in Westgate and in 2005 moved to The Bri$sh Legion in the High Street, where Wetherspoon’s now stands.
Rita recalled:
John and I first came to Oakham in 1966 and, in our late 20’s/early 30’s then, we didn’t play bridge. We learnt the game at home using ‘Collins’ Nutshell Book of Bridge’. It was 15 cm x 10 cm and 1 cm thick, 128 pages long. I sMll treasure that liNle book! Having ploughed our way through it, we were confident that we knew all there was to know about bridge (!) and promptly joined Oakham Bridge Club. We thought the club had been around longer, as many of the players were elderly. Some used Culbertson as their bidding system rather than the newer ACOL, so we were often confused.
Oakham Bridge Club at St Joseph’s
There came a time when OBC’s membership fell to 12, and the rent for the room upstairs in the Bri$sh Legion became unaffordable. Some stalwarts met in the bar to play for free – Brenda Day, Colin Lowes, Bill and Cynthia Greenslade, Jean Broom, John Duckham, Don Munro and Rita Duckham, Chair at the time, were some of the regulars – but it wasn’t easy to play there with the hubbub and the TV on. Eventually, in 2007, the players moved to St Joseph’s Church Hall. The only problem was that only three Monday nights in each month were available so players met one Friday night a month instead. OBC was still essentially a Rubber Bridge club but Friday evening, was ‘Chicago Night’ and became very popular. In 2009 Rita began to wonder whether members might like to give Duplicate a try on Friday evenings without affiliation to the EBU. Duplicate Bridge at OBC was an immediate success. (Instead of Master Points, to begin with a ‘free session’ was awarded to the pair coming top each week). By then the other part of OBC (Rubber Bridge) had moved to Tuesdays, but gradually the numbers dwindled and in 2018 it was, with some disappointment, closed.
Then in April 2019 Rita Duckham came to the rescue again!
A Gentle Duplicate Group was formed, meeting on a Friday alernoon at St Joseph’s. Players could come without a partner and, if necessary, partner Rita. Jim Wilson also amended regularly as a ‘spare’. It ran for several weeks as just that, at first struggling to get enough tables, but gradually the membership built up, thanks to the support of Jim and Kath Rowlands. Further, players could graduate from Chicago to Duplicate without any pressure to play quickly. The aim was always for them to move on the OBC or RBC Duplicate evening clubs once they had the confidence. Eventually it made sense to have that group under the umbrella of a well-established club, so OBC adopted the Gentle Duplicate players.
Rutland Bridge Club
When Don Munro first moved to Oakham in the late 60’s he discovered a neglected pair of tennis courts on the (then) outskirts of Oakham, with a run-down old shed for a club house. He contacted the Council and got the ball rolling to restore the club and build a new clubhouse, and he became President of the new Tennis Club when the ‘Cricket Lawns’ houses were built in the early 1970’s
One of the members of the Tennis Club, Barry, was a keen bridge player, as was Don and one or two others, and, whenever there were enough people, they would play bridge aler their game of tennis. Barry thought it might be worthwhile setting up a bridge club, and in 1974 he advertised for players.
Rutland Bridge Club grew largely out of members of OBC and so Rita always thought of Oakham Bridge Club as the mother club. But from the outset they were two distinct clubs, OBC at first playing Rubber bridge only and RBC playing Duplicate and affiliated to the EBU. In the past, on Thursday evenings, RBC played at Braunston Village Hall, the Baptist Church and the Congregational Church before settling for some time in the C of E School in Burley Road on Tuesday evenings. Only in 2019 did RBC start sharing St Joseph’s, using the premises on different nights.
Oakham Bowling Club Bridge SecHon
This was established in the early 1970’s, presumably aler Cricket Lawns and the Bowling Club were built. Originally, bowlers played Rubber Bridge in the winter but later, open to anyone, members played Chicago on Wednesday alernoons in the Clubhouse until December 2025.
U3A Bridge Club (which later became Tuesday Chicago)
in 2006 Rita Duckham started to teach bridge to a group of 12 students from the U3A. At the same $me, Patrick Miell taught a parallel group, which was also well supported. Once the players had learnt the basics Rita and Patrick thought it would be nice to start a club for rela$ve beginners and chose St Joseph’s as the venue That U3A group ran for four or five years before it began to decline in numbers and was nearly disbanded. However, in 2012 Rita decided to see if she could set up a Tuesday alernoon Chicago Bridge Club. Isobel Garwood helped run the sessions and now Dawn O’Higgins and her committee, continue the good work so that the club has gone from strength to strength.
Rita concluded:
So that is it – a rough outline of the different bridge clubs and how they came about. We are very lucky in a town of this size to have so much bridge available, and now that the town is growing there will be even more players to draw upon. Long may it last!
And now, it seems that Rita’s wishes have come true:
In April 2023 Oakham Bridge Club and Rutland Bridge Club officially merged to become the Rutland & Oakham Bridge Club. In October 2024 the combined clubs moved into new dedicated premises at The King Centre, Barleythorpe, Oakham. That day the Lord Lieutenant of Rutland Dr Sarah Furness cut the ribbon before over 50 members and guests celebrated and then 36 players of all abilities played their favourite game.
In December 2025 the Oakham Bowling Club Bridge Section was dissolved and its players, already supporting the new ROBC for a year, found the new premises warm and welcoming!
To date the Tuesday alernoon Chicago Club thrives, and remains independent, at St Joesph’s Church.
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