My first introduction to a billiards table was at the age of fifteen when I became a member of the Yarraville CYMS Club, which was situated opposite my home. My parents were pleased that I should join the Club because of the good influence of its senior members and, furthermore, they would know where I was spending my leisure hours! Immediately I was fascinated by the billiards table, but it was some time before I plucked up courage to take a cue from the rack and attempt to play. The Club opened its doors at 7 o'clock each evening, but the caretaker commenced his duties at 6.30pm. Living close by, I would wait on his arrival and then help him remove the cover from the billiards table. At the same time I could manage to get about 30 minutes of practice before other members arrived. The fascination of the tables I found irresistible and thereafter my pocket money was devoted to billiards. In those days a game of 100-up cost sixpence.
At that time, one of the outstanding billiards players at the Club was Eric Longton, who also played with the Victorian Softgoods Club and could regularly make a 100-break. Other good players at the Club were Bill Burke, Mick Ryan and Fred Guest, who took a kindly interest in my progress and was instrumental in getting me started on my billiards career. I always remember him as a kindly man who spent much time teaching me to hold a cue properly, how to hold my bridge hand and correcting my stance.
At the age of sixteen I made my first 50-break. At this time the CYMS formed an inter-Club billiards competition, the matches being played on Tuesday evenings. I soon became the first emergency for the Yarraville team and it was my duty to carry the cues for the players and attend to their wants. During the season I made a 70-break in a practice game and was given a place in the team, but to my sorrow I was defeated in my first match. However, I was encouraged to keep on practicing and soon I was a regular member of the team, winning my last three games for the season.
During the summer months that followed I practiced on the billiards table more than any other member, and at last made my first 100-break. In the ensuing billiards season I was promoted to No. 3 position in the team - we played six a side - and was defeated only four times that year. Meanwhile, I had purchased a cue - for the sum of six shillings! I came to share this cue with two other Club members - Tom Lannon and Frank Palmer - so that it really cost me only two shillings! However, it was not long before I bought them out. It is very important that every aspiring player should have his or her own cue. It becomes part of oneself.
I spent as much time as possible watching good players in action. I shall never forget the great Joe Davis who, in the early 1930's visited Australia to participate in a series of snooker matches with Horace Lindrum. When they played in Melbourne I went along to see them, taking with me a notebok in which to record my observations. I was astounded at the shortness of Joe's cue. It scarcely reached the knot of his tie and when he fired, his chin almost touched the cue. I noted his comfortable stance and that he never lifted his head until he had completed a shot.
As soon as possible I cut five inches from my cue and immediately went about correcting other of my faults. From then onwards it seemed that I never looked back. Even today players ask me why my cue is so short. After I have offered my explanation, I have noted that some have followed my example. Later they have told me that it improved their game. Here I offer a word of advice to billiard players: The cue should measure in length from the floor to the knot of the tie, or Adam's apple, irrespective of a person's height. It could even be a little shorter.
Not long after I had made these adjustments to my game I was chalking up breaks of 100 and 150, and eventually I made a break of 235. I continued practicing almost to the point of becoming a billiards fanatic. I would go to bed at night and sometimes dream of making a 500-break. All top players seem to develop along much the same lines. Walter Lindrum was an example. He once told me that often he could not sleep because whilst lying in bed he would continue thinking about the intricacies of the game. He would ponder over nursery cannons, or plan various moves which might differ one-hundredth part of an inch. Occasionally he would get out of bed, sometimes at 3 a.m. and go to his billiards table to experiment.
After I became a 500-break player I often watched Walter by the hour playing nursery cannons. He made it look so easy, and I would say to myself, "If only I could catch on to these nursery cannons"! I hoped that I, too, would be able to make a 1000-break, but practice as I did the secret eluded me and I could not conquer nursery cannons. I could take the balls along the top cushion, pass the top pocket and then proceed down to the middle pocket, but to overcome the skillful move of passing this pocket was beyond me.
On several occasions, I asked Walter to help me with this move, but much to my disappointment he did not come to the party. There is no doubt that nursery cannons were the secret to Walter Lindrum's mammoth breaks. After making 500 or so at the top of the table, Walter would indicate that he would then play a series of nursery cannons. In two strokes he would have the balls in position and proceed to add a further 500 points by means of nursery cannons, after which he would return to top of the table play.
Playing at the top of the table is very demanding on the player as it calls for heavy concentrations. At the same time, the player tends to tire because of having to make quick moves from one side of the table to the other. Walter could overcome this problem by quickly switching to nursery cannons, then back to the top when it suited him. All the world's leading professional players could, perhaps, play top of the table as good as Walter, but none could switch to nursery cannons like Walter. That made all the difference between him and other players.
Harking back to my days at the CYMS Club at Yarraville, I recall a young man named Jim Long coming to live in the district. I had heard that he was an up-and-coming player and naturally I was anxious to discover how good he was. He joined the Club and we became very good friends. We played a lot of billiards together and at that time I think I had a slight edge on him, but there was not much in my favour.
Our old style of play was comparatively slow and a little boring to the onlooker, as it would take about ten minutes to compile 100 points. Later we were to learn that by playing top of the table we could make 100 in about 4 minutes. One day Jim told me that a young fellow named Horace Lindrum (a nephew of Walter) was making breaks of 700 and 800 in Lindrum's Billiards Saloon in Flinders Lane, Melbourne, by using the top of the table method. I learned that Horace practiced regularly between 9 and 11 a.m. each day when the saloon was not busy, so I called in one morning to watch him. I thought to myself, "It's a quick way of scoring, and it looks easy". I noted that Horace was doing his own scoring, so I quietly asked if I could help him. He agreed, with the result that I was able to get a close view of everything he did. I watched intently and learned a lot.
Some four years later, in 1935, I won the Victorian Amateur Billiards Championship for the first time and was selected to represent the State in the Australian Championship to be held in Sydney. On one occasion in Sydney, Horace was a member of the audience. He was about to leave for England to compete in the World Professional Snooker Championship. When I was introduced to him he looked at me and said "Your face is familiar", so I reminded him of how we first met in Melbourne. He then told me "That is the way I learned the game, I would watch my uncle Walter". On that occasion I was defeated by the then Australian Champion, Les Hayes, but Horace urged me to keep on practicing.
Les Hayes was purely a red ball player, and very slow at that. I shall never forget my first and only encounter with him in the Australian Amateur Billiards Championship. In 1935 the title was contested in a match of 1,000 points, played in two sessions each of 500 points. As it was my first experience in an Australian Title Series I was very nervous, and Les won the match by about 800 points. He was a very tough opponent and gave nothing away, not even to a young player like me. With ten minutes to go, the score board read: Hayes:955, Cleary:195. To my dismay at that stage of the game, he potted my ball and left a double balk. He was a real killer. Unfortunately I never had an opportunity to even the score with him. His untimely death in the following year shocked all billiards enthusiasts
In 1936 a leading amateur player named Fred Hancock defeated me for the Victorian Title. Fred must have watched Horace Lindrum practicing top of the table before I did, because he employed a raw type of that method of play, which was good enough to allow him to easily defeat me. I realised then that top of the table players would always be better than good all round players. Fred Hancock would have been a great player had he stuck to it, but unfortunately for business reasons he drifted out of the game.
After watching Horace Lindrum at practice, I could not get to my Club quickly enough to try out this top of the table play. Although it had seemed easy when performed by Horace, I found it rather difficult but very interesting. After about six months I was able to compile breaks of 50 and 60 by means of top of the table play, but there seemed to be all sorts of traps and at times I desponded of ever mastering it. However, I persevered and slowly my ability to handle the top of the table improved. In this type of play there are many difficult moves and it took me many years of practice to become really proficient. In later years Walter Lindrum stated that he considered I was the best amateur exponent of top of the table play in the world.
Eventually Jim Long began to develop top of the table play. Each time he played against me he would almost knock me over to get a closer look at what I was doing and he was not too proud to ask a few questions. I helped him to the best of my ability and he rapidly improved, so that we became even greater "enemies" on the table. We were always trying to out-do each other, but he was a few years behind me and it took him some time to catch up. This he did, and Jim eventually became a great player. His knowledge of top of the table play today makes him one of the best amateur billiards players in the world.
Jim and I were the only players in Victoria to make any real progress with this modern style of playing billiards. At least 500 players in regular competition, striving to improve their game, would give a great deal to be able to play top of the table at a reasonably good standard, but only a handful have made any real progress. George Ganim, a protégé of mine, showed early promise - in fact, he defeated me for the Victorian Championship in 1945 - but to my disappointment he has not progressed as well as I had hoped. George is a likable chap, a great all round player and a lover of billiards, but the mysteries of the top of the table play seem to elude him.
Two good players of the younger generation are Ron Moore and Bruce Stevens. Ron is a player with much potential, but unfortunately cannot give the required amount of time to practice. He could also become a first-class snooker player. Bruce is under the watchful eye of Jim Long and receives a lot of tuition from him. During the last three or four years he has made good progress at billiards, but must knuckle down to more practice. Lance Pannell and Bob McLass, both of the Yarraville Club, are two players with great potential. Lance is a good all round player who should try to master top of the table, but he does not work had enough. Bob is a snooker player who is just learning billiards and is working hard to improve his game. He is one of the best snooker players in Victoria and a good knowledge of billiards will undoubtedly improve his snooker.
Another first-class snooker player is Harry Andrews, who has won the Victorian Amateur Snooker Championship on the last five occasions. However, he is only a moderate billiards player and would undoubtedly improve his snooker if he would concentrate on developing his knowledge of billiards. Geoff Walters, of the Prahran Club, is also a promising snooker player, but unfortunately at present he is unable to devote sufficient time to developing his game. Fred Thomas of the South Yarra Club is also in this category. In Jim Lyons, the Brunswick Club has an outstanding snooker player. He also would improve his game by devoting a little more time to learning the intricacies of billiards. In a competition snooker match at the Yarraville Club in November, 1971, Jim compiled a break of 105; a notable performance.
The past two or three years have also seen the arrival on the billiards scene of a promising young player from Bendigo - Phil Tarrant. I have been taking a keen interest in developing this player, who has a good knowledge of all round play and is fairly adept at the top of the table. He is keen to learn and spends a lot of time practising. I have seen him regularly making breaks of 200 and 300 in good style. If he continues to practice and develops his game on proper lines, much more will be heard of him in the not too distant future.