Ssb - scottish professional championship returns

[MySockPuppet]

The Scottish Professional Championship is being revived after a 22 year absence.

The tournament, solely for Scottish pros, is being staged at the Lucky Break Club, Glasgow from April 11-13.

The top four ranked Scottish professionals - John Higgins, Stephen Maguire, Stephen Hendry and Graeme Dott - will be seeded through to the quarter-finals, assuming they accept the invitation to compete.

The other five Scots pros - Alan McManus, Marcus Campbell, Jamie Burnett, Anthony McGill and James McBain - will be joined by three former professionals to play a qualifying round, with the four winners progressing to the quarters.

The Scottish Professional Championship ran from 1980 to 1989.

It provided the then 17 year-old Hendry with his first professional title in 1986.

He won it the following two years as well but with so much snooker to play and so little decent Scottish opposition at the time he declined to enter in 1989, when the event was won by John Rea.

The revived tournament will take place in Rea's own club and carries a prize fund of £15,000.

In recent years the Irish professionals have had their own tournament and, in a fantasy world where everything ran smoothly, it would be nice for other countries to follow suit and maybe even have a finals for the various national champions.

Scotland became a great snooker hotbed in the wake of Hendry's remarkable rise to the very top.

A number of good players have come and gone since...Euan Henderson, Billy Snaddon, Chris Small, David McLellan, John Lardner, Martin Dziewialtowski, Graham Horne, Craig McGillivray to name a few.

The Scots failed to win a match at the Crucible until 1987. Since then a Scot has won the title 11 times and appeared in a total of 16 finals.

Having their own championship again gives them the chance to celebrate one of snooker's most successful nations.


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[Terry Davidson]

This is a damned good idea and I think I will suggest this to the Canadian governing body to see if we can do anything over here.

Right now we only have a bunch of ex-professionals but all of them still play pretty well. Our recent HAFA Invitational tournament featured Bob Chaperone and Kirk Stevens in the finals (Bob won), and Alain Robidoux, Cliff and John White also played.

Our major hurdle would be getting sponsorship to hold a gtournament with enough prize money to attract the pros as some have to travel quite a distance, but I'm sure John White would love to hold something like this in his room in Toronto or even Alain maybe in Montreal.

It's amazing I didn't think of it prior to this as perhaps it might be the draw we need to get some TV coverage over here and re-popularize snooker and get some youngsters playing snooker rather than pool

Terry

[ashbash]

pulled this off Scottish snooker web site and reading the forums over there it would appear that a lot of ex pros are taking up the challenge as well as the most of the current pros confirming commitment to the event.going to have to get over to Clydebank to watch some top stuff when this kicks off.


22 years have elapsed since the last Scottish Professional Snooker Champion was crowned.

The event is now to be resurrected in April next year, and the man behind the promotion is former professional John Rea, the current owner of the Lucky Break Snooker Centre in Clydebank.

John was, in fact, the last player to hold the title defeating Murdo McLeod 9-7 in 1989 at Marcos Leisure Centre in Glasgow. John also made a 147 in the quarter finals against Ian Black, the first Scottish player to do so in a ratified event.

“I’ve been toying with the idea for a couple of years now, and since becoming more involved with the grass roots game and managing Anthony McGill, I got the bug to do more, so it seemed the right time to do it”

I’ve spoken to all the nine current pros and they are supporting the event 100%”
Stephen Hendry, a three times winner, is the only current pro to have played in the event, his last appearance being in 1988, so it will be a first time experience for the other eight pros to be playing in their own tournament.

Entry to the Championship will also be available to all former Scottish professional players, and it will be interesting to see how many of them take up the challenge. With a guaranteed £15,000 in prize money, around 70 former pros are eligible to take part, so a good entry is expected, including those still playing in the Scottish national tournaments.

The Winner will receive £5000 with the runner up taking home £2000. The losing semi finalists will pocket £1250, and the players defeated in the last 8 and the last 16 will be on £750 and £250 respectively
The top 4 Scottish professionals on the world rankings - John Higgins, Stephen Maguire, Stephen Hendry and Graeme Dott - will be seeded through to the Quarter Finals.
The other 5 current professionals – Marcus Campbell, Jamie Burnett, Alan McManus, Anthony McGill & James McBain – will be joined by 3 ex-professionals who will have qualified to that round. The 4 winners of that 8 man showdown will advance to the Quarter Finals to play the top 4 seeds.
The qualifying rounds will take place one match at a time, at a couple of club venues in Glasgow between 14th January to 14th March 2011, with the last eight penciled in for 11th -13th April at the Lucky Break. Closing date for entries is 31st December 2010

“The atmosphere will be electric” John assured us, when talking about his plans for hosting the final seven matches on a new match table at his club in front of a seated audience of 200. The people of Clydebank have always supported his previous exhibition events to the hilt.
Well, his plans are certainly causing some excitement among the playing fraternity in Scotland, and a renewed interest in the game. Let’s hope he gets the success that it deserves.

Caledonian Snooker Ltd will be assisting John in every way possible with the promotion and administration of the vent