Where Are Billiard Players Born?

Great billiard players are like the common people in the respect that they have to be born somewhere. I have been asked if there is any particular part of the country where embryonic champions are best reared, and can only say from a study of the birthplaces of the mighty ones of to-day, and their predecessors, "I don't know."

Still, I will give a few of the most famous players' birthplaces, and readers can then judge for themselves. The big industrial centres are, of course, the birthplace of the majority of billiard players, but, strangely enough, rural districts are represented by at least six of the world's greatest exponents of the game.

I had started this article with the idea of calling attention to the preponderance of the North Country players over those of the South, but at this stage I thought it advisable to write down the names of 25 well-known cuemen whose birthplaces I think I can remember, and am amazed to find that 12 were born in the South, 10 in the North, 2 in the West, and one in the Midlands. At least two of the Northerners (Stevenson and Newman) are really Londoners, although born at Hull and Barton-on-Humber respectively.

What I have just noticed is that, even as the waters of the Trent make good beer, the waters of the Humber make bonny billiard babes, for it was at opposite sides of the great river that Stevenson and Newman were born.

Old John Roberts was born in Manchester, where young John, "our John," also first saw the light. Joe Bennett, W. Cook, and W. J. Peall came from the districts of Town Mailing (Kent), Sandy (Beds.), and St. Pancras respectively. Billy Mitchell, commonly called "Bradley's Boy," and later "The Sheffielder," was born at Birkenlee (I think that is how it is spelt) in Derbyshire, and his contemporaries, Fred White (London), George Collins (Portsmouth), Tom Taylor (Exeter), put the South well up at this period.

The North Country then has a turn, with Diggle (Manchester), Dawson (Huddersfield), Stevenson (Hull), and Reece (Oldham). Next John North (Bristol) and John Lloyd (Wales) bring the West into the picture, while Bateman (Birmingham) and Osborne (Leicester) put the Midlands on the list. Poor Billy Spiller (Hertford) and Cecil Harverson (Brixton) are now added to the Southern team, which is considerably strengthened by the arrival of Inman (of whom many of my readers may have heard) from Twickenham.

The last decade has given us three worthy Northerners in Smith (Darlington), Newman (Barton, Lincs.), and Falkiner (Featherstone), while signs are not wanting that, with Davis (Chesterfield), Raynor (Sheffield), Tothill (Bury), Lawrence (Birmingham), and Carpenter (Cardiff) coming along rapidly, Arthur Peall (Brixton), our sole hope of the South in the years to come, will have his hands full.

Here is a South v. North team of men I have seen in my time. Which would you back?

At a first glance the North appears to have it easily, but if we go a long time back and rely upon collateral form it is not such a walk-over.

Bennett and Cook were at one time Roberts's equals, and but for matters outside actual billiard playing might have remained so. Cook was made too much fuss of with the result that he broke down in health and died a comparatively young man, and his epitaph might well have been "Save me from my friends." Bennett, at the zenith of his fame, met with a trap accident that lamed him for life and ruined his career as a billiard player. Peall, with the "spot in," was Roberts's superior, and Spiller, but for ill-health, might have been champion.

Inman we know as a great player, but Harverson was at one time quite as good as he and Reece. Taylor seldom lost a money match, a remark that applies to Geo. Collins, and we have yet to see a better cannon player than young Willie Cook. Now, Roberts was always a good two thousand better than Dawson and Stevenson, who were that much in front of Diggle and Mitchell, so this brings us about level on the very old form. From this, however, with Falkiner, Smith, and Newman, the North goes ahead, and I am afraid must be declared the winners; but give me the two London brought-up ones, Stevenson and Newman, on the Southern side, in place of Collins and the younger Cook, and I will give to them of the North Sala, with Aiken in, and the South would be on top.