Saturday 3rd May saw the 19th running of our annual all-day snooker tournament marathon(!), the Gilbert Shepherd Memorial Shield.
After a bumper entry of 24, plus reserves & at the revised earlier start time of 9.30am, the organiser Andy Rance was utilising some of those reserves to bolster 2 who weren't able to attend (thanks for stepping in at late notice Dave Greathead & Eric the stand-in Bar Staff!).
Entrants were; Father & Son Chris & Baz 'Sunglasses' Alexander, Gav Twigg, Ian Pearce, Mark Kelly, Neil Tolley, Phil Hall (defending Champion, having travelled all the way up from Devon!), Brian Orton, Rob House, Tom Hamilton-Williams, Pete Billingham, Dave Rowe, Kev 'Cuz' Higgs, Kev Pickworth, Hugh Baker, Lee Woods, Mike Bishop, Luke Wells, Joey Edwards, Don Sirrett, Dave Glaves & organiser Andy Rance (nursing a bad back!).
With the above 24 entrants split into 4 groups of 6, thatmade 60 matches to get through! With an estimatedaverage of 30 minutes per frame, the group stages were predicted to finish around 6.00pm! And with a good mixture of League & Non-League players & some good handicapping, there were some close games being decided on the colours (well done Andy!).
As per the usual format, at the conclusion of the round-robin Group Stages, the 1st & 2nd place in each group went through to the knockout stages. Some groups were very straight forward to work out, yet there were others where several players were tied on either 2 or 3 wins apiece, promoting much debate as to who qualified!
Neil Tolley didn't make the cut (tough break!), but had done enough with his 3 wins from 5 matches to claim the Best Non-League Player trophy, well done Neil!
The Group Stage High Break prize had some decent breaks (Rob AND Pete both made 37's), but it was Cuz who took the cash prize with a tremendous 61!
So to the Knockout Stages that started with the Quarter Finals. Higgs faced Mike Bishop on table 1, Dave Glaves v Phil Hall on table 2, Rob House v Hugh Baker on table 3 & Dave Rowe v Pete Billingham on table 4.
Kev despatched Mike 2-0, whilst Phil v Dave were having (predictably) a titanic battle which Phil eventually triumphed in. Rob made a lovely 58 break in his win over Hugh & Pete made a nice 35 in his win over Dave (who didn't leave empty handed as he had the surprise of being voted Players Player of the Season & was presented with the Tanner Trophy at GSMS 'briefing' – see previous Blog posts).
So, the Semi Finals lined up as Pete v Rob on table 1 & Cuz v Phil on table 4. Both matches followed the same pattern with Cuz & Pete both going 1-0 up & Phil & Rob both fighting back to level at 1-1 (which also coincidentally were the first frames lost by Cuz & Pete all day!). After battling back to level, Rob forged on as neither coffee nor Red Bull helped Pete through the 'wall'. Conversely, Cuz fought back to take himself into his first GSMS Final at his first attempt!
In the Final, Cuz continued his solid match-play to take the first frame to lead 1-0. Rob, in typical 'never give up' style fought back to level the match & take it to a deciding frame! By this time it was nearly 11.00pm, so you can see why I referred to it earlier as a snooker marathon! Andy & Pete had been alternating refereeing, but even with a round of coffees from Rob, poor Andy wasn't going to make it through the last frame! Cuz carried on his Semi Final pattern of going 1-0 up, level at 1-1 & then win the decider. He played some crucial & telling safety shots & some confident pots to clinch the title despite some spirited opposition from Rob, who had the consolation of picking up the Knockout High Break Prize as well as Runner Up, unlucky Rob.
Congratulations to Cuz on a superb display of consistent match snooker throughout the day to take the GSMS Trophy (ironically putting his mini name shield in place of Rob's last win! Well, until Dave does the new GSMS surround!).
Huge thanks to Andy Rance for all his organising (& stressing over handicaps! Don't worry Andy, they were pretty good!).
Thanks to John Beardsley for his immaculate table preparation (& for starting so early to help accommodate our early start!).
And finally, thanks to Oz, Lucy (who is rehabilitating from her recent hernia operation – Get Well soon!) plus stand-in Bar Staff, Eric for all their hard work & for feeding us.
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