Wessex entertained Cornwall in the annual billiards and snooker challenge match at the Bradford Abas Club on 29th March. Wessex won the billiard matches 5-3 with the top score of 315 (one hour) coming from C. Walters, who was representing the home side.
The evening of Saturday, 24th April saw the Southern leg of the biannual tournament between Sandford Orcas Scrumpys and Dove Valley Black Puddings. The down-on-strength visiting team put up a spirited performance and were beaten only on aggregate by the Scrumpy six ensuring that the unique trophy remains at Wincanton for at least the next six months when hopefully we again join battle at Ashbourne in Derbyshire.
On Sunday, 25th April a revised format for the Top Cue Amateur Tournament saw 21 players competing in the qualifying rounds for the 8 places in the concurrently run Rose Bowl and newly introduced Salver sections of this competition. The intention of the dual sections with random pairing of opponents was to try to give the lesser able players a chance of reaching the semi-finals. In the event this proved to be the case with J. Masters, K. Langley, D. Lord, and C. Walters coming through together with higher ranked B. Harvey, R. Waft, W. Andress and P. Davis. The overdue finals shortened from 1 hour to 45 minutes saw Harvey beat Andress 263-187 and Davis prevail over Lord 169- 80. Some good breaks were recorded especially in the qualifying rounds by Steve Poynton (52), Bill Andress (57, 72, 92), Phil Davis (74) and Brian Harvey (76, 92, 101).
Chris Shutt did the honours in presenting the Top Cue Rose Bowl to Group A winner, Brian Harvey, and the Blackmore Vale Magazine Salver to a delighted Group B winner, Phil Davis. Davis then played the first hour of an exhibition match with Chris Shutt. A rather tense 20 minutes followed with neither Phil nor Chris making much use of the facilities but then, perhaps after getting to grips with the atmosphere and table, Chris opened up with a splendid break of 301 in just 16 minutes; the highest ever achieved at Wincanton. We had pretty well settled for this break but Chris had different ideas when in the second hour, playing against Brian, he notched up a superb 316 again in 16 minutes. As one person put it “not much longer than it takes some snooker players to chalk up and take the next shot !” Despite the absence of further high breaks, the unfettered Shutt, by now totally at home on the club table, put on a show of brilliant exhibition shots performing with ease strokes which many of us thought difficult, if not impossible.
For this feast of enjoyment we must thank everyone involved including the four additional professional referees who came initially for upgrading testing but who willingly joined in and helped whenever possible. Our thanks also must go to Bass the major sponsor, the five local sponsoring firms and to the many people who helped in various ways. As a footnote we are pleased to say that from the proceeds a donation of £100 has been made to Cancer Research.
Ten games were played at venues in the Radstock area on Saturday, 10th April when Sandford Orcas played their away leg in this annual fixture. Despite some creditable scores, breaks were only moderate, the best being 54 by Sandford´s Jack Masters closely followed with a 53 by Radstock player Jack Battle. The match was won convincingly by Sandford 7 games to 2 with one game tied.
Our best players down this way are Derek White and Dave White (no relation) who play in North Cornwall, Charlie Gay (Carharrack) and Noel Meagor (Playing Place B). These players seem to win most things between them. Doug Thorncroft rarely plays these days. In a recent Falmouth League match Charlie Gay made two century breaks in one match, including 107. He also made an 87 in the League´s knock-out competition.