Few of us are gifted with skills proficient enough to play a particular game well and even fewer are multi-gifted to be selective about which game to select to play.
One of those is Chris Shutt.
Football, cricket and athletics were amongst the sports at which Chris showed prowess before he caught the billiards bug.
Chris was a member of the Thornaby Juniors football that competed in the Sunday League.
At cricket he was capable enough to be selected at County Level at Under 13, Under 15 and Under 17 levels and was in the North Yorkshire and South Durham representative side.
An unbeaten 123 was made at Barnard Castle in the North Yorkshire Cup Final and in 1995, having transferred from Thornaby, he was a member of the Richmondshire side that took the North Yorkshire and South Durham "A" division Championship.
Generally batting at number 8 he shared the bowling duties with Dad Albert, another transferee from Thornaby to Richmondshire.
Albert is a former professional cricketer with Worcester. A back injury forced his retirement from that level of competition that saw him compete alongside Imran Khan.
When aged 14, Chris was a Silver medalist in the 800 metres when representing Cleveland Harriers in the National Junior Athletics Championships in Birmingham.
Chris was introduced to billiards when aged 11 when taken to Billingham's Royal Snooker Centre. Spurred on by his fiercest critic, dad, and encouraged by his most fervent supporter, mum Margaret, Chris took a liking to the sport straight away and quickly made the Centre's boys billiards team in its only year of competition.
When the Royal side folded he moved to Norton Workingmen's and came under the influence of their coach Ron Stewart. Basic tuition was provided by Ron and then dad read books to provide more technical expertise.
Endless hours of practice at the Royal and Saturday and Sunday morning opportunity at the Norton Club sharpened the skills.
I first became aware of Chris personally from this time onwards. Unmistakable because of his tallness and gangly "long distance runner" physique, he started to make an impression on the table.
It was in 1989 that Chris took his first league trophy when he reached the semi-final of the Ralph Macklin Trophy. In that Under 15 league individual event, Chris lost to the eventual champion Lee Lagan.
The following year he went a stage further when he lost in the final to Michael Westthorp. Success in the Ralph Macklin Trophy followed when he won the event in both 1991 and 1992.
In 1993 Chris lost in the final of the boys league individual event, again to Lee Lagan.
Amends were made the following year when he claimed the title only to surprisingly lose it in the next year's final. He regained the title in his last year of boys activity.
As Captain of the Norton Workingmen's side, Chris helped his side to league championship success in 1993, 1995 and 1996 and cup honours on four other occasions.
As a 14 year old he started to make record achievements superseding even the feats of Mike Russell.
When Mike moved on from boys activity he held 9 scoring and highest break records which were recorded in the league's Roll of Honour booklet. Now only one of Mike's record achievements still stands, the presumably never to be beaten 307 break made in our 30 minute games.
In April 1992, Chris made his first listing in the league record book with a 331 score. I well recall the efforts of Chris to make a competitive century break. Many failures in the 80's and 90's befell him. I remember writing at the time "once he gets one, they'll become commonplace".
I was fortunate enough to be present when the event happened. At Norton on 17th March 1993 Chris made a break of 121, having made a 98 the previous day.
As predicted, they started to roll in with regularity. In January 1994, having by now made 7 centuries in boys games, he made 2 centuries in one game.
His 174 and 147 breaks gave him a 461 point score which overtook Mike's all-time high scoring record. He subsequently overtook it with a 506 score. Since then, multiple
centuries have been achieved with double centuries and two centuries per game being made.
With enforce "retirement" from the boys league due to age (over 18) and professional status, the Roil of Honour booklet, now substantially expanded, will carry the name of Chris Shutt until another "star" appears (recall what I said about Robin Wilson when he was aged 9). Chris moves on. The English Amateur title with that magnificent 560 break in the final and the ClU Individual title came his way in 1996.
While still an Amateur, he reached the quarter final of the World Open and having turned professional has subsequently made the quarter finals of both the World Championship and the Gold Flake Open when played in India.
With the greatest of respect to Mike Russell, I've stated and still feel that Chris is a better player at this stage of his career than Mike was. Whether he will ever overtake Mike's undoubted prowess and prove to be better than Mike we shall have to wait and see.
Isn't it great for billiards!