Durban - Competitive Scrabble took a knock during Covid. The local club in Durban closed down while those in Johannesburg and Cape Town scaled down.
However, social Scrabble in Durban picked up and now Keshni Naidoo has her hands full organising the Love Letters Scrabble Club and has to delegate sub-hosts to meet the growing demand for the game at various restaurant venues.
“During Covid we played Scrabble at home every day. It became an addiction,” said Naidoo, whose father taught her how to play the word game when she was seven.
Then came a Facebook post from someone who started a social group around Scrabble.
“It grew too big for her and I was voted to run the social club.”
Now with about 60 members, they restrict themselves to written words that appear in the Oxford Dictionary. The other rule is to do with spoken words: “What’s said at the Scrabble table stays at the Scrabble table”.
Shelley Haggard, Gwyn Lees, Lesmarie Williams, Helen Edwards and Lucille Mathurine, who joined Naidoo at La Lucia’s Gatvol restaurant, said they enjoyed the social aspect.
“It became a nice way of getting out and doing things after Covid,” said Williams.
“We might be a social group but there are some very good Scrabble players among us and it can get competitive,” Naidoo added.
She said that every day a game takes place, “between Phoenix and Morningside”, among the group’s members whose ages range from 30 to 82.
Thursday marked the birthday of Scrabble inventor Alfred Mosher Butts and this year the game turned 75.
Competition player, Johannesburg-based Steven Gruzd, will represent South Africa at the world championships in Las Vegas in July.
“Scrabble is strongest in Africa in Nigeria where it’s a national sport and there are paid coaches,” he said, adding that the West African country had even provided a world champion, Wellington Jighere.
It is also strong in countries such as Kenya, Ghana and Botswana, which are among more than 100 countries in the world that recognise it as a sport, a goal not yet achieved in SA.
Scrabble SA now aims to revive the game in the country and holds displays at shopping malls and tries to get schools more interested.
“One has to be quite committed to Scrabble if one wants to do it better. One has to learn lists of words with three and four letters.”
Gruzd said he hoped its revival in South Africa would attract more local black players. Most black players are currently immigrants from the rest of the continent.
August will see the first-ever African Youth Scrabble Championship, he said.
“It’s a mind sport,” added Gruzd. “One that requires as much mental preparation, agility and fitness as a physical sport. More so.”
Any Durbanite wanting to get more involved in organised, competitive Scrabble may call Scrabble SA chair, Andrew Goldberg on 083 260 7530. Contact the Love Letters Scrabble Club at keshni910@gmail.com
The Independent on Saturday