Welcome to Staffordshire and Shropshire Contract Bridge Association (S&SCBA). The area covered by the Association ranges from the Welsh border in the West to Burton on Trent in the East, Newcastle under Lyme in the North to Ludlow in the South. Our objectives are to promote duplicate bridge in the counties, to encourage inter-club, etc., competitions and to employ the funds in the best interests of the game.

The County has teams of eight entered in the Midland League (Dawes, Porter and Markham) and annually enters a team in the EBU Tollemache competition. The Midlands league covers Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire in addition to ourselves. The County also participates in the Edgar Foster Cups and Midland Teams Challenge Bowl, events for the six counties of Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and ourselves.

During the winter months teams of four league matches for County members are held on the second Wednesday of the month, and there is also a team of four knock-out competition.  Inter Club Sim Pairs are run regularly, and, various pairs competition events are held annually.

County clubs affiliated to the EBU are Border, Chasetown, Eccleshall, Nantwich, Newcastle, Newport, Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Tettenhall,  Wolverhampton and Wrekin.  Wolverhampton Bridge Club became the playing headquarters of S&SCBA in December 2013.

Jason and Justin Hacket were in the winning Spring Foursomes team. On May 12th 2019 Dave Debbage and Paul Hackett finished second in the National Swiss Teams with team mates Croz Croswall and John Sansom.  The Hackett family much involved in the European team taking part in the Buffett Cup April 2019 in China, in the southern coastal city of Haikou, capital of Hainan Province. Paul was captain and Jason and Justin both in the team. The final result was down to the last board with Europe finally losing to the USA and China coming third.

Another success for Paul in the Teltscher Trophy played 5th - 7th April in Edinburgh, the senior Camrose Competition.

The EBU stratified SIMS on Thursday 14th March involved 262 pairs from 15 different clubs around the country. Oswestry, with the second biggest entry,  had some spectacular successes, notably Stan and Valli Challener who came 2nd overall and 1st in their section, while only a whisker behind were Margaret Pritchard and Jane O'Brien, finishing 5th overall and 2nd in their section. Congratulations to both pairs.

Martin Aherne and Kevin Goode came second in the Leicestershire Green Pointed Swiss Pairs on 2nd March 2019 having won all their 7 matches but losing by 1 VP. Jason and Richard Bowdery have won the pairs at Bilbao on February 1st - click here for the results.  Dan Crofts (click link for picture but you have to wait a bit to scroll round to Dan's picture - so many pictures were taken at the event!), playing with Andrew Thompson, won the Hudson Cup (Men's Pairs) at the Midlands Counties Congress on January 4th at Solihull.

Trying to attract a younger demographic to the game of bridge, the Students’ Union at Staffordshire University are offering their current students 4 taster sessions.  These will be held from 4-6pm on Wednesday March 27th, April 3rd, May 1st and 8th.  Newcastle-under-Lyme Bridge Club members have kindly offered to come to the university to deliver sessions to the students.  It is hoped that students are inspired and may set up a bridge club at the university but let’s not get ahead of ourselves as firstly, we need to entice the students to try the game.  If you know of any Staffordshire University students or staff please encourage them to go along.  A report will follow these events.

The charity English Bridge Education & Development (EBED), set up in 2014, now manages educational programmes and support for teachers, and also provides Tournament Director training for Clubs and Counties.  Please check their web site for information on TD and Club Teacher training courses.

SSCBA member Dom Wilson has been appointed as a Trustee from August 1st 2018.

Please email the webmaster with any news, comments and pictures to be included on the website.

Subject to obtaining an EBU licence clubs are entitled to hold 2 blue pointed events per year, 3 blue points are equivalent to 1 green point.