Welcome BBC Board members!

[Ultimate_snooker]

Hi all, I'm New here. I used to be on bbc606 very long time ago. lately I have used twitter for my Snooker news came across this forum on there.

Love snooker. i like to play it but dont have time or the money to keep it up

My All time Fave player is Ronnie O'Sullivan but no he seems on the wane I'm on the lookout for someone else

[nikki13]

hi everyone,
i've not played much snooker in the last 10 years but recently started playing a bit of pool. was wondering if anyone knew of a club in bristol with a proper steel block cushioned snooker table

[wojtkow]

Hi all, I'm new on this forum, and quite new in the snooker. I started playing few months ago and few weeks ago I started regular training.
I found this forum when I was looking for opinion about cues, and I decided to create account.

[boss21ro]

hello,

I am new on this forum! nice to meet you all!

[PatBlock]

Hi Boss, welcome to TSF!

-

[Rich G]

All right everyone.

The first time I went on a full-size snooker table was back in 1989 when I was 12 years old; I knocked in 36.

Back then all I wanted to do was to be a professional snooker player and be World Champion but unfortunately due to a lack of parental support, my "practice time" only consisted of a couple of hours a fortnight until the age of 15 when I could "upgrade" to a couple of hours a week because my local club used to have free table time from 9 - 11 every Saturday morning.

Despite my severe lack of table time during my teens, I knocked in 30s & 40s and got to a couple of club tournament finals which included scratch league players 2 years on the bounce.

But the week after Ronnie O'Sullivan won his first UK title in '93, someone said to me "if that guy's just won a tournament at the age of 17 and he's only a year older than you, don't you think you've missed the boat?". It was a pretty profound statement and from that point on, I stopped attempting to pursue my dream as it dawned on me there was no way I could get the money or table time to practice and even if I did, I'd missed out on those "prime" years when I know I could have made some real and significant progress.

8 years later in 2001, a mate asked me if I fancied a game before we were going to fly to Majorca that night for a lads holiday to kill a bit of time. Despite many years off the table, I knocked in 47 effortlessly but this still didn't prompt me to start playing properly again as I knew I'd never be the player I could have been as well as the fact I had other things going on at the time.

4 years after this another mate asked me if I wanted to start playing regularly, once a week, so I played during this period for around 6 months and I knocked in a few 50's, 60s and a 70 before other commitments meant I no longer had the time.

Now, 8 years after this I've started playing again to take my mind off some other bad things happening in my life at this time and I've found it harder than ever - obviously because I'm now 36 and I find myself thinking about a lot of technical things that I rarely ever even gave a thought to.

So for the first time ever, I decided to treat myself and spend a couple of hours with a well known coach. During the session he told me that had I had the time on the table during my teens, I would have been a pro which was a bitter-sweet thing to hear.

I'm now playing a couple of times a week practicing alone still making 40s and 50s every time but I just find the game tough and a bitter-sweeet experience as I'm virtually no where near the player I know I could have been but having said that, my love for the game is still there.

Sorry if my post comes across a bit bitter but I feel better for getting it off my chest.

It's great to find this forum anyway because it's great to talk about snooker with others who love the game also.

Rich

[SouthPaw]

Welcome Rich, that was a great first post, enjoy the forum

[Neil Taperell]

Yeah , great first post Rich .

Where do you play ? What cue do you use ?

[jrc750]

Hi Rich, welcome aboard the good ship TSF, good to hear your back in the game

[coomsey76]

Good see to your back playing Rich......

Welcome to TSF bud!!

[Rich G]

**** Test ****

[DeanH]

**** Test ****

Test worked fine

please note, if you are testing number of posts, various forums such as Newbies the posts do not count towards your post count

[Rich G]

Ha ha I made another post but it was awaiting moderation and then nothing happened??

Anyway, thanks for all the welcomes!

I play in Hull and up until a month ago, I've played with the se cue I've always played with since I was 12yrs old; a 57", 15 3/4oz, 2 piece, cheap machine spliced, Riley ash cue with a 30.5m butt and a 10mm tip. It has 20 chevrons on the first piece so I can really feel it as I cue a shot.

A month ago I decided to treat myself to a new cue so I spent 11hrs over 2 visits to craftsman cues in Kippax trying out over 40 cues until I eventually decided on one of the new Maximus cues from Thailand; a 57 3/4", 18oz, ash 3/4 cut cue with a 28mm butt (I think) and it's pretty amazing though it's naturally taking a little getting used to.

Thanks again for the welcome!

Rich

[pottr]

A month ago I decided to treat myself to a new cue so I spent 11hrs over 2 visits to craftsman cues in Kippax trying out over 40 cues until I eventually decided

That's the best way to do it if you're unsure of what to get.

Welcome to the forum.

[itsnoteasy]

Good post Rich, welcome aboard(stay away from the coaching bit ,it will drive you nuts lol).