WORKING MENS CLUB & INSTITUTE UNION

National Individual Billiards Championship - Final

With both Darren Kell and Geoff Charville having entered the CIU Individual Championship from the Acklam Garden City Club in Middlesbrough, the 3-hour final of the competition was held at that venue, being played on Saturday 29th April. Unlike last year, when a special table was erected, the match was played on the club's billiard table. This came with such a reputation that although Charville had made a run of 106 on this surface in an earlier round, there were confident predictions that the competition high-break of just 109 by Peter Shelley, would be difficult to beat.

Darren Kell is presented with the winner's trophy by CIU representative Colin Wright

Play started cautiously, but quickly came alive as Kell took an early lead with a break of 65. Thereafter a period of unremitting safety-play saw Charville gradually claw back this deficit and establish an advantage at one stage of 88 points. Charville's main strength is red-ball play, and he employed this technique well to make several small but useful contributions, "ten-hazards" being called by the referee on a number of occasions. Towards the end of the first session Kell fought back, a break of 90 recovering lost ground and putting him briefly into the lead. The first session finished with Charville again front 297-257, the respective averages of 9.0 and 7.8 reflecting the careful nature of the play.

The second session saw a slightly more open game, with Kell, helped by a break of 59, regaining the lead at 361-319. Charville responded with his best spell of the match which included runs of 53, 52 and 47 in the space of four visits. This gave him an advantage of 50 points, which Kell immediately reduced with a break of 44, and with 20 minutes remaining, the scores where once more locked together. With both players now starting to look a little nervous, Charville was still just in front by a slender 9 points entering the last 8 minutes. At this point Kell drew on his greater experience and held himself together to compile a crucial break of 46, leaving Charville just 3 minutes to make up the deficit. This he failed to do, although he did close to gap to just 15 points at the end. Kell's winning total of 584 just managed to avoid the dubious distinction of being the lowest ever made in a final since to competition changed to a time format in 1954. That particular accolade still belongs to Alf Nolan with his 572 scored against Dave Edwards in 1989.

Darren Kell, who was also the winner of this event in 1997, received the trophy and cheque for £500 from Colin Wright who was representing the CIU. Charville took £300 as runner-up and the high-break prize went to Peter Shelley whose 109 in an earlier round was enough to earn him £100. The match official was John Rhodes from the Teesside Referees Association.