A KNUTSFORD father-of-two has triumphed at the Northern Ireland Scrabble Championships and is hoping to use his success to inspire schoolchildren in English and Maths.

Mark Nyman, 48, is off to a flying start in 2016, coming top of the table at the championships last week after winning 12 games out of 15.

Now on the back of his recent success and ahead of the World Championships in September, Mark is hoping to put his skills to good use and help get Scrabble on the curriculum to engage children in the core subjects.

“Scrabble is a fantastic educational tool,” said Mark. “It is a fun way to teach maths and English to children and now my ultimate aim is to be part of an educational movement to get Scrabble into the curriculum.

“Anything that can make learning fun is great.”

After winning the World Championship in the 90s, Mark took a back seat while he raised his two children, who are now 10 and 11 years old.

Following his success in Northern Ireland, Mark is hoping to get back up to scratch and participate as a serious contender in the World Championships 2016 in Lille and win the ‘holy-grail’ of Scrabble trophies, the Causeway competition which takes place in Malaysia in November.

“I’m pretty pleased with my win in Ireland,” he added. “I am regarding it as a warm up for bigger stuff later on in the year.

“Since I started a family I haven’t played serious international Scrabble because my focus has been on the kids.

“But now that they are older, and obviously they still remain my highest priority, I can devote a bit more time to playing the game seriously.

“I haven’t really troubled the high scorers since 2000 but I think that’s because I have had other fish to fry.

“Six thousand words have come into the dictionary in September and I have learnt about 100 of them so I have a lot of work to do.”

Mark has also begun coaching Scrabble and has a number of high profile clients. For more information about his Scrabble lessons, contact Mark on nnymans@aol.com