I am the Non-Playing Captain of the Scotland U21 team at the European Youth Teams in Latvia, at least for the first half of the week before I come back early and Michael Heubeck takes over.
I have blogged about some European adventures before:
| 2025 | European Youth Pairs in Italy (watching Niamh and Rachel on BBO) |
| 2024 | European U26 Youth Teams in Poland (watching Kevin and Michael on BBO) |
| 2022 | European U26 Youth Teams in Netherlands (NPC for U26 team) |
| 2015 | European U16 and U21 Teams in Norway (visited as spectator) |
Various adventures with a common theme, of Scotland facing tough opposition and not troubling the leaderboard. This time we have three pairs, all comfortably under twenty one. In terms of bridge systems Rachel and Niamh play 2/1, the other two pairs play standard Acol.
| Rachel and Niamh | High School of Glasgow school leavers | System | Notes |
| Artem and Shiva | High School of Glasgow S4 | System | Notes |
| Anya and Iris | Hutchesons S5 and Imperial University | System | Notes |
The event website is at Euros 2026.
Just for interest, here are the rankings from the last two European U21 Teams (no team from Scotland)
Today we spent traveling to the event, via an early flight from Glasgow to Amsterdam then on to Riga.
One board practice should do it
Team Scotland's Away Kit, of t-shirts they brought for each other
At Schiphol I was delighted that one player lost their boarding pass which meant I could take out one of my spares. On arrival in Riga we got an efficient taxi to the Riga Islande hotel, just in time to get changed and rush over to the exhibition centre for the Opening Ceremony. It was suitably odd, with a few speeches, several awards accompanied by national anthems, and a surprise brass band. The European Bridge President was largely upbeat but then the mood darkened as he said there had been six yellow cards given out to the adult bridge teams for unacceptable behaviour in the previous week and if anyone got two yellow cards they'd be sent home. He finished by wishing everyone the best and to enjoy the tournament.
Getting the team checked in at the hotel meant I missed the Captain's Meeting. Stephen Kennedy deputised for me (as well as looking after his own England U21 team). The main message was that players couldn't go to the toilet without asking the director's permission (would that be worth a yellow card?). Stephen also gave me the link to submit our team rosters, which I have now done, so if I get sick from drinking the Latvian water at least tomorrow's line-ups are sorted.
In the evening we went for pizza at a food-court. I went looking for Decaff tea, instead coming away with two pastries. The hotel, playing venue and a shopping mall with a supermarket are all close together, so we won't go hungry.
Tomorrow the real work begins. We begin our 13 team round robin with matches in the against Norway, Estonia, Denmark then France.
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