| No. 8, June, 1911 | Price 1/6 per annum to any part of the world. Single Copies 1d |
BILLIARD MONTHLY PORTRAIT GALLERY
VIII.—EDWARD DIGGLE
The publication of a portrait and a sketch of Edward Diggle, one of the greatest billiard players that the world has known, is appropriately timed, inasmuch as the 27th of last month brought to a close what will probably go down to billiard history as the crowning achievement of his career.
Exactly what he has done in 96 hours' play, spread over four weeks, with Stevenson (who conceded him 5,000 points) is this: He has beaten Stevenson level by 7,388 points; he has compiled an aggregate of 38,123 points; and by scoring these points in 96 hours he has averaged 397 points per hour. He has made, during the contest, a break of 686, a break of 529, 3 of over 400, 6 of over 300, 19 of over 200, and 86 of over 100.
In his particular style of easy, effortless, and effective play, Edward Diggle stands at the head of the professional billiard world to-day. To watch him at the table is an education, as to encounter him in good health must be regarded as almost a despair by anybody.
He is by no means the possessor of robust health, but latterly he has been much better than usual. And one of the results is his total against Stevenson.
Whilst Diggle is playing one dominant question arises in the mind of the onlookers. And that is: Why should he break down? Whilst avoiding all problematical niceties and rarely resorting to masse or other spectacular shots— although he knows all that there is to be known about any of them—he calculates the run of the balls by inches, and sends them where he will to do his bidding or abide his time.
The beauty of Diggle's play is that you can see it all done. Each cue movement speaks and each break is a lecturette. To know how Diggle will play the next stroke one has merely to ask one's-self the question: Which ball does he want to tackle after this stroke? And if there is a shade of scoring advantage or extra ease to be obtained by" laying up "the one shot instead of the other the answer is supplied and the shot can be foretold.
In his preface to a book on billiards recently published (Billiards Simplified, by Wallace Ritchie), Diggle says that he does not believe in theory in billiard playing. Yet every shot that this great player makes at the billiard table is theory demonstrated. Let us watch him, and take a lesson as we look; and we shall soon know whether there is, or is not, theory in his play.
The stroke is a simple one—a quarter-ball or three-quarter ball in-off. He elects to play the half run-through, and We notice, as he places his tip on the cloth, that if a line were drawn down the centre of his cue and through the centre of the cue ball and prolonged it would terminate half-an-inch inside the edge of the object ball on the pocket side. Diggle would not call this theory; he would call it practice. Yet what is it, and what is all practice, except applied theory.
Again watch him, this time making a gentle half-ball stroke. With this stroke he wants to pot the red and leave his own ball to an inch or thereabouts in a desired position.
We notice that the red just reaches the pocket and what interests us still more is that the length of travel of the cue ball after contact with the red has been practically the same as that of the red ball—as Diggle knew it would be, and as the laws of motion and percussion make it is impossible, under the conditions of contact, for it to be otherwise. But Diggle would call this practice and not theory. It is really applied dynamics.