Having been brought up in a very hard school, one of the accomplishments that I learned there was the necessity of being able to blow my own trumpet. There are few people who know me who could say that I am in any way weak in this particular branch of music, and, after having had the run of Fleet Street since 1881, I say, in all sincerity, it is quite as well. The art of getting other people to blow your trumpet is confined to a select few, such as Lloyd George, Charlie Chaplin; Oscar Asche, Joe Beckett (who sometimes wishes the performer had less wind), Mrs. Asquith (who sometimes seizes the instrument herself), and Melbourne Inman.
I simply mention this, because, being asked to write an article about "The Billiard Press," I felt inclined to condense it into the one loud blast, "I am the Billiard Press." There are limits, however, even to the most inveterate of trumpet blowers; and candour compels me to admit that there are others. Lest we forget, however, I think it as well to mention the fact that I accept the full responsibility for the general newspapers taking any notice of billiards, a game that, so far as publicity is concerned, was confined, when I came upon the scene, to The Sportsman, The Sporting Life, and The Evening Standard. The leading billiard pressman was Mr. Geo. Payne, who wrote for The Evening Standard, his contemporaries being Billy Fuller, Tom Griffiths, Harry Hackett, and Harry Green, all of The Sportsman, while Charlie Brampton and Fred Clarke represented "The Life." Later we had Alf. C. Burnett (The Sportsman), Sydenham Dixon (The Sportsman), Tom Dunning (The Sportsman), V. M. Mansell (The Sportsman), Charlie Larrette (Sporting Chronicle), Sam Mussabini (Sporting Life), and Jack Godfrey (Sporting Life). Mr. Mussabini was the first to give a light touch to the, up to then, very dull details of the game that appeared in the papers, and, writing of Roberts's big tournament in 1898, he emulated Silas Wegg and dropped into poetry, as follows:— "Mitchell won the tournament, And afterwards, 'twas said, He went straight down to Stratford, To paint that township red."
We have no actual knowledge as to whether the famous Sheffielder succeeded in the artistic process, but I do know that he drew the first prize of £400 on a Saturday night, and on the following Tuesday tapped me for a dollar.
When Mr. Mussabini left The Sporting Life and joined the Sporting Chronicle he was succeeded by Mr. Geo. Reid, who, as "Hazard," has delighted many thousands of readers of billiard notes, and by his keen statistical mind has saved me many hours of labourious work. "If you see it in ' Hazard's ' notes it is so" is my motto, and that of many other billiard pressmen. It is all very well to say: "Never spoil a good story for the sake of accuracy," but it is as well to be able to refer to at least one writer with whom accuracy is a fetish.
Of the other writers of to-day who matter, reference only need be made to Mr. Geo. Mussabini (a chip of the old block) (The Sportsman), Mr. Harold F. Gale, a brilliant writer whose articles in The Observer and Pall Mall Gazette are widely read, Mr. Charles Mitchell, Mr. Geo. Richmond, and Mr. Herbert Young. The last three are good enough to assist me, and Mr. Young—more often than not the solitary figure in the press-box at Thurston's—appears to be thoroughly in love with the game; so much so, that he has only taken two holidays in the past twenty-five years, once to spend two years in South Africa, and upon another occasion four years in East Africa and France. For this he has something' to show—as many medals as a brigadier-general and a badly-shattered arm.
There is very little of the light side of life attached to billiard reporting. The lavish entertainments that form the prelude to big boxing competitions, and the cheap—even free —refreshments that are the pressman's privilege at other sports gatherings, are lacking here; although about once every five years one of the table makers may invite to a luncheon about three of the most distinguished members of the Fourth Estate. Some day, perhaps, players and promoters will realize that but for the billiard press billiards as a popular spectacle would be as dead as a well-grilled Yarmouth bloater.
[We are glad to have this racy article from Mr. Harry Young, as we were to have from him that on "Personality in Billiards," which appeared in our last issue. In his outspoken keenness and the abandon of his style, Mr. Young probably stands alone amongst sporting writers; but there is really much more of kindliness than of criticism in what he writes and says. As to the former characteristic, let the many thousands of pounds that have rolled into St. Dunstan's Home for Blinded Soldiers on his initiative testify.—Ed. B.P.]