Every obituary written about Tony Priday, who died recently aged 92, said what a class act he was.
I would like to add my tuppence to that observation. When I first started playing, around 15 years ago, I played against Tony and his wife Vivian at a Young Chelsea duplicate. I was keen as mustard and read everything I could get my hands on — most of which I didn’t begin to understand. I had read about jettison plays and, idiotically, jettisoned what I thought was a blocking Ace in dummy, forfeiting my contract and looking a total muppet. ‘Ah I see what you were doing. Good idea — wrong moment,’ he said, ‘not many people would have thought of that.’ I bet they wouldn’t!
Tony came out of retirement in 2002 to partner Nick Sandqvist in the Camrose Trophy, which they won.
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