Week 4 match reports a little late (apologies from your Rep!).
Marlboro B v Wallingford A
With only 3 points out of a possible 10, the A Team have had a poor start to the season & really needed a good points haul in this match!
Aaron Tame started v Darren Clark. Aaron played a solid frame in his first match with an impressive 58-8 victory v Chris Rose. He approached this frame in similar fashion & played good safety & solid scoring with another 50+ point win, 51-10 to maintain his immaculate 100% record & impressive average points for & against! Well done Aaron, A Team off to a flyer, 1-0 up!
Next on was Nigel (VC) Prior who scored in similarly heavy fashion on his 'old' home table. You certainly wouldn't have thought it was 20 years ago that he played all his home matches on that table for Marlboro, as he stroked the cue ball around in typical confident fashion as if he'd never been away, carving up a 52-16 point win! A Team looking back to form & bagging frames with lots to spare, 2-0 up!
Next up was another A Team debut boy, Nigel Woods. Now Nigel is a keen footballer, but as his good friend Dave Rowe of the B Team says 'His legs won't go on forever & he'll need something to fill that competitive gap!'. Nigel was facing Chris Freeman & Chris knocked in some lovely pots early on, which obviously were a 'shot across the bows' for Nigel. He responded in typical Club Doubles Champion (he & Dave Rowe are current Club Champions!) style & played good snooker to run out a convincing winner by 64-36 to put the A Team 3-0 up!
Next up was Captain, Pete Billingham who faced Matty Burton. Matt was up against it as Captain, remembering his last match on that table, the memorable League Singles Semi Final win over Ollie Hoeblyn(!) knew that it had VERY unforgiving pockets. So, with this Prior knowledge (get it?), just stroked the pots in, but did play some terrific long pots at pace too, winning by a convincing 62-13 to put the A Team 4-0 up!
Last up (as usual) was the Old War Horse, Anchorman Dave Greathead (finally with a new tip on his cue after getting 2 seasons out of the last one! Got your moneys worth eh, Dave?). Dave faced Tony Rushton & from the start, both players were scoring at the same rate. It ended up with Dave needing pink & black to win. Dave stroked home the pink, but with the black on the side rail & the cue ball just below it, his watching team mates had no view of what shot he was playing as Dave leant across the table. All they heard was the black 'plop' into the opposite middle pocket as Dave nonchalantly played a cross table 'double', which was later described (very accurately) by 'new boy' Nigel Woods as the 'lary'est' shot of the night! Outrageous, but awesome! Final frame score 44-39 & a much needed 5-0 points haul to drag the A Team up the Premier table! Excellent win lads! More of the same please!
Wallingford B v Harwell RBL A
(Match Report by Captain Andy).
Newly promoted Harwell RBL 'A' were the opponents next in our sights. You'll have to excuse the quality of the report as too distraught! (Uh oh, this doesn't sound good!)
The evening started out fine and dandy with Simon Ellam off to a slow start but picking up pace with a few 6's and 8's and polishing the frame off with a nice 20 and playing safe on the black, running out a 68-23 winner v Simon (ex-Oracle!) Saunders. 1-0 to the B Team.
Well what can you say about Dave Rowe except solid and back to normal, making young John Vaughan Junior look like a startled rabbit in his car headlights. A solid trouncing by 69-7 & there is still plenty in reserve!!! B Team 2-0 up (& cruising?).
This is where the evening took a turn for the worse. Next on was Phai. After having a very good warm up with Pete 'A Team' Billingham, confidence was running high ('no prizes for winning practice!' as Bill 'Pop' Billingham used to tell me!). With a cue action that looked as smooth as ever he potted some nice reds but followed with some inexplicable misses. The first sign of nerves from the 'Thai Typhoon'! His opponent was making the most of these errors & it was one of those frames where the harder he tried the worse it got! His opponent let him off the hook a number of times but with more errors than I have seen him make in the whole of the 2+ months I have been practicing with him, the writing was on the wall. When he did pot balls he would go in off. Phai we have all been there and I'm sure you will come back stronger and wiser! Final frame score, Phai lost 33-55 v Pete Davies & 2-1 in frames for the B Team.
Then up steps last weeks only loser (only by the skin of his teeth) Rob House. Rob looked to be well in control even though he wasn't firing on all cylinders, potting some good balls followed by misses he would have got with his eyes closed normally. However it didn't take into account a man possessed, John Vaughan Snr., who potted out of his skin, took everything on & missed very little. After banging home cracking long pots on blue and pink and the white over-running the black tight on the bottom cushion he turned to the score board and cursed when he realised Rob was still alive. Needless to say a man with that determination was not going to lose. Final frame score, 35-44 & from 2-0, it was now 2-2! Hard luck Rob any other day and you would have been smiling.
So to the final disaster of the evening (Andy's words, not mine!). Captain Andy Rance started with plenty of confidence boosted by his opponent saying 'you won't have any trouble here Andy', yeh right! Potted a number of red-colour combos with not easy pots to get started followed by at least three harder to miss pots that would have led to decent breaks. The game progressed from one with an opponent that looked no threat to one where things started going wrong, slightly over-screwed blacks running and running into middle bags, white balls dropping dead weight into middle bags from extremely shallow angles etc. (sour grapes - again, Andy's comment, not Reps!) and an opponent that started potting and kept on potting. The captain laid a cracking snooker (if I say so myself) on the blue up behind the black, leaving the blue very close to the green pocket. The get out was missed and blue left on for a rest shot. Blue was potted but the white ball had a mind of its own ending up on a cushion and making a fairly easy pink very difficult... and that was the end of the get out of jail attempt! Fair play to Kev Calkin, he potted the balls that were there and from all accounts of the jubilant opponents has never potted so many!
The B Team took the defeat with grace (good lads!), & wished Good Luck to a nice bunch of lads. Shame for the B after being 2-0 up, but hey... If you can take a 2-3 loss & still be top... it ain't all bad!
Until next time signing off Captain Andy 'must remember to put a new tip on my cue' Rance.
Didcot Con B v Wallingford C
(Match report by C Team Captain (but spectator!), Kev Pickworth).
Frame 2 saw Alan Wells against John Sheppard. Alan's opponent gifted him 30 points in fouls(!) & Alan took what was there, stacking up the points to come out an easy winner 57-22. C team 2-0 up (& cruising...haven't I written a similar report above?).
Frame 3 saw young Jake Crockett take on the experienced Colin Beever. Colin was always in control of the frame & unfortunately Jake went down 16-55. Never mind Jake, every day's a school day! 2-1 to the C Team.
The evening was running late, so to avoid another 'fading light' evening, the last 2 frames were played on 2 tables.
Joey Edwards played very well but went down to Bob Higginson 16-55. Unlucky Joey, as captain says, every day's a school day - learn from the experience & play better the next time!
Vice Captain, Pete Beaumont went down in the Final Frame decider to Wayne Evans 22-52 to make the final score a 3-2 away loss for the C Team! And that after being 2-0 up! Never mind lads, it even happened to the Premier leaders this week! The 'silver lining' is that you're still equal top at the summit of the 3rd Division with RAF Benson!
And I'm sure it wasn't 'Captain KP's' jinx!
So, next League matches are Wallingford A home v Wantage (need a win there boys!), Abingdon RBL v Wallingford B (need an away win there lads!) & Wallingford C home v Crown Technology (a stern test for the newest team in the League v an ex-Premier/1st Division side!).
'Til next time... see you on the practice tables!
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