It was zerda that defeated me. It was worth only 35 points but it came out of nowhere in response to what had been my finest move of the game.

“I’m not entirely sure what it means but it is definitely a word,” Allan Simmons, Britain’s new National Scrabble Champion, confirmed. It turned out to refer to a very small nocturnal fox.

Mr Simmons’s arsenal of 100,000 words had left me with dim prospects in this battle. “That’s what I play with,” he had told me before combat commenced. “I couldn’t recite them to you: it’s recognition rather than regurgitation.”

Meaning, however, is immaterial. In the world of elite Scrabble, the utility of a word is measured entirely by how it eats up the vowels, gets rid of unwanted Qs and reaches across a board to the triple-word-score squares.

In preparation for his match against me in London yesterday, as well as for his best-of-five contest for the title of British Scrabble Champion, Mr Simmons had spent some time reminding himself of the 434 eight-letter words that combine five vowels.

“There are on average four vowels to three consonants on a rack. A five-vowel word is a solution to a vowel-heavy rack. Idealise is one. Retiarii is another — it’s the plural of retiarius.” What did that mean? “It’s a type of bone, or something,” Mr Simmons suggested. According to the Collins dictionary, it refers to a Roman gladiator “armed with a net and trident”.

Mr Simmons, 51, who lives in the Scottish Borders, is a “Scrabble consultant”. He writes a weekly column for The Times, holds workshops and travels the country competing in tournaments. He has been a big beast in the jungle of British Scrabble since the late 1980s, when he won the British Matchplay tournament three times in five years.

Yet much as Roger Federer has dominated professional tennis but never won the French Open, until yesterday Mr Simmons had never won the British Scrabble Championship.

He faced Craig Beevers, 27, from Stockton-on-Tees, one of the young talents of the British game, in the final. Mr Beevers won series 57 of the television quiz show Countdown, but has been playing elite Scrabble for only four years.

Mr Simmons, a player for the big occasion, hoped that his years of experience would tell. “I’m quite used to playing before an audience,” he said. “I’m hoping it might unnerve him a little.” The two paced the small room where the final was to be played out, and from where proceedings were to be relayed to an auditorium of avid fans.

“We may have to delay things,” said one of the organisers. “Only three people have arrived so far.”

Mr Simmons chatted to the adjudicators, while Mr Beevers stared at the board. What was he thinking about? “Usual stuff,” he said. He did not wish to elaborate; he is known as a man of few words, except when he is communicating with a Scrabble board. Then he becomes astonishingly loquacious.

By 11am, a reasonable crowd of fans had arrived to spectate, carrying notepads and dictionaries. The two players were level for much of the first game, until, as the commentators pointed out, Mr Beevers missed a chance to make “cytode”. No one was quite sure what it meant — it is a mass of protoplasm without a nucleus — but everyone agreed that Mr Beevers would be kicking himself afterwards.

Mr Simmons won the first game, Mr Beevers the second. Then Mr Simmons briefly turned his attentions to me. After four turns, he had a 90-point lead. Then, when he least expected it, I attacked the left flank, making “quiz” across a triple-word square, scoring 66 points.

He was possibly somewhat taken aback. “If you had followed that up I would have started to worry,” he said. Instead, he reached into his rack and drew out the small nocturnal fox.

Then came “oi”, (as in “Oi! That’s not a word”); “hoi”; “fa”; “si”; “atrip”; and “towie”: a barrage of incomprehensible words that destroyed my morale.

Mr Simmons won by 427 points to 201. Then he strode away to dispatch Mr Beevers, winning the next two matches in quick succession, to be named British Champion and take home the prize of a commemorative crystal bowl and £1,000. “I feel exhilarated,” he said afterwards.

Mr Beevers, who had played so many long and brilliant words, was asked if it had been an important learning experience. “I guess,” he replied.

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