Every billiards lover will be aware of the tremendous impact on billiards that was bestowed by Ralph Macklin many years ago when he initiated the Middlesbrough boy's league. When he retired, his work was assiduously continued by Albeit Hanson and still runs on today. The direct results of the investment of all that effort had been the never-ending supply of champions at the very highest levels.
Names easily spring to mind—Russell, Gilchrist, Causier, Shutt, Birch, Martin Goodwill, Murphy and now Paul Bennett. It seems to me that if you give youngster's competition they are bound to improve much faster than those that have none.
This brings me to an important development in the attitude to youth that has been going on for some time, but which has its roots outside of Teesside. This "youth policy" manifests itself in a fitting way with its own junior billiards team championship on Saturday 1st November at the Newmarket Snooker Centre, commencing 12 noon.
The event is of course the brainchild of the Eastern Counties Billiard League and at this stage I will underline the name of its innovative and hard-working secretary, Phil Welham, who drives perhaps the most forward looking amateur association in the country at the moment.
If you are not catering for youth competition, the issue of the future of billiards is being ducked. I put it to you— where would we have been without the efforts of Macklin, years ago?
Incidentally, I know that some of those that did turn professional feel that there is a barb to that question, inasmuch that there is a feeling deep-down, that they may have cracked the snooker pot of gold. They'll never know will they, but I am sure that foe every one that came off the Middlesbrough circuit, there is a committed gratitude to those who willingly gave their time so freely, years ago.
Meanwhile, six teams of 4 players a side, representing the "A" and "B" sides of Lines; Northants; and Norfolk, will turn up within a proper dress-code, and play on excellently prepared tables—freely given, I might add—for the privilege of playing in properly organised competition and the faint hope that they might win honours.
Northants are the dark horses, their "A" side comprising Dean Bavister, Matthew Sutton and Fraser Adams, but their second string are a joy to behold—billiards fanatics Wayne Gardner and Ashley Thomas (both only 11 years old) bolstered by 13 year old all-rounder, Ashley Burton.
Yes, I do think the efforts are worthwhile