Raymond Slater Brock (14 October 1936 – 1 January 2008) was a leading

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

player and then a long-time administrator. He was a member of the Great Britain team that finished second in both the 1987

European Bridge League The European Bridge League is a confederation of National Bridge Federations (NBFs) that organize the card game of contract bridge in European nations. In turn the EBL organizes bridge competition at the European level. It is a member of the Europ ...

championship and the 1987 Bermuda Bowl world championship, and fifth in the 1988

World Team Olympiad The World Team Olympiad was a contract bridge meet organized by the World Bridge Federation every four years from 1960 to 2004. Its main events were world championships for national Glossary of contract bridge terms#teams, teams, always including o ...

. This success came during his partnership with

Tony Forrester Anthony R. (Tony) Forrester (born 1953) is an English bridge player and writer. He is a British and English international and a World Bridge Federation World International Master. Forrester was a bridge columnist for ''The Daily Telegraph'' fro ...

, which lasted from 1982 to 1990. He achieved the rank of World International Master through his performances. Raymond Brock

Brock was educated at

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

and became a physics teacher at a

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

school. A subsequent job as a computer manager with

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building automation, industrial automa ...

took him to

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

from 1968 to 1975. While living there he played seven matches for

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

; three times during that span the team won the

Camrose Trophy The Camrose Trophy or "The Camrose" is an annual bridge competition among open teams representing the home nations of Great Britain and Ireland: England (EBU), Northern Ireland (NIBU), Republic of Ireland (CBAI), Scotland (SBU) and Wales (WBU) ...

, for which England, Scotland,

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

and

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compete (subsequently Ireland too). Before and afterward he played for England, with 26 appearances for the country in all. Additionally on four occasions he was non-playing captain of the England team, as well as serving as a selector. He won the Gold Cup, the premier British domestic competition, seven times. He was twice President of the

British Bridge League The British Bridge League (BBL) was founded in 1931 by A. E. Manning Foster. It formerly selected bridge teams to represent Great Britain in European and World competitions and organised the Camrose Trophy, the Gold Cup, the Portland Cup and the ...

and was non-playing captain of many Great Britain teams, including the

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

winning Women in the 1980

and the

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

winning Juniors at the 1989 World Championships. He did much coaching of the best young players, and in 1994 was non-playing captain of the British Junior team that won the European Championships and went on to win the World title the following year. He wrote several books, in particular on defence, a part of the game at which he was especially expert. These include ''Planning the Defence'' (1996) and ''Expert Defence'' (1997). While with Honeywell at Brentford, Middlesex in the late seventies and early eighties, some of his early bridge writing included chapters on the

Stayman convention Stayman is a bidding convention in the card game contract bridge. It is used by a partnership to find a 4-4 or 5-3 trump fit in a suit after making a one (1NT) opening bid and it has been adapted for use after a 2NT opening, a 1NT overcall, a ...

. His vacations during this time were spent at

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

playing bridge with the likes of

Omar Sharif Omar Sharif (, ; born Michel Yusef Dimitri Chalhoub ; 10 April 1932 – 10 July 2015) was an Egyptian actor, generally regarded as one of his country's greatest male film stars. He began his career in his native country in the 1950s. He is bes ...

. He died of cancer. His widow

Sally Brock Saralinda Jane "Sally" Brock (''née'' Hartley; born 1953) is an English bridge player. She has been part of the winning team in five Women's European Championships, two Venice Cups and two World Team Olympiads. In November 2017, she received t ...

is an international bridge player. Together they won the England Mixed Teams event on six occasions and the British Mixed Pairs twice.

Books

* ''Step-by-step Planning the Defence'' (London: B. T. Batsford, 1996) * ''Step By Step Expert Defence'' (Batsford, 1997) * ''No Trump Play'' (Batsford, 1998) * ''Expert Tuition for Tournament Bridge'', Brock and Brock (Batsford, 1998) * ''Slams'', Brock and Brock (Batsford, 1999), Bridge Quiz series * ''Defence'', Brock and Brock (Batsford, 2000), Bridge Quiz series * ''Great Hands I Wish I Had Played'', Sally and Raymond Brock (Batsford, 2002)

References

Obituary on the English Bridge Union siteObituary in ''The Times''

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brock, Raymond 1936 births 2008 deaths English contract bridge players Contract bridge writers Bermuda Bowl players Alumni of the University of Manchester Place of birth missing Place of death missing Deaths from cancer in England