With the Junior ranking competitions now split into Northern and Southern areas, the first event to be played was at the Northern Snooker Centre, Leeds. Almost all of the 32 competitors were products of the Teesside Boys' League, most making the journey from the Middlesbrough area. One of the exceptions was Matthew Peaker from Huddersfield who is a regular competitor in these events. However, the player travelling the furthest was 19 year-old Jason Robinson, originally from Teesside, who drove to the event from Buckinghamshire where he is currently working.
The first round saw the early exit of Matthew Peaker. He found himself on the receiving end of a good performance by Craig Murphy who included breaks of 57 and 51 on his way to a 267-118 result. Jason Robinson recorded a comfortable 225-156 win over Anthony Peacock, but the star performance came from Robin Wilson, who with runs of 72, 66 and 59 amassed a 45 minute total of 424, overwhelming young Paul Snowden who only managed to score 49. This was not quite the lowest aggregate of the round which came from Lee Rollings as he lost 195-41 to Mark Coates. Rollings however, could offer a good excuse in that he had only taken to playing billiards three days previously! At 11 years-old, Ben Hodgson was the youngest player taking part, but he also lost out in his first match to Chris Appleton.
The second round reverted to the more usual one-hour games and again it was Robin Wilson who led the way with an impressive 440-212 win over Michael Donnelly, including breaks of 86, 75 and 37. Stephen Hassack, who is now based in Cosford where he is employed as a RAF Avionics Technician, had travelled up with Jason Robinson who had collected him on his journey from the deep South. With his job affording little opportunity to practice, Hassack still looked impressive as he overcame Carl Watts 345-199. By a strange coincidence his travelling companion Jason Robinson posted exactly the same winning total as he went through against Craig Brown 345-234.
The quarter-finals saw personal best performances from John Hall and Mark Coates who recorded their highest breaks in match-play with 81 and 75 respectively. Hall also broke the 400 barrier, winning his match against Trevor Snaith 457-177, but the top score again went to Robin Wilson who made 495, defeating Stephen Hassack by over 300 points. Breaks of 86, 65, 55 and 52 being the highlights of another impressive performance. Jason Robinson also made the semi-finals, defeating Danny Britnell 290-262.
Robin Wilson posted another big score in his semi-final match, contributions of 64 and 61 helping him to a 442-224 win over Mark Coates, who also managed a break of 50. John Hall could not reproduce the sparkling form of his previous round and lost out by just seven points to Jason Robinson. Hall's break of 47 being the best of the match.
The final started at 7.00pm and by now the rigours of a long day's travelling and playing began to catch up with Jason Robinson. Thirty minutes into the game he was unable to raise a challenge to Robin Wilson and trailing by over 200 points asked permission to concede to match. This was granted by the Tournament Organiser giving a premature victory to Wilson and allowing Robinson to set off on his long journey back to Buckinghamshire.
Twelve-year-old Dominic Mulhall seems to be something of a slow starter in the Junior ranking series, invariably failing in the first round of the main competition and then producing his best form in the Plate event. The Leeds tournament was no exception to this pattern as he lost his first match to Trevor Snaith, then went on to win the Plate with an excellent 299-256 victory against Danny Beagrie in the one-hour final. Beagrie, a stylish player with a great deal of promise, had also been producing some good performances after being eliminated from the main competition by Steve Hassack. He made a break of 62 in the quarter-finals and a run of 58 against Mulhall in the final. But this was not enough to overtake the big lead established by Mulhall who maintained his composure under pressure to win by 43 points.