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