A total of 41 players made it to the last tournament of the English Amateur Billiards Circuit which took place at The Reardon in Stoke on Sunday 16th April 2000. It was an important event for the top three players in the ranking list as with only 2½ points separating them, this would decide who was ranked No.1 in England. Philip Welham (137½ points) held the advantage over Lee Lagan and Stephen Crosland (both 135 points) and the current system which requires the points from one of the six events to be dropped, was also in Welham's favour. Any win was guaranteed to improve Welham's position, Lagan had to progress to the quarter-final to advance his total, and Crosland needed at least a semi-final place.
Lagan almost missed his chance completely as he arrived some 20 minutes after the official closing time for accepting entries. However, he managed to telephone the venue en-route, allowing the organisers to make arrangements for both him and his fellow travellers to take part. Welham´s advantage over his main rivals proved meaningless as he was dumped out of the competition in the preliminary round by Tony James. Despite making two 60+ breaks he finished well behind the Tyneside player, who himself contributed a run of 69 in a 278-203 scoreline. Also playing in the preliminary rounds, Lee Lagan looked to be in ominously good form, a break of 107 taking him to a 464 point total in his win over Robert Shanks.
Lagan continued in much the same fashion in the First Round, breaks of 76, 112, and 91 overpowering fellow-Teessider John Hartley, who despite a break of 69 was only allowed to accumulate 170 points against Lagan's total of 495. Stephen Crosland, who had avoided the preliminary matches, cruised to an easy win over young Matthew Peaker, while Tony Keeling and Richard Lodge also displayed good form in winning their respective matches, each making three breaks over 50. Norman Routledge and Alf Nolan contested the closest match of the day, with Routledge eventually scraping through by just 2 points! The second round saw another power display by Lagan. This time it was Jim McCann who was at the receiving end as Lagan rattled in breaks of 133, 89, 73 and 102 unfinished in a 429-190 victory. John Smith was the only other player in this round to threaten a century break. His effort failed at 99, but this was still enough to help him to a very creditable victory over English International, Gary Rogers. This win earned Smith a quarter-final clash against Lee Lagan, who, again in irresistible form, put together breaks of 85, 126, 102 and 54 in a 463-110 victory. Stephen Crosland also progressed to the semi-finals with a 332-204 win over Tony Keeling which included breaks of 60 and 55.
Norman Routledge recorded his best result of the season by reaching the semi-final at the expense of Dennis Marr. Breaks of 60 and 51 by Marr were not enough to prevent him finishing at the wrong end of a 261-231 scoreline.
Michael White left it a little too late to get going in his quarter-final match against David Nichols. A break of 131 unfinished still left him 41 points in arrears at the bell, Nichols having previously contributed runs of 51, 58, 76 and 57 in a 311-270 result.
The battle for the No.1 ranking position was decided at the semi-final stage as the two contenders, Lee Lagan and Stephen Crosland were drawn against each other. In recent matches Crosland seems to have brought out the best in Lagan who has recorded some impressive figures against the Yorkshire Champion. This proved to be another of those occasions, as Lagan put together breaks of 109, 77, 100 and 174 to win 508-199, this being the highest one-hour total of the day. In the other semi-final, David Nichols reached his second consecutive final by defeating Norman Routledge. This was highlighted by a fine break of 138. Routledge, despite a break of 68, could not keep up with the heavy scoring of Nichols who drew away to win comfortably, 362- 224.
Nichols' previous encounter with Lagan in the final of the Newmarket tournament resulted in a massive defeat by almost 400 points. On this occasion he did considerably better, but breaks of 48, 45 and 49 were not enough as Lagan countered with runs of 141 and 47 to win by 62 points, his position as English No.1 having already been confirmed. Lagan's break of 174 against Crosland in the semi-final was the highest of the day.
Lagan finished the season with four victories from the six regional tournaments and his position 15 points clear at the top of the ranking list could easily have been much greater if it were not for his regrettable disqualification from the National Championship. There seems little doubt that over this season in particular, Lagan has opened up some daylight between himself and the rest of the players on the national circuit.
Peter Shelley is usually a formidable opponent on his "home" tables at the Reardon and rarely finds himself taking part in the Plate competition. His surprise elimination from the main event by Ronnie Haigh seem to act as a spur as he progressed undefeated for the rest of the day to take the Plate, defeating Alf Nolan in the final. He was particularly impressive in his first round match where a series of big breaks saw him achieve a 30 minute score of 362!