Has there ever been a more enthusiastic player than Bill Andress from Bradninch near Exeter where he was born and still lives? I doubt it. I have read somewhere in Levi, that for years, old Riso played a 500 up every night of the week and sometimes two 500s up. It is still a bit of a mystery how the greatest billiards writer of them all actually earned his living but he seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time in hotel billiard rooms up and down the country. Leslie Driffield, too, was an incurable addict and could apparently be found almost every morning of the year on the doorstep of Smith and Nelson's, Leeds, waiting for then to open. There are many other cases and probably every player could relate instances of men who were simply not happy when away from the table, and to whom eating and sleeping were boring necessities; men who when not actually playing the game, were talking about it, and when not talking about it, were reading about it. The question remains, has there ever been a more enthusiastic player than Bill Andress? There is one thing for certain, there can hardly have ever been a player who was prepared to put in as much travelling time. I have been going to national one-day tournaments as player and reporter for a good few years now and only recall one where Billy was not present. That was because he was playing in a West country championship final, and despite a great deal of negotiating and thought, had found it impossible to be in two places at the same time.
The genial west countryman thinks nothing of a round trip of 500 miles to play in a one-day tournament and will play in about ten of these each year. One of his most famous exploits was in driving from Exeter to Birmingham one Saturday to play in a County Championship match, going home after the game (as he had arranged to give someone a lift) and then driving to Middlesbrough for a Mini-Prix the next day!
Look at another fact. Over the last 19 seasons Bill has played 2,154 matches winning 1,570 and losing 584. (This number will have increased since the time of writing.) That's an average of 113 matches per season or just over two every week. Billiard players as a species are renowned for their enthusiasm, but I have yet to meet one to equal Bill, let alone surpass him.
Bill Andress was born in Bradninch some 50 or so years ago and on leaving school took up a position as a bank clerk from which job he was recently offered early retirement. We can imagine with what joy he stopped counting money to indulge in the far more interesting occupation of counting even more hazards and cannons than had previously been possible.
He is an exception to the rule that it is necessary to start as a boy in order to become a good player. Bill did not start playing the game at all seriously until he was in his thirties and he did not make his first century until he was thirty-five. Since then he has increased his tally of century breaks to 2,162 which includes 38 double centuries and one triple. Of these breaks, 167 centuries and one double have been made in competition. He never had any formal coaching, learning the game - like most players - from watching, and playing with, as many good players as he could. He practices ever)' day and has a practice best of 370 made in 1992. His best in competition is 204 made in the final of the Torbay KO. and he has had a 180 in a Newton Abbot league match, and a 161 in the Exeter league.
Bill has won many local championships including the Devon individual 11 times and the Cornwall individual twice. He has played in numerous league-winning teams and in many county matches. The high point of his career to date was in being picked to play for England in an international match in 1989 when he won two games and lost one. He has been runner-up in two Mini-Prix Pro-Ams and one ABC amateur tournament. He has five times been a quarter-finalist in the Amateur Championship. He reckons that his best performance was in winning an Exeter league match when facing a double-baulk and needing 152 points to his opponent's 2. Well! all that is not a bad record for a man who didn't really start playing until about 30.
Bill Andress is not known as the most subtle of players and rarely scores many at the spot-end. But he is remarkably good stroke player and can rattle up points with all-round play at a speed that few can match. In a one hour game, given a few openings, he can put a couple of hundred on the board in no time as many a player has found to his cost. He is the type of player who seems to have some sort of stroke whatever the leave and is not afraid to go out to score. Indeed, Billy, is not noted for safety play, and, though generally a free-striking cueman, is never afraid to play delicate strokes when the position demands it and when failure means a certain leave for one's opponent.
The players he has most admired over the years turn out to be Norman Dagley, and more recently Russell, Sethi, and Gilchrist, and particularly for the speed at which this trio can score when in full flow.
His personal ambitions are to play for a good many years yet and to get as far as he possibly can in the Amateur Championship. Well, he now has more time than before to develop and refine his game and, if his eyes and nerve do not let him down, then his chance may yet come. As a young man Bill was a keen cricketer but nowadays lists reading crime fiction and book collecting as relaxation from playing billiards. Players from all over the country will be looking forward to seeing Bill again at the start of next season, they are not likely to be disappointed. Well done Bill