It is with great sadness and shock that the UKBGF learned of the recent passing away of Wayne Felton.
Wayne was a great friend of the backgammon world generally and the UKBGF specifically, having been its accountant in recent years as well as serving on the Rules Sub-committee.
A regular tournament winner with a very generous and witty personality, Wayne leaves a great void behind him. The esteem and affection felt by so many players for Wayne has been demonstrated by numerous posts on social media.
Dod Davies is preparing a fitting tribute to him which will be posted here in due course.
For now however we just pass our deepest condolences to his family (especially his daughter Annabel) and close friends.
RIP Wayne – you will be sorely missed by all who knew you.
Wayne was a good friend for many years and it is hard to come to terms with his death at such a young age. He had a wonderful sense of humour and, as others have said, he was generous with both his time and his money. I never heard him lose his temper or have a bad word about anybody. We had many a tussle over the board and I think that over the years honours were even. He was always willing to learn and we spent many a happy hour discussing the complexities of the game we both loved. I shall miss him greatly.
I hadn‘t been in the London League that long when Wayne and I ended up playing a match in the Roehampton Club. How did that happen? The dice were heavily in my favour and to top it all, Chris Bray was walking past and couldn’t quite believe how one of his very average students was rolling so well against the great man. Needless to say Wayne was a total gentleman and took his defeat well. He rose to dizzy heights in the divisions unlike me who went down, down, down. RIP Wayne
I had the pleasure of being in a WhatsApp group with Wayne for quite a period of time and loved his humorous inputs on a wide range of topics. He was also so generous with his time and expertise, running a cubing tutorial at Home House for a bunch of mainly intermediates. A gem of a human being who will be sorely missed by so many who knew him in the backgammon world.