It is now 23 years since I first met Peter Shelley. It was at the Matlock Conservative Club, and I had drawn him in the first round of the Amateur Championship. I forget which area it was supposed to be, I played in so many different ones. The first thing I noticed about this personable young man was that he walked with rather a heavy limp. I heard it said that he had been in a car accident and had injured his leg and had also had a nasty bash on the head. As far as I was concerned on that particular occasion, neither the leg injury nor the bash on the head had been anywhere near severe enough. I remember that game very well. Like most keen players I keep a note of the matches that I play, and I see that in that one, I started with breaks of 47, 56, and 82 and got about 200 in front. I had left little and Peter had attempted one or two high speed pots in attempts to force an opening but had not succeeded. A friend of mine turned up about half-an-hour into the game and asked how I was getting on. I told him that I was not doing too badly and that my opponent appeared to something of a, "Basher." In a way I was right, He was something of a basher, he started to bash the balls into the back of the pockets and kept on doing it for the remainder of the game. He also showed that he had a very delicate touch at the spot end, and he made red ball play look very easy. After giving me a couple of hundred start Peter won by about 300. That particular friend of mine has not let me forget that I once described Peter Shelley as a mere, "Basher." I have got to know him much better since.
Peter Shelley was born at his Grandfather's home - The Stafford Constitutional Club - a little over 50 years ago, the second of four children. His Grandfather was a good player and it was from him that he learned the basics. His father also played billiards and snooker and, at 82 years of age, still enjoys a game. Peter started to play when he was about eleven, sneaking into the billiard room at the club and hiding if anyone came in. He learned the game mainly from his Grandfather and he would travel fair distances to watch good players at either game. Progress was quite rapid and he made his first hundred break at the age of thirteen.But there came a time when he had to consider things more serious than billiards like, for example, earning a living. Peter went into Hotel Management and Catering and for some years had little opportunity for play. Indeed, so wrapped up was he in furthering his career that it lead to a breakdown in his marriage which he, of course, regrets, but remains on good terms with his ex-wife by whom he had one daughter, Helen, who is now 21 and in her last year at Leeds University. Helen is a county netball and tennis player. All the above is not too surprising when considering that as Managing Director of Adventure Enterprises, Ltd., Club, Bars, and Banqueting, it is fairly common for Peter to be working from 9.00 one morning to 2.30 the following morning. I well remember the first ABC at the Reardon Club, Stoke, where Peter is based. It was the 8th October, 1991 and I wrote at the time:-
"Peter must have felt pretty exhausted by the end of the day. He was up at five preparing the roast beef, Yorkshire pud, and two veg, 'proper' Sunday lunch, and making sandwiches for a cold buffet in between peeling spuds (He was short-staffed) He was on hand to give a personal welcome to arriving players, he helped serve coffee, he took orders, he pulled pints, and he carved the joint. In between times he took part in the tournament which he won with a series of good breaks only once seeming in any kind of trouble - and that against Amateur champion Martin Goodwill."
That day Peter beat David Causier in the final, 454 - 288, and averaged over 28. He reports that that kind of schedule is, "Catching up on me," and he intends to delegate a little more and leave himself more time for the cue. Shelley has always been a brilliant rather than a methodical player and I have seen him in matches where his shot selection has sometimes seemed a bit odd and where a judicious safety stroke or two might have paid dividends. But there are few amateurs who can boast of his kind of achievement. In 1967, playing in an exhibition at which he was presented with an award by the then local MP. Sir Hugh Fraser, Peter made consecutive breaks of - wait for it - 589 and 385! Playing one W. Goodwin at the Jubilee WM Club in Leek, he made consecutive breaks of 246, 216, and 276. He has made several 200s and 100s galore playing in the Amateur Championship. He has had a 526 and several 400s in practice games. Whilst we are here mainly concerned with the Staffordshire man's billiards, it just has to be mentioned that he won the British Boys Snooker Championship in 1955 and 1957. He was a regular century break player and has made a maximum, he has breaks of 134 and 136 in competition, and all this in the days when snooker centuries were something of a rarity.
His first billiards success was winning the British Boys in 1957 and he was runner up in the British Junior in 1959 - the only time he entered. Since then Peter has won dozens of championships of one sort or another and many of them against very good quality opposition. He has an enviable record in the Mini-Prix and ABC, He is this year's Grand Masters Champion, and has represented England in Amateur Internationals, and in a World Amateur Championship. The, "Big One," has so far eluded him. Like some other players, he was unfortunate enough to be probably at his competitive best during the Norman Dagley era which meant that the championship was not available. Since Dagley turned professional, Shelley has had to contend with three outstanding amateur players, David Edwards, Martin Goodwill, and David Causier. He reached the final twice and was both times well beaten. He did not have the best of the running in his final with David Edwards, and he ran into Goodwill at the very height of his form. However, as events are turning out, he may yet crown his career with the title. Goodwill is unlikely to compete for a year or two, whilst Causier, certainly, and Shutt, probably, will be in the professional ranks. There are other good amateurs around but Shelley would surely be amongst the favourites.
Peter tries to get as much practice in as he can during the season but plays little during the summer months. He says he is fortunate in having several good practice partners. He is interested in all aspects of the game and is on the Committee of the Potteries and District League. He feels that billiards is hardly a viable enough proposition to devote a lifetime to, though professional billiards is now, and largely, "Thanks to Indian money," a reasonable prospect for some players. He reckons that amateur billiards was making a very pleasing comeback but that the latest proposals, if adopted, i.e. that professionals may be able to play in the amateur championship, will set the game back years, his expression was, "Kill it dead." Well Peter, that may be a little over pessimistic but we know what you mean.
He has a lot of admiration for the likes of Derek and Peggy Townend, Albert Hanson, John Smith, who give freely of their time to further the interests of the game. The players he has admired most are the late Herbert Beetham and the not-so-late Norman Dagley. Of Mike Russell he says, "When playing him at the Stoke Pro-Am his sustained top-of-the-table play was in a class of its own."
Peter Shelley is far from finished. He admits to the ambition of making a thousand break If he ever managed it then he would join the very select band indeed of those who have achieved both the thousand and the maximum. In any event I for one am looking forward to next season and meeting him again and watching him play, not to mention sampling once again one of those, by now famous, Sunday billiards lunches. I can thoroughly recommend both the watching and the eating.
Well done Peter Shelley.