Amateur Billiards

Compass Credit Amateur Championship

This Tournament was held at the St. James Snooker Club, Luton, on Sunday, 25th November. The Tournament was Amateurs only and attracted 50 players from places as far apart as Exeter and Liverpool; Norwich and Chippenham. The first Prize of £300 was taken by Amateur Champion Martin Goodwill. 1986 Amateur Champion Ken Shirley took £150 as runner-up and an extra £50 for the highest break -175 unfinished made against Leeds player Alan Firth in the 3rd round. Goodwill had a 121 in the Final and a 133 against Taunton's Dick Watts in the third round. The only other century came from Woking player Chris Ross against John Barnett in the first round.

The Sound of Music

Eddie McNicholas took £75 as a Semi-finalist which helped defray the expenses of a long journey from Widnes. Eddie claimed a great deal of satisfaction from a musical/showbiz sort of tournament. On the way to the Semi he beat Hoffman as in, "The Tales of," Carmen as in Bizet's Opera, Moore as in Roger, Reeves as in Jim, but lost to Shirley as in Temple.

Ken Shirley

The Tournament was a great success. It would be nice if there could be more such. The difficulty is, of course, finding Sponsors, willing Clubs, and people prepared to do the organising.

Snooker Success

Paul Dunning (Chester) recently cleared the table with a break of 89 in a Chester and District League match, while Branson Hoole (Thorne) has reached the Northern Area Final of the B.C.E. Grand Masters Tournament and is in the lead for the Top break prize with an effort of 77.

Taunton League

Brian Harvey's team, "Regency," started the season well and took the lead over last year's winners 147 Club 'A' Brian has had two centuries to date (124.100) whilst Dick Watts has also had two (100.137) for"Railway. "is team mate Colin Hampton made his first league 50.

Exeter League

Bill Andress has made a break of 171 in a league match thereby breaking his own record which stood at 161.

Notts Institutes

Mini-Prix regular Malcolm Pilkington (Bulwell 'A') has had two centuries in league games this year, 105 and 100. Bulwell 'A' - winners last season are having a rather poor season.

Norwich

30 players entered the Woodside Open Tournament which was sponsored by the Woodside Club. It was a pretty strong field the players including Vic Tallant, Phil Welham, Clive Scott, Gerry Hoffman, and Colin Extall all of whom are respected players on the Mini-Prix circuit. Gerry Hoffman beat Colin Extall to take the first prize of £75 and also £20 for the highest break - 75 - rather low considering the ability of many of those taking part.

Inter County Chaos

Clive Scott - Norfolk Team Organiser - writes:-

"We understood that we were to travel to Woking to play Derbyshire, the winners to play either Kent or Wessex for a Semi-final place. We planned to start at 6.0.a.m for the 175 miles journey but having learned that Derbyshire had withdrawn we started a couple of hours later. The weather that weekend was very bad. We could only travel very slowly to Swaffham to pick up Phil Welham, the M25 was blocked by an accident and we eventually arrived at Woking only to find that Wessex had called it off and so we played Kent. We won the match 845 -525, had a frightening journey back to complete a round trip of 360 miles. We were then informed by the B.& S.C.C. that we should have to play the winners of Derbyshire v Wessex at Woking on Jan.12th. After a lot of 'phone calls by our Association Secretary, Albert Stewart, we confirmed that Derbyshire really had withdrawn but that we would probably have to play Wessex for a semifinal place that we thought we had already won."

Happy Birthday

It was at Leeds that Jock McGregor announced his seventieth birthday. I know more than one player who hopes to be in as good a condition as Jock when he reaches his own seventieth - including me (Ed.)