Last Wednesday the 17th April marked the end of the Spring Wednesday Snooker. April usually signals the transition from winter snooker competitions to the preparations for the sailing season. 

The snooker players can look back on the winter and spring Wednesday competitions with satisfaction. During the year from January 2018 the number of players has steadily increased. We can now expect up to 16 players on the Wednesday nights. This has lead to earlier starts from 19:30 to accommodate the increasing numbers of players.

We restarted the Christmas Competition where we had 18 entrants. Thanks to the cooperation of all the players the Final Match was played on the 10th of December. The winner was Des Brady and the runner up was Jim Freyne. The competition was based on two players playing the best of three frames. A deadline date was set for each round and failure to meet that deadline could mean disqualification for the players. Fortunately this sanction did not have to be imposed on anyone. 

In January the club gave us a Trophy as a prize to help in the development of the snooker competitions. I decided that the Cup would be based on the results of the Wednesday nights and would be called the “Spring Cup”. The competition finished on the 10th April 2019. The Winner was Pete Culleton, 2nd, Tony Mc Evoy, 3rd, Gordon Knaggs, 4th, Liam Carroll. This competition will continue next year.  

Following enquiries about coaching I met Fin Ruane, an International Standard Coach, who agreed at short notice to start holding coaching sessions in the Club. The coaching started at the beginning of March, and sessions were held on a Monday or Tuesday evening. Due to pressure on Fin’s time and his other coaching commitments we were unable to hold as many sessions as I had hoped. We will have a well developed coaching program in place next Autumn.  This will start in September and finish in March 2020. Coaching will be open to all Club Members (over 18 years of age) and will be advertised well in advance. The Members who took part in the coaching sessions believed that they learned from them, and that their playing had improved. I hope that more members will join the coaching sessions and are encouraged to play snooker on a regular basis. 

Finally, I would like to thank Pete Culleton, Gordon Knaggs, Des Brady and Kieron Hynes for the help and assistance which they gave me during the past year. Until next September I wish everyone good sailing,

John Faller,

Snooker Convenor.