Round the Regions

The South West

Wessex Individual Billiards

John Hocking Memorial trophy

Winners: Masters 'A' Taunton, R/u: Masters 'B' Taunton.

Taunton Individual Billiards

Taunton Handicap

Highest Breaks

Southampton and District

Inter League Matches

As Chairman of the Southampton & District Leagues, may I, through the pages of BQR, extend an invitation to other Associations, within reasonable travelling distance of Southampton, to arrange a match, possibly on a home and away basis. Players in our league would welcome the opportunity of competition with players from other leagues and such competition would undoubtedly stimulate interest in billiards within the area.

Sandford Orcas

The first of the annual series of inter-league matches was played on the 15th October at Bradford Abbas and Sherborne. Sandford Orcas were hosts to the Bath and District league. There were ten players in each team and the home players won the match by 7 games to 3. The match was an enjoyable social occasion with refreshments, as usual, provided by Roy Foster's wife June.

Anyone for Dakete?

Mr White also reports that, Wessex amateur champion Brian Harvey, visited his club to do a bit of playing and coaching. Brian provided an interesting evening and convinced a number of non-billiards playing spectators to have a go. Colin White sent a short report to the local newspaper. His short report became even shorter, decimated is perhaps the right word, when it appeared in the local rag. It is surprising that he got a mention at all. The point at issue is that on the same sporting pages of this local free magazine, and in a prime position, slightly more than half a column is devoted to a report an a local 'Dakete' tournament. I expect that there will be one or two readers who do not know what Dakete is. Shame on you. Let me explain. About 200 years ago when I was a boy, we sometimes used to play four or five-a-side games of ping-pong (table tennis!) The teams lined up on each side of the table, somebody served, and the game proceeded by the players running to the end and taking shots in turn, it was a kind of semi-sporting ring-o-roses, and we reckoned it was better and more fun than playing an orthodox game. It seems that Dakete is somewhat similar, except that it is played on a proper tennis court, no serves, no pauses, the players just go hell-for-leather whacking the ball back and forth and having a whale of a time. Nothing wrong with that except that whoever wrote the report goes blathering on about the winners, "taking their place in sporting history," and similar little gems of journalistic piffle. (I must admit to having done not dissimilar things in my time!

So take heart Colin. When the page containing the very first report on this, "new and exciting sport" becomes a collector's item, your billiards report, all half dozen lines of it, will be right along there with it. The only practical advice I can give, is that the next time you send in a billiards report is to give it some sort of heading, for e.g. "Billiards Groupie attacked by Red Ball Sadists Spider. She says I still love him." Well, you could try it. Any reader's ideas on eye-catching headlines to billiards reports welcomed.

Eastern Counties

There are six teams competing in the Eastern Counties League. The latest position is that, after playing three games, Huntingdon are leading by half-a-point from Stiffley "A." Boston are currently bottom but have not yet played a match so there will surely be some changes. The Highest break to date is a 110 by Albert Salisbury - the only century so far. Several players have topped the 400 mark in an individual match the current highest being 491 by Phil Welham. (1-hour games) A challenge match was held at the 147 Club, Huntingdon in which six players from Cambs beat 6 players from Norfolk by 4 games to 2. An encouraging feature of this challenge was that there was also a junior match in which four from Cambs beat four from Norfolk 3 -1.

(Cambridge names first)

Midland League

Jamie Moore wins End of Season Tournament

The Reardon Club, Stoke-on-Trent was once again the venue for this popular event. There were three attractions:-

• The Tournament
• The Prize Giving
• One of Peter Shelley's super lunches

The tournament was won by Jamie Moore who will be playing next season for a new Nottingham Team. Runner-up was Graham Willis who played his usual solid game and made four half-centuries on his way to the final.

The plate competition, played over an hour, produced higher aggregates and bigger breaks than the main event. It was won by Ellis Lloyd who a break of 70 in the semi final. Plate runner-up was newcomer Stan Day.

The prizes were presented by league secretary John Smith of Cheltenham

• League winners: Stoke (Peter Shelley, Tony Keeling, Ian Birch, Eric Houghton)
• League Runners-up: Nuneaton (Richard Ingram, Ritchie Evans, Alan Orton)
• The highest break of the season was 211 by John Smith.
• Peter Shelley had most wins (17 from 18)

Shrewsbury will not be competing next season and have been replaced by the new team from Nottingham.

The newcomers from Nottingham made a good start with a 6 - 3 win over Derby, but Derby were able to open their account with a victory 8 - 1 over Nuneaton. Kidderminster started their campaign with a 9 - 1 defeat of Banbury. This was the first ever, 'Whitewash," in the league's history. Kidderminster are thus setting the pace with 14 points from two games. Stoke and Derby both have 11 points. Nottingham and Nuneaton both have 6 though Nuneaton have played two to Nottingham's one. Rugby have 4 points, and Banbury 2; it is still early days.

Centuries to date:-

League secretary John Smith has been contacted by the Eastern Counties secretary Phil Welham with a view to arranging a match between the two leagues for the BQR Cup. The cup was originally presented to be played for by teams representing the Eastern Counties and the Southern Counties. It seems that the Southern Counties are unable to compete this year. If the match can be arranged then it should be a good and interesting day of billiards between two well- matched teams.

Taunton and District

Ray sends details of a match played between representatives of The Taunton and District League and the ubiquitous Sandford Orcas. It was a fourteen a side affair and Taunton and District were beaten by 16 games to eight. Well done the S & 0. The highest breaks of the day were 65 and 57 by Ken Gray for Taunton. Dick Watts could manage only a 42 in two games which leads BQR to wonder just what kind of match this was! Was it not last year that this fixture became renowned for a certain referee getting things in a bit of a mess, and is it not from that part of the country that the "Scrumpy" is somewhat potent? Maybe that explains one remarkable cannon played - diagram next issue.