The Association of British Scrabble Players oversees competitive
Scrabble
''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
in the
UK. It was formed in 1987 by agreement with
J W Spear & Sons, the game's trademark owner, who were subsequently bought out by
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in more ...
in 1993. It currently has around 600 members.
wespa.org
The ABSP controls a rating system containing the names of over 2,000 people who have played in Scrabble tournaments around the country. The Association also maintains a calendar of these events, handles publicity for them and many other Scrabble-related events and actively pursues sponsorship and the development of tournament Scrabble in the UK.
The honorary president of the Association is former Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
Gyles Brandreth
Gyles Daubeney Brandreth (born 8 March 1948) is an English broadcaster, writer and former politician. He has worked as a television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author and publisher.
He was a presenter for TV-am's '' Good Morning ...
, who founded the first British National Scrabble Championship
The UK National Scrabble Championship (NSC) is a British national Scrabble tournament that has been held annually (except 1995, 2020 and 2021) since its inception in 1971. It was formerly organised by Mattel, the copyright owners of Scrabble in ...
in 1971 and has taken a keen interest in the game ever since. Former ABSP Chairman Allan Simmons is a prolific Scrabble author and the ABSP website was formerly maintained by ''Countdown
A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...
'' series champion Stewart Holden, who previously held the post of publicity officer for the association.
The current ABSP chairperson is Mike Whiteoak.
References
External links
Official websiteABSP ratingsABSP calendar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Association Of British Scrabble Players
Scrabble in the United Kingdom
Scrabble organizations
Clubs and societies in the United Kingdom
1987 establishments in the United Kingdom
Organizations established in 1987