| Jimmie ARTHUR |
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Jimmie Arthur è nato nel 1929 ed è stato un amministratore, un giocatore ed uno dei più valenti capitani non giocatori di molte squadre scozzesi ed inglesi.
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Jimmie, ritratto qui a fianco con la moglie Jill (una giocatrice di livello internazionale che ha fatto più volte parte della nazionale scozzese), è stato anche Presidente della Federazione Scozzese.
Figlio di un eminente matematico ha dovuto interrompere gli studi alla Glasgow University perché richiamato alle armi e al suo ritorno si è impiegato in una Compagnia Assicurativa dove è rimasto per 35 anni come esperto di programmi pensionistici.
Nel suo tempo libero, oltre che a diventare un discreto bridgista, è stato un buon ballerino, un eccellente giocatore di ping pong, è un superbo giocatore di biliardo oltre che un ottimo golfista.
Jimmie è riuscito a far parte della nazionale del suo Paese come giocatore solo dopo aver superato i 55 anni, ma era come capitano non giocatore che riusciva a dare il meglio di sé ottenendo il massimo da tutti i componenti delle sue squadre.
Ha guidato la nazionale scozzese in 19 incontri del Camrose e con quella femminile inglese ha vinto i Campionati Europei a Squadre per tre volte consecutive (1997, 1999, 2001), chiudendo questo portentoso ciclo con il bronzo del 2002.
Eccellente e prolifico articolista è scomparso nel 2007 a causa di un cancro.
Jimmie Arthur, bridge player and administrator, was born on
March 25, 1929.
Unassuming bridge captain who led Scottish and English teams to three European gold victories Jimmie Arthur was well known and much admired in the world of bridge, not only as a formidable player and a tireless administrator -particularly for the Scottish Bridge Union, whose president he was in 1988-89 -but also a highly successful bridge team captain. With British teams he won three European gold medals in succession.
His unassuming but firm approach seemed perfectly designed to bring out the best in people.
The son of a prominent Scottish mathematician -the author of a standard school text on trigonometry in the 1960s and 1970s -Arthur inherited his father's mathematical inclination, and after school went to study in the mathematics department at the University of Glasgow, where his father lectured. His studies were interrupted by National Service. At the age of 22 he joined Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Society.
He was to remain there for more than 35 years. His early hopes of qualifying as an actuary had to be abandoned for health reasons, and instead he moved into the field of pensions, and became firmly established as the expert in the society on most aspects of pension scheme design.
In his spare time he honed his skills as an excellent all-round sportsman. He was good at everything he turned his attention to: he was a club table tennis champion and a superb snooker player. He had a low golf handicap; and in his fifties he beat twentysomethings to win the annual office tennis tournament.
He was also a highly accomplished ballroom dancer.
But bridge was his favourite pastime. He had the reputation of being totally reliable. His partner could depend on Arthur's bidding describing his hand exactly, and his declarer play and defence were hard to compete against. His name appears many times on most of the silverware of the Scottish Bridge Union.
When he stepped down from his role as president he and his wife, Jill, donated a trophy of their own, which is now competed for annually by the Scottish Grandmasters.
It was comparatively late in life, at the age of 55 and having formed a partnership with Derek Diamond, that he won a place in the Scottish national team. In the space of a few years he played in seven international games, six with Diamond and one with Danny Kane.
What he seemed to enjoy most, however, was being a non-playing captain. He captained the Scottish Open team in 19 matches in the home international series for the Camrose trophy. When the Pat Cotter trophy was inaugurated for the Scotland v England match in 1998, he was the first captain to take possession of it.
With the Scottish Ladies team, which he captained from 1989 to 1996, he won the home international series for the Lady Milne trophy in 1992 and 1994. Not long afterwards the British Ladies' team asked him to captain them.
He did so in two European Championships, in 1997 and 1999, and on both occasions they won the gold medal. He also captained them in the 1996 Olympiad and 1997 and 2000 world championships for the Venice Cup.
After a return to captaining the Scottish Open team in the 2000 Olympiad, he was once again called upon to captain an international ladies' team -the English team (the different parts of the UK were competing separately by this time). Under his captaincy in the next two European championships the team won first a gold medal, completing the hat trick, and then a bronze. He captained them in a further two Venice Cups, but success in this continued to elude him. His final two captaincies were again of Scottish teams. The first of these was captaining the ladies' team in the 2004 European Championships, and his final captaincy was last year at the European Championships in Warsaw in charge of the Scottish Senior team. As ever he was strong and inspiring.
Arthur wrote many bridge articles, and a compilation of them was published to celebrate his 60th birthday.
The Scottish bridge author Hugh Kelsey contributed the foreword, writing: "In a bridge world full of inflated egos it is refreshing to come across a modest and unassuming fellow like Jimmie Arthur, who is invariably courteous to opponents and who ranks high on everyone's list of favourite partners."
Arthur is survived by his wife -also a bridge player and Scottish Ladies international -and by his two stepchildren.
He died of cancer on May 3, 2007, aged 78.
