Leicestershire Contract Bridge Association
Leicestershire Contract Bridge Association
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The qualifying round for this, the English Inter-County Championship for teams-of-eight, was held at the Britannia Hotel, Coventry over the weekend of Saturday/Sunday November 25th/26th 2000. Paul Bowyer & Jim Mason, Peter Harvey & Nick Stevens, Hugh Cairns & Geoff Shaw and Mel & Megan Starkings with Robert Northage as NPC represented Leicestershire. The counties were divided into four qualifying groups. Leicestershire's pool contained eight other counties against each of which we played a 12-board match. Each match was played in two halves, the first being played on Saturday afternoon or evening, the second late on Saturday (10.40 p.m. start!) or on the Sunday. After a slow start falling behind in the first half of a number of matches, the team rallied most encouragingly to finish second in the group and claim a place in the eight team final for the third consecutive year. The final was held On Saturday/Sunday February 17th/18th 2001. A storming start with 19 - 1 and 20 - 0 victories in the opening two rounds on Saturday afternoon over firstly Northamptonshire and then Staffs & Shrops raised hopes of bettering last year's third place, which was our first medal placing since winning the competition in 1979. After a loss to Avon (2 - 18) and a win against Manchester by 17 - 3 in the evening we started play at 10.30 a.m. on Sunday morning in second place just one VP behind Manchester. Bridge is rarely played so early in the day, and our team was not at its best. Opponents Surrey coped better but were flattered by an 18 - 2 score-line following a Tournament Director's ruling which cost 26 MPs. Further disappointment followed with a 5 - 15 loss to London and when the final round started we had dropped to fifth place. Our last opponents Middlesex had opened up a big lead of 12 over Avon. However re-finding our earlier form a 20 - 0 victory was quickly achieved and we overtook Middlesex to lead them by 85 to 84. Our fate depended on two unfinished matches. Ultimately both Surrey and Avon squeezed past by just 1VP and in the closest of blanket finishes Leicestershire again came away with the bronze medals. The full results were 1. Surrey 86 VP; 2 Avon 86; 3 Leicestershire 85; 4 Middlesex 84; 5 London 82; 6 Manchester 68; 7 Northamptonshire 48; 8 Staffordshire & Shropshire 21. |