David Rees (Derby):— "Albert Hanson writes 'Where have all the billiard competitors gone?' Maybe they could just be as fed up as I am with not knowing when and where competitions will be held and what format will be used.
I sent off an entry form for the national team knockout for the season 1996/7. This tournament was played on 26th April 1998 Was this some sort of joke?
Why can we not have a proper Billiards Calendar published well in advance. This works well with the ABC Tournaments. Just the dates would be good enough for a start. If we have the dates of each stage of each tournament then Billiards players throughout the country could arrange their own local competitions accordingly and can be spared the task of continually rearranging matches. Rearranging matches can be a tedious job, especially team matches where you have to arrange a date to suit half a dozen players and possibly referees. The situation also occurs where players have to drop out after winning several rounds because they have a holiday booked which clashes with the date of the next round.
So come on Billiards Committee, get your act together and let us have a proper Billiards Calendar for National events just like we used to. Is it too much to ask that this could be done by the end of October?"
Albert Hanson replies:— Thank you David for your letter. The fact is that the Billiards Committee did establish a calendar for season 1997- 98, the problem was we didn't stick to it.
We have to hold our hands up and say we messed up and upset a good many of our supporters apart from yourself. I am advised that the Midlands organising body arranged their tournament programme around our declared schedule and then found themselves in conflict with us because when we rescheduled it clashed with their arrangements. We obviously regret the inconvenience caused.
The Billiards Committee has established a tournament calendar for the new season which appears on this page, and I 'm confident that we 'II adhere to the dates and schedule this time.
To you and all other Billiard supporters affected by our lapses, we apologise. Please stick with us and let us prove that we can do it right.
Extract from a letter by Brendan Carroll (Birkenhead):— "Regarding content [of the magazine}, I think there has been an improvement, but maybe still too much reportage on matches of rather minor interest. Snooker Scene became unreadable nearly because of that kind of thing. I'd like to see something like the old Billiard Player, from the times when Clifford and Holt were editors, but realise that they had a much bigger readership with more feedback from readers and the like. I would like to contribute more than the occasional letter, but am at the present very occupied with my job.
I have a friend in Aussie—Geoff Williams, a prominent referee who contributed to Tom Terry's mag sometimes. He says he has not so far been able to get the ABP and that there are several people in his position. Maybe you need a better contact out there to increase sales?"
[It is the policy of the ABP to give as complete coverage as we can to all the major billiard competitions, and—providing that we have the space—we are happy to publish local news and events from any areas which care to supply us with the information. At the moment, we have the space to publish almost everything we receive, so if you, or anyone else, know of a topic or event which you feel is more worthy of inclusion than the present selection, please let us know. This includes contribution s from overseas, so perhaps your friend in Australia -would like to do something for us. If you care to supply his contact details we can also send him as many subscription forms as he needs.—Ed.]