Mike Snowdon writes:
An international challenge match is currently being played to decide which is the best Newcastle backgammon team in the world.
A team from Tyneside will play their counterparts in New South Wales 10,000 miles away online for the 2020 Novocastrian Challenge.
UK Backgammon sadly lost one of its much-loved characters to Coronavirus this week. Over several decades, George Devlin played backgammon in many parts of the world including the RAC and other London clubs and, more recently, at the 2019 Bristol Open, where he was the Warm-Up finalist. He passed away, aged 78, on Monday 20th April in Nyon, Switzerland. An online service for his family (including his nine children and nine grandchildren) is being held in Nyon today (St George’s Day!!). Once the world ‘opens back up’ there will be a memorial celebration of George’s life for all his friends.
With the 2020 UK Tour cancelled, and many individual tournaments either cancelled or postponed, many of us are resorting to online play for the foreseeable future. At least there is a brand new live event to look forward to, exactly one year from now, which John Wright is proud to announce….
COVID-19 UPDATE: We are sorry to have to announce that the UK Clubs Championship 2020 is cancelled. Obviously this is disappointing, but in the light of recent news our venue will be now closed until the autumn.
This does not affect the call for bids for the 2021 event.
Once again, it’s time for you to start assembling your squads for the UK Clubs Championship! This unique one-day event pits club teams of five players against each other in groups, similar to the World Cup, with the top teams in each group qualifying for the main knockout phase, and all other teams in a consolation knockout – guaranteeing at least five games for everyone.
Sean Jones writes…
I thought I would share what we are doing at Worcester at the moment to keep the club playing backgammon. This is no lecture and I hope that it is not taken as so, it’s simply a humble sharing of information. I do hope that there is something in here that is of use.
I have a concern that we will lose players, despite what the Government says about taking it on the chin; I think this is going to affect us for some months. I wonder when our club reopens for business how many will return? So I have tried to be active with communication and activities.
I was one of the first to close my club, and I will not reopen until I believe that it is entirely safe to do so for the sake of the most vulnerable’s health. At the moment, if I had to pick a date, it looks like August, or maybe September.
So we need to continue to enjoy and practice the beautiful game…
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