Big Players' Young Days

(From an Interesting Article by T. A. DENNIS, in The Nottingham Football Post.)

• The late John Roberts had the benefit of his father's tuition and started as a boy.
• Joseph Bennett's father was a marker at the Eagle, City Road, London
• Mitchell at thirteen years of age was errand boy, and sometimes marker at the Angel Hotel, Sheffield.
• Dawson was also thirteen when he was at the George and Dragon Hotel, Huddersfield.
• Stevenson was good enough at sixteen to take an engagement at the Hotel Metropole, Brighton.
• Inman started under his father at the Twickenham Club when fourteen years old
• Harverson learnt at the Bonehouse in Bishopsgate as a boy of sixteen, his father having the billiard room there.
• Peall's father was the proprietor of the Clarendon Arms, Brixton, where the famous spot-stroke player started playing when he was thirteen.
• T. Newman won a boys' tournament in London when eleven, one of the competitors being Tothill.
• Falkiner commenced as a youngster in a South Yorkshire colliery village
• Smith, the present champion, was a compositor, but was a fine player when in his teens.
• George Gray was quite a small boy when his father taught him the possibilities of the all-red route.
• Reece, as a member of St. Mary's Ward Liberal Club, Oldham, was a good player before he was seventeen.
• Aiken started playing at Peterhead when twelve