Amateur Comps & Leagues

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What Competitions do SnookerForum members play in?
I'm a member of the Welwyn Garden & District League that runs 3 divisions and many competitions for it's fold; weekend knockouts (both scratch and handicap that have qualifiers and 'turn up on the day' formats), season long comps for low/higher handicapped players (doubles too). They only charge £1.50 or a £fiver for the Weekender events, and the League even caters for billiards too. There's a Inter-County event which we submit the top 6 ranked players into; we managed the semi's in recent years and one of our guys won the 'Champion of Champions' in 2002,
doubles and team/individual comps for and Leagues do people play in 2002. The website of the League that runs it shows that it includes many Ex-Pro's and a few current ones including Alfie Burden; Quinten Hann guested for a side recently too.
The League runs a handicapped team event called the League Cup, my team's notoriously rubbish at it and when we managed to actually win our first match in years in about 1997, the League Officers needed to re-jig the draw which meant our win was classed as a prelim; yup, we lost the next. This year looked good until internal problems made me withdraw from the team for a few weeks which unfortunately coincided with the 3rd round - LONG story!!

What does everyone else do to keep their hand in?

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Popular thread!

Ho Hum, here's a picture of a guy who played for US recently - you looking at me!

[Sonny]

Last game of the season tonight... we were 1 point clear of the team 2nd from bottom with the bottom 2 going down. At 2-0 down it was my turn and I had a good win with a couple of 30+ breaks, although somehow the guy I played managed to get the snooker he required and after potting a long frame ball blue only to go in off the opposite corner I thought I'd had it.

Nervous times were then had when we were 5-2 down with only one game remaining and text messaging revealed the team behind us were 3-3 in their game. There were so many connetations going on - play off or relegation or staying in the top division seemed equally possible. Our last man came good so 5-3 followed by an agonsing wait to see how the final 2 frames of the other match went. 5-3 to our rivals would mean certain relegation, 4-4 would be a play off and 3-5 would see us home.

Needless to say as I write this after many pints of celebration and ears ringing, that the result was the one we wanted.

Did that make sense?

[Sonny]

by the way, that De Niro photoshop is Stephen Hendry isn't it?

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Complete sense, bout 100% proof!

waistcoat and butt gave it away eh. Sonny's Side Up in the local rag I hope! In our League, we've not had a League table since the beginning of last month! Wonder if there's any April Fools posts yet?
Is it 4 play 2 frames off scratch in your patch Son? Play-off if it was equal 2nd bottom? We've got 3 games to go; too far up to worry about being relegated, but not close enough to challenge for top, our B-Team may struggle to stay in the Prem though; only 1 obnoxious G*T in their team I won't cry over. Have you any comps lined up for the off-season?

[Sonny]

No it's 1 frame each with an 8 man team, off handicaps. I'd definitely prefer 4 x 2 than 8 x 1 but that's the way it's always been. I hate sitting through the grindy frames with the last men who aren't particularly good.

I've not really practised enough this season to warrant turning up to any individual competitions - which take up part of a valuable weekend anyway, but I may start getting myself up for practising in the near future. After all, this desire for the game hasn't died in the 24 years I've been watching/playing so sooner or later I'm going to knuckle down again.

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Catch 22, good results and decent breaks gets you fired up, you practice more and that improves you even more - out of that cycle and it's a bit downhill.

We have some clubs that only have 1 table and we play 4x1 snooker and the billiards is 150 up - off scratch. we just chat thru the whole game and make the most of it; they play well to make it strangely entertaining sometimes. Matches off handicap sounds good, I'm thinking of suggesting that to our League Officers. I've talked to a few other League members about adding some tactical spice to the night where one side offers their filled-in score-card for the other captain to pick and choose opponents - we just copy each others at the moment. (My 'ideas.doc' so far has 72 proposals!).

The two newest members of our team gave me an extra incentive for practicing; started the ye-olde best-of-35 ongoing practice match!


(My girly's just said, "You writin your life story up there", and, "What, has he got the day off work to read it!?", giggles ensued with her makin sure you knew she said it in a, "noyce, angelic and jocular tone").