Hi All

This is my regular update on the County Bridge Scene and is being sent to you as a member of Staffordshire and Shropshire County Bridge Association. Perhaps I should point out at this stage, that there might be discrepancies between the recipients of this email, and those that are actually, paid-up, bona fide members. There is opportunity to be direct members, that is those who pay their subs directly to the county association, but the vast majority of our members, are members because they belong to one or more of our affiliated clubs, these being:

Border, Bridge at Ashley, Eccleshall, Nantwich, Newcastle, Oswestry, Stafford, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton and Wrekin. Many of our events, including The Championship Pairs and the Corwen, those listed below, require primary county membership. If you are not a paid-up and playing member of an S&SCBA affiliated club (listed above), you can apply to become a county member by emailing the County Hon. Secretary, Judy Mitchell, for more details. This is likely to mean the payment of the £5 annual County membership fee. There are several people are members through this method.

The next big event in the bridge diary, is the Championship Pairs (for the Bearn Trophies), to be hosted at Newcastle Under Lyme Bridge Club on Sunday 29th March, at 11 am. This will be played over two sessions with a minimum of 36 boards, numbers as ever, dependent on tables and movement. The winners will win fully subsidised entry to the Corwen, with the next two pairs place being subsidised in part. Entries are now open, and can be achieved by emailing me; The cost is £17 / person, which includes a generous buffet lunch. Payment by bank transfer to S&SCBA 30-98-00 00878880. Please note the change in account details.

The Corwen, an EBU event for the winners of the all county pairs championships will be held on 30th – 31st May 2026 at the, Delta by Marriott Hotel. Nottingham Belfry Hotel & Spa. Players will need to organise their own transport and accommodation.

As you should be aware, and another national Pairs competition the entry for the National Pairs Qualifiers is based on any pair scoring 55% in a (affiliated) club game between 1st and 14th February 2026. An online qualifying session will be this week’s Staffs and Shropshire BBO session on Wednesday. They are then eligible to play in this, being notified by the EBU, which will take place on;

• Regional Finals: 22nd March 2026 (BBO and RealBridge)

The top 50 pairs from the regional qualifiers will be entitled to play in the National Pairs Final. This will be on RealBridge on 11th – 12th April. Entry fees for the regional finals are £13 per player, and full payment must be made at the time of entering.

On the 28th January we had our county wide Simultaneous Pairs event, and a big thank you to Martin Aherne for organising this.

Our County Leagues are progress well with the 1st Division being lead by the Vickers team with 59 VP, having played 5. Nelson with 4 games played has 47 VP, and in 3rd but leading on a VP / Games Played ratio, is Cutler with 41 VP from 3.

The Gilford team leads the tight 2nd Division.

The County Team had mixed fortunes this weekend, the 1st (Dawes) team were comprehensively beaten by Nottingham by 17-3, but the 2nd and 3rd team did much better winning by 14-6 and 19-1 imps respectively.

As always these details and more are available on the county website.

Many thanks all Tony