Sunday January 25th saw the preliminary rounds of the English Amateur. I could never have won the Amateur but I think that I may just possibly hold one record and that is for having played in more different areas than anybody else. I have played in the Notts Area, Notts and Derby, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Peterborough. I was once drawn in the Home Counties but had to withdraw. I think the reason was that I was something of a billiards loner in Nottingham and the authorities stuck me in any old area where they needed someone to make up the numbers.
This year I played at the Breaks club in Lincoln. The billiards was extremely well organised by a Mr. Bernard Barker supported by a squad of referees, markers and recorders. All the players and officials were made most welcome by the club owners and given a free drink token. A young chap brushed and cleaned the tables after every game. I think that most of us would agree that the playing conditions for billiards in many clubs are not always of the best, but at the Breaks club the conditions were excellent.
I had played in the Amateur at this club before and have a rather humorous recollection of the occasion. It must have been some ten or eleven years ago, maybe more, and there were just four players. Mick Andrew from Skegness, Bill Watson of Grimsby, Bill Turner also of Grimsby, and myself.
All players of a certain age will, I'm sure, remember Bill Turner. He was said to be a wonderful player in practice, capable of big breaks and an expert nursery cannon player. Somehow or other he seemed quite unable to demonstrate this ability when playing in matches and I never saw him make even a fifty break. On the day in question, I played Bill Watson, a good solid left hander who beat me, whilst Bill Turner was beaten by Mick Andrew. Watson then played Andrew for the qualifying place.
I stood by the bar to watch a little of the Watson/Andrew game. Bill Turner, who was very fond of a cigar, stood nearby blowing a foul cloud of smoke all over the place causing me to cough and splutter.
"Well," he said addressing no-one in particular, "Well" He leaned against the bar, put his head back and blasted a cloud of ash, sparks, and smoke towards the ceiling.
He turned to me, "Well," and then again—much louder— "Well." He continued in measured, deliberate tones, "It says in all the books (puff) that in a game of billiards lasting (hacking cough) an hour or more," (pause for breath) "It says," (another reeking cloud blasted over everyone within range,) "It says that in a game of an hour or more, (gasp, ahrrrr) the run of the balls will even out."
He grabbed his cue case and made to depart. On reaching the door, he turned, pointed the cigar at me like the lethal weapon it actually was and as though something or other were all my fault, and in tones of bitter disgust bawled, "Well, I can tell you that it's not f***ing true!"
And with that he disappeared in a puff of smoke like a stage magician. I suppose that Bill reckoned he had had a bad run.
For some weird reason Bill turned professional, his first match was against Roxton Chapman and in his second he held the other cue whilst Mike Russell performed. I saw a little of both these games and it was not a pretty sight. I do not know what has happened to him, I have not heard anything about him for some years. Bill Watson too seems to have disappeared from the game. He was a pretty good player, I believe he had played snooker for England.
This year I played a chap called C. Payne. I won fairly comfortably as Mr Payne did not do too well and I am sure can play much better than he did. I then played Phil Welham and was well beaten.
My best year was in 1982 when (Derby area) I qualified by beating Herbert Beetham who, although well past his best, was still a formidable opponent, and Jim McCann against whom I had breaks of 128 and 136 in succession. The competition proper was played at the Widnes Snooker Centre.
I got to the last eight by beating Ian Williamson who had not then turned professional. I was thrashed in the quarter final by Bill Eady of Peterborough. I didn't play at all badly but Eady was a much better player and, at the time, one of the best billiards/snooker players in the country. A year or two later poor Bill contracted cancer and died when still quite young.
There are no prizes for guessing who won the championship that year. In the final Bob Close scored 2,169 points at an average of 26.4, but his opponent scored more than twice as many with 14 centuries and a highest of 427. I don't have to tell you who—do I?
I have mentioned that I played Phil Welham. The last time I played him was in an ABC tournament at Nuneaton where he made a very good spot-end century against me. This time he did not play quite so well. His touch at the top-of-the-table play let him down a little, once he recovered with a very nice little masse", a shot that very few amateurs can play well. What did not let him down was his potting.
Ah yes, the potting!
There is not the slightest doubt that the standard of potting amongst young amateur players is now higher than it has ever been. The technique of cueing and striking has evolved. The square stance, the grip and wrist action of the modem player is quite different to the cuemen of years ago—and they are consequently much better potters. This leads inevitably to an earlier mastery of spot end play and the ability to score bigger breaks more quickly than ever the red-ball or all-round player could. Intelligent and talented youngsters like Causier or Shutt needed only a year or two of watching the established professionals to become double century break players for the simple reason that when in trouble they could recover position time and again by virtue of their extraordinary ability to down the red no matter how tricky the pot seemed. Chris Shutt won the Amateur Championship at the age of just turned 18 and in the final made a break of 566, a break containing dozens of firmly played positional pots at the top end. How many times have I heard older players sighing, "f I could only pot like that."
There is nothing wrong with playing an open game—of course there isn't—but, as I have heard Geet Sethi say more than once, top-of-the-table is mainly about rhythm, once flowing it is essential to keep the rhythm going and the only way to build up confidence and proficiency. This is not to say that a player should play silly strokes to stay at the head of the table, of course not, but neither must he be too conservative in his play or be over worried about breaking down—the breaks will come. This is not to say that a player should not sometimes voluntary leave the top during the course of a break in order to vary his play—of course he should. The point is that any ambitious player has to be proficient at the top end, there is no argument that there lies the road to success in the modern game. A man may practice the red ball and all-round game for hours on end but the brutal truth is that when he comes up against a spot end expert he will be beaten almost every time and certainly if the game is of any length. For those of us who have no ambitions, who simply like to play a game of billiards in the traditional way it doesn't matter, but for those players, not excluding older players, who still hanker after a win here and there, you have got to be able to get your pretty regular 50's and more at the top, and to do this you have to improve your potting—or the young Teessider's are going to eat you up!