Special Report - Yarmouth Seven-Man Team Qualifiers

If You Want Great Yarmouth – Follow The Bear (or How I Tried To Buy Some Time Before Having To Write The Match Report Where I Lost Twice In One Night)

We have another bye this week readers so before we get to last weeks report (is that the match where you lost twice?) I thought I would thrill you all with a tale of whooping-ass and ass-whooping that is the final qualifiers for the Yarmouth Seven man team competition.

For those who don’t know, there is a UK-wide competition every year called “The Champion of Champions.” The only criteria for entry is that (1) you must have won or come second in the top league of your association or (2) you must play for Robert Uzzell. There are play offs between the best teams in the various regions, and the winners go to the finals at Great Yarmouth. The finals are supposed to determine the best ‘pub’ team in the UK.

In the last few years winning the league in Slough was enough to get you straight through to the finals in Yarmouth, but in recent years the competition has expanded, we (The Irish Club) found ourselves in a qualifier against The Twigg – the winners of the Bracknell and Ascot league.

The qualifying format is a race to eight frames. The first to win 8 frames goes through and if the match goes to 7-7 then there’s a tense one frame winner-takes-all decider.

Our team consisted of JY, myself, Coach, Bradley Bear, Terry “Triple T” Dingley, Pat “Phudger” Phelan and Steve Payne (the player not playing in the Maidenhead league).

The match was played at the Irish Club, and the atmosphere was fantastic - The Twigg brought around 15 supporters on top of their playing side. As a result every frame victory brought with it a series of high fives and cheering that resembled the Ryder Cup matches. From 3-1 down we wrestled our way to 4-3 up after Terry and JY played some outstanding stuff to help drag us back into it. Brad’s win preceded a sublime 8 ball finish from Steve to put us into a 6-4 lead as the match reached it’s denoument, but The Twigg battled back to 6-6. Coach then gave us all a heart attack when he turned a simple finish into a “Go your own way” special to give us a 7-6 advantage and it was on JY to try and clinch the match.

After knocking in an excellent long yellow down the rail, he let himself a thin snick on the black that he just over cut, and the Twiggs man cleared his last few balls to level the match at 7-7 and force the decider. The three candidates to play the deciding frame were Steve, Brad and myself. Steve said he didn’t fancy it, but Brad had one of his “I am not losing this even if I have to play left handed” looks – so the choice was simple.

The Twigg’s captain then made what I consider to be a critical error.

In a decider I always prefer putting in someone who is 100% reliable to play their frame, and that’s not necessarily the best player on the night. In this case they put in a guy who had won twice, but frankly had gone for and got clearances where I thought he had got the run of the balls. He had played brilliantly no doubt, but I wasn’t sure how he would cope with the pressure if he had to get into a safety exchange.

Part way through the frame Brad left him a teaser - a long red that needed a miracle to pot and free his last ball - and he fell for it. After potting the red he was left with no shot on his last ball and could only knock it out into the open. Brad played a snooker, got the two shots and potted the last four yellows before rolling in the black for the win.

Brad went berserk and we went berserk with him. He screamed out “GET IN THERE “as the black was still on its way to the hole and we all piled in on top of him when it dropped. An amazing match and wonderful result for us. Oddly enough everyone had played two and lost one over the first 14 frames so each player contributed something (so you didn’t lose both then Keith, that makes a change !). The Twigg players have to be commended for helping create a great atmosphere, playing some excellent pool and sportingly wishing us luck in the finals. It was good to see Rab Weir for the first time in a long while. ‘Wazza’ produced a top class eight-ball clearance under pressure in the second half and the guy who lost the decider really didn’t deserve that fate considering the two frames he had won.

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So now that’s over with, lets move on to the controversies. My first one - and this really bugged me - was watching ‘Lucky’ Birdy refereeing all their matches. A referee is one of those ‘seen and not heard’ jobs i.e. just stand back and let the play continue. What annoys me with lucky is that he practically tells his players what shot to play. If they have a few balls left he walks round the table and eyes up the pots, sometimes actually bending down to ‘sight’ balls.

Five times on Friday he ‘sighted’ a pot for his players.

When I say sighted I will give an example of what happened in Steve’s first match. The Twigg player has a few yellows left and one tied up on the black spot touching some reds. The yellow didn’t go and had to be freed somehow. Lucky walked around the table and looked at a yellow into the centre. He positioned himself where he thought the white should be so that you can pot it and cannon into the bunch. He even crouched down to stare at the angle on this yellow even though the white is somewhere else. He effectively told his own player where he should put the white so that he can clear the difficult ball out. I’ve no doubt that the player would have seen the shot anyway, but that’s not the point and it’s not in the spirit of the game.

Now onto controversy number two (coincidently the number of frames you lost last Monday!)

We at Rackspack towers like to believe that we are teachers as well as students of the game. Our reason for being is to try and pass on over 100 years of collective pool playing knowledge. We’ve seen it, done it and got the paperweight plastic trophy. Occasionally we get self indulgent and tell some stories and reminisce about old times. But last week we added a new ‘string’ to our bow – predicting the future. Does anyone remember this prognostication from last weeks blog:

“The Lady Haig (Slough – Lee Greenwood, John Townsend, Danny Raj, Ben etc) travel to The Twigg in Bracknell this Thursday to play off for a place in Yarmouth at the national 7 man finals. They are up against a side captained by Dave “nom de plume” Bryant * so make sure you check those cards carefully up there.”

The Lady Haig were runners-up in the Slough league, and they were drawn away to the Twiggs second team in one of the other qualifiers. The match was played the night before ours on the Thursday and the LH lost it 8-6. By all accounts it was a close encounter with plenty of winding up going on from both sides as the match went on.

To enter the CoC you must register all your players on the entry form, and the rule is that all of the players you register must have played 50% of your team’s league matches when you qualified for the CoC. The rule is designed to stop sides qualifying, and subsequently grabbing the best players from their area and sticking them together in a side. All sensible stuff really and it means that if you won a league and then moved teams you would still be able to go back to the old side and play in Yarmouth even though you were now playing elsewhere.

So it was a bit of a surprise when a certain Twigg player mentioned to Lee that he had only just signed up for the Twigg and this was his first season.

Yes, as forecast by us it was yet another Dave Bryant special, straight from the man who brought you “This is Steve Ring, I mean Leigh Morshead”. The man who is currently serving a ban from the Maidenhead league for playing ringers to try and win the premier. A phrase involving “leopard” and “spots” springs to mind.

I have no problem with Dave’s players as it’s not their responsibility - it’s their captain who is taking the risks. Most of their team - including Dave - came to the Irish on Friday to support the other Twigg side. We gave our customary welcome to Leigh Morshead of “Hi Steve” and Leigh took it in good humour as it’s all done with smiles and handshakes.

So a complaint is being filed and another tournament committee is going to have to sort out this guys mess yet again. Why does he do it? He runs loads of tournaments and competitions in Bracknell and Ascot and puts a lot of time and effort into the game, so surely he knows what a total pain in the arse it is sorting out other peoples mess?

To compound the ‘faux pas’ prior to the game you could log onto the Bracknell and Ascot website, click on the teams from last year and it shows you all the individual players and their averages. Of course the offending player’s name is nowhere to be seen. The player admitted he wasn’t part of the side and the website backs it up so there’s your evidence. The Haig has a watertight case by the looks of it.

Or do they ???

Go to the same website now, and click on the teams name and - in my best Keyser Soze impression “like that….’puff’ - he’s gone!“

Yep, unless I am looking in the wrong place or at the wrong thing the whole lot has vanished, no stats, no players lists nothing. Coincidence?

Why do I even bother to raise this issue? Basically because I can’t stand seeing cheating and corruption, I cant help it. I was on the Thames Valley committee for ten years and you get sick and tired of dealing with crap from players who should know better. Oh and don’t get me started on things like FIFA, UEFA, Cup draws or other branches of football and sporting governing bodies (oh god, please DO NOT get him started on this – ED). It’s one of the only things that truly winds me up (if only – ED)

I’m not claiming the moral high ground here as none of us are perfect, but I know the Lady Haig players well we would normally share caravans, sort out drivers to get there, etc. So with what’s happened can they book the time off work yet? Of course not and no doubt by the time it’s eventually sorted out some of them wont be given the time off at short notice and will miss out. Can we arrange cars and drivers to get there? No. How many caravans and chalets we need to book? No idea.

Of course the Champion of Champion organisers will have to make a decision, and until then the Lady Haig and Bracknell players will have no idea who is through. The Slough league committee need to be involved in my opinion, as the Lady Haig are their league representative in the tournament and they should be fighting their corner as well. Are you getting my point now?!? One silly move and suddenly 20 or 30 people are caught up in this screw up.

So watch this space and we will report on whatever the outcome is when we hear it. The finals are on the first weekend in November.

Now I can finally climb off my soapbox for another week.

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To try and end on a happier note, I will give you two bits of classic cheating, both from the Rackspack Towers archive and both from the same guy who I wont name. He played for one of the top teams in the Slough league a few years ago, and his name cropped up in a conversation I had with Peter Lofts a few weeks back. I was reminded of two stories about him. I was on the receiving end of the first one, but only heard of the second second-hand.

At the Irish Club, the guy in question has one red left over the right baulk corner. The black is on its spot with my yellow stuck to it so the black doesn’t go anywhere. There are no other balls left and the white is touching the black so the cueing is awkward. The bridge is quite tricky over the top of the black and yellow but he plays the white dead weight all the way up the table to tap in the last red over the top corner. As the white trickles up the table the ref watches it all the way…not seeing the fellow in question use the thumb of his bridge hand to quickly roll my yellow a centimetre to the left. When the red drops he walks round the table and suddenly the black now pots into opposite corner! I raised this with the ref and the player said “did you see it ref” , “err…no I didn’t” , “well then you cant call a foul then can you !”

On this occasion there was natural justice - He then went in off the black. What a tosser.

The second incident involved the same player in a competition. He broke and potted a red, and with his next shot rolled another one over a pocket. His opponent approached the table, and asked what colour he was on, so he told “reds”. The opponent then pots a red and the guy called a foul and two shots against him, claiming it was the opponents fault for not paying attention to the frame. The organisers are called and he denies saying anything and goes on to clear up knocking the other guy out.

Nice man, very nice man.

K&K