After spending almost a month tirelessly scouring Moscow for undiscovered (pool) talent, it was great to find myself back in the familiar surroundings of Racks Pack Towers. In my absence the guys had managed to put themselves top of the section, as good as booking our place in the knockout stages at the same time, and pulled off a miraculous recovery at the Thatched. Perhaps the greatest achievement was that ‘the Slugger’ had single-handedly managed to keep the blog going so I was able to keep up with events from behind the Iron Curtain.
It’s a tough life this blog business. It may read like a pile of dribble that gets knocked-up in about 5 minutes but that isn’t the case. It takes work to produce this quality of dribble every week.
Firstly you have to try and make 12 frames of pool sound exciting every single week, and that’s not easy when at least four of those frames belong to Coach Shiel, ‘Grinder’ Greenwood and JY. Robert Uzzell has got more flair in his trousers then these three put together!
Secondly you have to try and remember who played who (if you weren’t clever enough to write it down, and most of the time we aren’t).
Finally do you seriously want to watch 12 frames of pool every Monday? Of course not. You want to have a beer, chat with a few people, play a few frames yourself and lose some money in the fruit machine!
So Monday night comes around again, and having missed a few games I spent the first few frames catching up with the rest of ‘the pack’. In truth it only took me about 15 minutes to get up to speed with most of them - the other 45 minutes was taken up getting the full sp on Brads love life. They say a week is a long time in politics – that’s nothing compared to three weeks in ‘the bears’ social life. Apparently big boobs are out this autumn. The beeping SMS messages were raining in to ‘The Beaconsfield Casanova’ so fast we might as well have been having the conversation in Morse code.
On the pool side (a whole lot less interesting frankly, but it is why we’re here) Coach Shiel had sensibly dropped himself following four straight losses. It had become so bad that other teams were starting to spell his name on the result cards with an extra L on the end just to save time. I was restored to the starting line up in his place, presumably because he was hoping I would lose and he could take the piss. Ben didn’t show yet again and is rapidly turning himself into the new Brad, whilst Brad did turn up and is rapidly turning himself into the new Mr Reliable.
After some early season chopping and changing, it’s become a regular and predictable occurrence that Slugger leads off for the Racks pack, and this week was no different. Up against Ashley Dingley he always felt confident, especially after Lisa, the Earls Angels Captain, had won the toss and asked him Ashley if he wanted to break. The reply came back “yes, at least I’ll get a shot”. 0-1
Brad followed this with a routine win over Anthony Coombes that included at least one entry for pointless shot of the week (0-2) and Vic & myself quickly made it 0-4, Vic beating everyone’s favourite pool girl Claire Dormer after the Dormouse went in off. Lee then continued where he left off last week, losing to Tyler Coombes in a result that will surely be repeated again and again if Tyler continues his development and Lee’s continues his indifferent form, A nice finish from Tyler and it was 1-4.
Last but not least “Magic” decided that 1-4 was not exciting enough for the home crowd and lost to Blue Tatham. Displaying flawless local table knowledge he left himself a long yellow down the rail that dambustered its way along the cushion and into the top right corner with the black at his mercy. 2-4
In the second half Brad decided that only having one entry into the pointless shot of the week competition was not enough to stack the odds heavily enough in his favour, and added at least two more in his defeat of Lisa Floyd. 2-5
Last week JY had given us all a lesson in how to use the rest, and this week continued his educational tour demonstrating “how to use two shots on the black”. In fairness to him, when he’s down on the black and about to seal the game the last thing he needed was Lee Greenwood yelling at him “Don’t let him use the rest HAHAHAHA” as he cued up a sitter 8 ball. I didn’t think it was possible to miss a six inch pot by four inches, and I don’t think Lee did either, but there you go - he cannoned it wide of the pocket but still left himself straight on it with his second visit against Baron. 2-6
The rest of us managed to clinch our double double-u’s on the night, and even Coach Shiel managed to sneak himself into a 12th frame victory over Anthony Coombs and end that four game losing streak.
Anthony gave Lee and I a lift home so a big thank you going out to him.
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While I was away I bumped into Laura Average’s cousin Helena in a bar. Contrary to some hideous slander that appeared on the blog last week, she was a complete lady. I agreed to show her how to properly handle some equipment that I was holding. It was bigger than she was use too but she got to grips with it in the end.
It got me thinking that perhaps we should use this blog in a more educational way and for the benefit of the pool community. On Monday Anthony Coombes was after some DVDs that would be educational to his son. Luckily he asked me, as no doubt Brad would have suggested the r-rated version of “three into two does go”, and goodness only knows what filth Lee would have suggested. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of anything any.
Tyler is an excellent young player and perhaps most importantly seems to have a spot on attitude for his age. Personally I think this is absolutely key to him becoming a great player in the future. Anyway I couldn’t think of anything to help him off the top of my head so I asked the team on Monday to help out and John Young kindly volunteered this piece based on his frame at the Thatched Cottage last week.
Ow ta use the rest by John Young
“Sumtimes ya play a shot rite, and the fooking b@sted white rolls too far up the fooking table. That’s wen ya hav to get the fishing tackle oot. Get Brad or sum other ugly koont to put the thing on the table rite, cos yous don’t wanna do it yourself and maybe drop it like.
Get ya cue rite, and put the pointy end on the bit with the cross and carefully move the b@stad in ta position. Tek a few practice swings cos yous have to have the line rite and then deliver the b@sted in a smooth motion.
Then rite, yous need to pull the rest up fookin sharpish, making sure that you hit the black with it and smack it across the table givin’ away too shots like. Actually, don’t fookin do that otherwise sum other ugly koont will win the frame. Goan Racks ya talented b@steds!”
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Thanks for that insightful explanation JY - There’s something for us all to learn there. Next week, Wonder Walls will explain the benefits of having a pointless drag shot in your locker – is it the most useless shot in pool? Keep your browsers on Rackspack.blogspot.com to find out.
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