Twenty teams of five descended on Worcester last weekend to fight it out for the title of Champion Club – and for the first time in its seven year history, the Tutchings Trophy headed north of the Watford Gap as the North West League team of Brian Lever, Rachel Rhodes, Mark Calderbank, John Wright and Jonathan Wilkinson defeated a lot of tough opposition to claim the title.
2018 was a record year in terms of participants (100, beating last year’s previous record of 95) and clubs (15 different ones) – meaning that there was less scope for “B” teams to take part and no room at all for “C”s… the growing demand will be a headache for the 2019 organiser to try resolve! Three clubs made their debuts, Amersham, Sussex and Cambridge – the last being less than a year into its existence. Holders St Albans A and 2017 finalists Bristol A, both with similar line-ups to last time, must have been confident of good results, and North West League must have wanted to put their 2017 nightmare out of mind, but this is backgammon and anything can happen…
The first surprise of the day was finding TD Sean Jones drafted into the Worcester team to fill a gap, but Shaun and Cristina on the desk coped admirably without him. And the first headache for all of them was down to Great Western, who managed to heavily delay a trainload of London players… every TD worries about keeping to schedule and this one was about to be derailed…
The Clubs Championship is one of the most fun events of the year as teams get into the spirit – Sussex won the best team kit prize, and both NEBA and Worcester joined in with team shirts… the other great thing is that more than any other, tournament newcomers compete with the highest level players. Indeed, the first round of the group stages nearly produced a dramatic upset as newcomers Cambridge claimed the scalps of Ealing A‘s Peter Bennet and Lawrence Powell, and almost won the rubber… though a subsequent 5-0 drubbing by Birmingham brought us a sharp dose of reality.
It was great to see two of the new teams, Amersham and Sussex, get through the group stage and into the last 8 – Amersham having a really good run throughout, Sussex squeezing through on goal-difference. It seemed very likely that the trophy would stay down south at this stage, as you can see from the draw. The big names really got into gear in the knockout, though, and it was familiar names reaching the closing stages…
Meanwhile in the consolation, NEBA “B” had the satisfaction of knocking out their own senior squad in the first round. With time pressing onwards and a crowd of bingo players about to turn up, the finals moved out of the main hall and into the rather cosy front bar…
In the consolation final, it was a home win as Worcester Royals beat Bristol B, and with time running out a rather truncated main final saw North West League beating Ealing A. Many congratulations to our winners, and a huge thankyou to everyone at Worcester Backgammon Club for making us all so welcome, feeding us and making it a most enjoyable day!
We’re on the lookout for a TD and a venue for 2019 now – ideally we’d like at least room for 20 teams again and 24 would be even better. Having been in the south-east in 2017, it’s probably the north’s turn, but all offers will be considered. Please do get in touch if you are at all interested.
You should ask the RAC if they would host it one year as they host American teams regularly…