Bridge | 3 July 2014

Our Golden Oldies have brought home the Gold! Many congratulations to the England players who have won the Seniors Teams European Championships in Croatia. I’m particularly pleased for my friend Simon Cochemé, their non-playing captain. Simon is relatively new to captaincy, but has long been one of the funniest bridge journalists around. I’ve hugely enjoyed his daily blogs. The night before their victory, he wrote: ‘I am pleased to report that the team retired to bed early. Or so I hope. Maybe I should have resorted to the tactics employed by the NPC of the famous Italian Blue Team; not only did he see the players to their rooms, he then made them give him their trousers so that they couldn’t sneak out to a nightclub.’ And after the awards ceremony, he blogged: ‘We sang “God save the Queen” lustily, and in a variety of keys, making it the only time the team were not in harmony.