Stephen Brown

I started playing bridge in the sixth form at school and continued playing when I went to Oxford University. I remember being fascinated by the mathematics of movements, and in my second year the University Bridge Club was looking for a director and I took over. We had around 24 tables each week then and I remember scoring the first week's duplicate by hand using a very large recap sheet with 48 rows and 48 columns sat at a coffee table in the Junior Common Room! The duplicate certainly did not fulfil the current 70% rule! Computers were just starting to be used and so went to the computer teaching centre in Oxford and used their Main Frame Computer to write software to score.

In my third year at University, I started directing for Oxfordshire and I was recommended by the county the following year to be an EBU tournament director I was invited to join the EBU Panel. In one year I remember directing 36 weekends, and being a full time secondary school teacher. I went on to write scoring software under the name of SCBridge. At the time about half the Bridge clubs in England & Wales used SCBridge. I was appointed an EBU National Tournament director around 20 years ago and I also wrote software for the EBU and for many years was in charge of the scoring for the around 300 table Swiss Pairs and Swiss Teams at the Brighton Summer Meetings.

I was Chief TD for Oxfordshire for over 30 years and held other County posts including Chairman during that time. Once I became Deputy and then Head Teacher I had less time for directing and so directed fewer EBU events. On retiring from teaching my wife and I moved to Kent and I am now Chief TD for Kent. I have started directing more events but I am generally not available on Sundays due to my commitments at church. I have passed on my enthusiasm for directing / scoring by teaching on the EBED Club Tournament Directors Courses, training others to use EBUscore and leading a team of county TDs.