Dear David,
I'd been planning this trip since last November when I met Dick Ratcliffe of the Dove Valley League at the Darley Dale Tournament, and so it was that 3 fellows and 1 wife set out for Ashbourne by coach from Bath while my wife and I drove up by car from there on Friday 1st November.
We had made arrangements for 2 other players from Radstock to meet us at Mayfield (near Ashbourne) on Saturday, where we were to have a friendly with the Dove Valley Boys.
My wife and I called into see Clive and Tony Glover (of Glover Cues) at Moira and confirmed that they would be at Darley Dale on Sunday. When we met up at Mayfield our group naturally gravitated to the pub, for where the conversation turned to what would we do all day Saturday. I volunteered to go to the Mayfield Club where I met Mick Feeley who without hesitation, handed me the keys of the club with the invitation to go in whenever we liked for a game. We availed ourselves of Mick's hospitality and had an hours knock-up an Saturday morning.
Saturday afternoon was spent doing 'our own thing' in Ashbourne where I was extremely fortunate in buying 2 books from a 2nd hand book stall 'How I play Snooker' (1949) by Joe Davis and ' Billiards' by Walter Lindrum (1932) for which I paid respectively £4 and £2.50.1 wouldn't say the rest of the gang were envious, but they did seem to go a funny shade of green.
In the evening the 2 Radstock players joined us for the match, the results of which I enclose and we were entertained wonderfully by our hosts; a most jolly bunch of fellows who were always ready for a bit of fun whether they were giving or receiving the banter.
We made our various ways to Darley Dale on Sunday for the tournament which as usual was excellent. Apart from the billiards Keith Tozer met up with the Glovers to talk about a new cue, which he hopes will transform him from a 30+ club player into a 300+ potential world champion. (If this does in fact come to be, I hope he will let us all in on the secret!) By the way I hereby promise to buy Pete Gilchrist a pint when I next see him in atonement for the low trick I played on him re being photographed with 2 lovely young ladies.
It was sad that Norman Dagley was not at the tournament and on learning that his illness was more than just flu' or similar we determined to call into see him on the way back. Jim McCann asked us all to sign a 'get well soon' card which I delivered to Norm the following day. I think everybody in that billiard room must have signed it and sent him their best wishes for a speedy recovery. Norman and Nita kindly gave us 2 rose bowls, one of which I hope will be used for an event down this way.
Well what a weekend! If our experiences are anything to go by all the billiard leagues in the country will be scanning the A.B.P. register with a view to having some or more inter-league events. I know that we are looking forward to ours.
Finally I want to thank Dick, Mick. Brian Hayes, Brian's wife and all at Mayfield, Jim McCann et al for the Darley Dale event and last but by no means least the Barnes family who provided the excellent accommodation and food at the Whitworth Hotel.
Dear David,
As we have very little opportunity here in the West Country to watch any professional billiards, 6 of us were delighted to obtain tickets for this years professional tournament in the Whitworth Inst, Darley Dale - we had a weekend to remember.
We would like to say"well done"to Jim McCann and his team for the organisation and presentation of the event, it couldn't have been bettered.
On the Saturday prior to the tournament, a billiards match was played between us from Bath and a team selected from the Ashbourne & Dove Valley league at the Mayfield Club.
Dear Mr Karnehm,
I noted with interest, in the last issue, that matches in the English Amateur Billiards Championship will be played with the new red, white and yellow billiard balls, available from Rileys Ltd at Padiham.
The Darley Dale and District Billiards League, at their last A.G.M.. decreed that in future all their league matches would be played with 'Aramith' red, white and yellow balls which would replace the 'Super Crystalate', 'Crystalate' and at one club, suspected bonzoline balls, which had hitherto been in use. I, with some of my fellow league players, have a new set of Aramith Tournament Champion balls, acquired from Malcolm Lax. However, the club in our league, who all ordered from Rileys, were offered either Super Crystalate, Tournament Champion or Club, all made by Aramith, and all white, yellow and red, all assumed to be the new metric size, being slightly larger than the hitherto 2 1/6" wide diameter. The costs are approx £30, £20 and £10 per set respectively, plus p&p.
I have previously believed that the only new billiard balls were the Tournament Champion, and that Super Crystalate was no longer available. The now defunct BQR magazine had carried an article on the new Tournament Champion balls, finding that all the sets contained balls of exactly the same weight and diameter, which was not the case with all the old Super Crystalate sets, even those sold as 'matchplay'. I am sure that your readers would like to know more facts about the types of billiard balls on offer, and if their playing characteristics vary, even though they are all made by the same manufacturer.
I only have experience of the old Super Crystalate match play and the new Tournament Champion balls. I much prefer (for billiards) the larger, heavier Tournament Champion balls, and find no problems playing with a yellow ball, as either cue ball or object ball. Perhaps you have a contact at Aramith, who could provide a suitable answer for your magazine.