British Airways Bridge Club

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Disclaimer

This is not an official page of British Airways, British Airways Clubs, or the British Airways Bridge Club.

It is a personal page with information about the club by Peter Blundell, the club chairman.

General Information

The BA Bridge Club was primarily for BA employees, pensioners and their families. Following a change of BA Clubs rules, we now welcome all bridge players to join us. It meets every Monday evening at 7.25 p.m. for a duplicate tournament at the BA Concorde Centre in Cranford. There are usually about 10 tables. English Bridge Union master points are awarded. Our secretary is Suzanne Avoth. Please contact her if you would like to join our club, or if you would like to come and play one Monday evening. We will make you most welcome.

Contact details

BA Sports Club location : British Airways Concorde Centre, Crane Lodge Road, Cranford, Middlesex TW5 9PQ

BA Sports Club phone at reception: 020 8562 0230

Club secretary : Suzanne Avoth

Her work phone (not at BA): 0870 2347364

Her Email address : Suzanne.Avoth@services.fujitsu.com

Address for correspondence: BA Concorde Centre as above or

Waterside, PO Box 365, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UB7 0GB

The official BA Bridge Club web page is at http://baclubs.com/bridge/home.html

Thames Valley League

The club has 3 teams competing in the local Thames Valley Bridge league. The 777s are in division 2, the Concordes play in Division 3 and Tiger Moths compete in division 4. The BA club hosts the annual congress of the Thames Valley Bridge League, which for 2004 is on Sunday April 18th. Congratulations to Don and Jan Plumb and their team who came second and to Ronnie Vass and Bruce Leslie and Peter and Richard Blundell who came third.

Airline Matches

The former BEA bridge club first started playing annually against Delta Airlines in the 1970s. We hosted a visit from Delta Airlines on March 3rd 2001 and visited them in Atlanta on March 1st 2002. They visited us again on March 21st 2003 and we visited them in Atlanta in March 2004. 17 players and 2 non-players took part in this latest match. We played a 6 teams of four match, with assistance from players from SAS Norway and the home team. We were very pleased to have won the 'No-Trumps' trophy. The next match will be in Spring 2005, when we look forward to entertaining the Delta players in London.

We had a visit from SAS Norway on March 31st 2001. We hosted another visit from them on February 7th 2004 and here are the results:

The scores in black are in IMPs while those in blue are converted to Victory Points. SAS won by 296 to 204.

BA Team ----SAS team	SK1	SK2	SK3	SK4	SK5	Total BA Victory Points
777s Suzanne Avoth & Mick Mullett Nancy Shaw & John Webster	28-22 13-7	16-12 12-8	25-31 7-13	24-17 13-7	17-17 10-10	55
Comets Mairead & Frank Desmond Margaret Harding & Diane Page	7-44 0-20	21-13 14-6	6-22 4-16	24-20 12-8	26-13 15-5	45
Concordes Peter Blundell & Ron Vass Alison & Richard Blundell	18-19 9-11	14-36 2-18	18-20 9-11	32-1 20-0	22-7 16-4	56
Tridents Peter Cotterall & Eve Suren & Leela Kurl	5-20 4-16	16-29 5-15	16-8 14-6	0-29 0-20	6-46 0-20	23
Viscounts Delyth Jones & Mary Hegarty Diane & Alan Coulstock	9-14 7-13	1-35 0-20	16-20 8-12	13-20 7-13	13-29 4-16	26

The club has competed in the annual ASCA tournament since the 1970s. We competed in Rekjavik, Iceland in April 2001 and we hosted it in London in April 2002. We came 3rd in Athens, Greece hosted by Olympic Airways on March 7th 2003. The 2003 team is Don Plumb and Ron Vass, Rick Sorrell and Mick Mullett, Ronnie Vass and Peter Blundell. BA again competed in the 2004 competition that Lufthansa hosted on April 30th and May 1st in Frankfurt. The 2004 team is Rick Sorrell and Mick Mullett, Ronnie Vass and Peter Blundell, Suzanne Avoth and Nancy Shaw.

For the last 20 years, club members have been taking part in an international airlines bridge week every Autumn. They hve been held in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Malta. We organised the 2002 at the Hotel Royal Kenz, Port El Kantaoui, Tunisia in November 2002, through Mercian Travel. 144 people took part and the week was a great success. We took part in the 2003 bridge week which SAS Stockholm organised in Turkey from October 4th to 11th. We look forward to taking part in the next bridge week which will be held in in Italy from September 25th to October 2nd 2004.

From time to time, friendly matches are arranged against other airlines. In May 2000, the club hosted a Millennium international airlines teams tournament.

Club tournaments

The club organises a number of events for members, usually held on Monday evenings. The main pairs event is held as a 2 session event on a Saturday. The 2003 competition was on January 18th and was won for the third year by Peter Blundell and Ronnie Vass. This was again followed by a very enjoyable Indian meal at the Shahzad restaurant in Slough. The 2004 competition took place on January 17th. Suzanne Avoth and Mick Mullett won this year with Ronnie Vass and Peter Blundell as runners up. We went to a different Indian restaurant this year, the newly opened Rangoli at 8 Station Parade, Ashford. Once again we had a very enjoyable social evening

From time to time, the club takes part in a Simultaneous Pairs event organised by ECATS. The club took part in their tournament on Monday January 6th 2003, Monday July 28th 2003 and Monday January 12th 2004. We were all very pleased that Ron Vass (senior) and Rame Ghosh came 15th nationally, Peter Blundell and Ronnie Vass came 18th and Alison Blundell and Richard Blundell came 48th nationally.

In recent years, Peter and Alison Blundell have travelled a lot overseas to play bridge with other airlines, including Florida, Atlanta, Reykjavik, Spain, Cyprus, Oslo and Stockholm and Tunisia.