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Post by Chris_Sav on Jan 4, 2012 10:19:11 GMT
This board has been set up to allow Matt Eley, the editor of Inapub magazine, to gather information to write an article on Bar Billiards.
Please keep all posts factual and not trivial. The staff will produce a factual resume at the close of this exercise if Matt has points he wishes to clarify.
This is a rare opportunity for our underpublicised sport so please please help Matt with prompt replies as he has a deadline to meet
Chris Saville
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2012 10:54:48 GMT
Welcome Matt, Let's start you off with some early history of the game: www.mastersgames.com/cat/pub/bar-billiards.htmBrief history of origins. So it will be seen that it has existed in its present form since the 1930s. It quickly caught on in pubs, and demand for tables was so high that they were manufactured in their thousands for hire operators based in Kent, Sussex, Berkshire and Lancashire. Leagues sprung up in Oxford, Reading, High Wycombe, Winchester, Canterbury, Wokingham, Andover and Wallingford. Certain operators favoured certain table types - SAMS Brothers of Hoddesdon, Herts supplied Sussex; W.Jelks & Co of Holloway Rd, N.London supplied both the Kent- and Ascot (Berks)- based operators, whilst Rileys of Accrington supplied the North of England - as well as the Channel Islands. Two amazing facts have since emerged - one being that the original tables have proved to be so durable and to such a clever specification, that all attempts to produce modern variations of matching quality have more or less failed, with League play still taking place on tables which are now 70 + years old in 99% of all cases. The second is that a mass export of tables (mainly to America) took place in the 1980's and tables now exist in this country in their hundreds rather than their thousands. Rather perversely, no Leagues have been heard of as being formed in the U.S. so it appears that they all went into private homes on sole merit as smart pieces of furniture. With the insurgence of the game of Pool into UK round about this time, hire firms struggled to find their business arrangements sustainable, and the price of a game kept going up accordingly......from sixpence to a shilling, to two shillings, then 50p and finally a pound. Pool hire seemed more viable when you consider a game between two good players could be over in a couple of minutes, whereas bar billiards is for a constant duration of between 15 and 20 minutes when the bar drops. Alternative methods of hire to the traditional one of "profit share" were tried, with landlords being charged a 'flat rent' by the month - with the obvious disadvantage that the table would need to have constant use in order to pay its way, and indeed, justify its retention - sometimes difficult in this day and age with the whole pub industry itself under threat due to various factors - which others may be willing to elaborate on. The only traditional hire firm remaining is the one based in Sussex (= Tarratt Tables), with the other main source of supply being the pub chain owners themselves, who have built up their own stocks of tables - sometimes of inferior quality ! This apparent shortage of tables of the quality needed to sustain League play leaves any prospective new venue with a dilemma - often solved by the landlord investing in his own table, acquired privately via the medium of eBay. Clive Thompson |
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Post by matteley on Jan 5, 2012 8:25:47 GMT
Hi all,
Just wanted a say thank you for helping me out with this article. Inapub maagzine is a monthly publication that goes to around 11,000 pubs, primarily freehouses. The article on bar billiards will appear in the February issue in a section dedicated to looking at pub sports. All the info you are providing is extremely useful and is much appreciated.
I know you have the map on the site with all of the tables across the country but does anyone have a rough idea of how many tables there actually are and how many of these would be in pubs as opposed to other venues such as social clubs? I am trying to establish how important the pub is to the future of the game.
Thanks in advance
Matt
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Post by barbelman on Jan 5, 2012 8:34:51 GMT
Hi all, Just wanted a say thank you for helping me out with this article. Inapub maagzine is a monthly publication that goes to around 11,000 pubs, primarily freehouses. The article on bar billiards will appear in the February issue in a section dedicated to looking at pub sports. All the info you are providing is extremely useful and is much appreciated. I know you have the map on the site with all of the tables across the country but does anyone have a rough idea of how many tables there actually are and how many of these would be in pubs as opposed to other venues such as social clubs? I am trying to establish how important the pub is to the future of the game. Thanks in advance Matt I'm just doing it Matt! ;D cheers Tony |
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Post by Chris_Sav on Jan 5, 2012 9:30:02 GMT
Welcome Matt I hope we can help.
I view that all traditional pub games are under the severest threat ever at present with the now wholesale closure of pubs.
I go through the lanes from Deal to Canterbury on a regular basis and my route takes me past one open pub and eight that I have drunk in and are now closed. Many of those I have played bar billiards in.
There an awful lot of fifty somethings that used to play bar billiards and remember it as a brilliant game. Many non league and some league table take very little, maybe only two to three pounds a day. Landlords often do not realise the small amount of space the table takes with play only from one end. Whilst those games are being played the combatants are also buying beer and that's where the profit is made.
The game is still recovering from the shock of the major table operators, bar Billiards Ltd. of Ascot ceasing trading. Leagues, clubs and pubs have been forced to buy their tables. Sussex are fortunate that they still have Tarratts trading.
The game has suffered terribly by the demise of the pub as a social hub. Tescos type megamarkets, and to some extent TV, have taken the heart out of social communities with the closure of village shops and Post Offices and pubs are going the same way with supermarket beer available at a quarter of the inflated price pubs are charging for beer nowadays. Soft drinks for the drivers are ridiculously expensive.
A few of the more forward thinking leagues have formed table connsortiums to pool ownership. The void still to be filled is in the area of table maintenance and the knowledge of what makes a bar billiard table 'Tick'. Any pub thinking of installing a table has an instant problem now in where can I get one from?? The few available from companies attract prices well in excess of £1k. There are many on Ebay, but these are mostly on poor condition or of the 'Narrow' variety that Sams produced and league players would not touch them with a bargepole. The modern MDF tables from Supreme have never proved popular. The league consortiums can at least supply tables and do not need to be profit making so can talk sensible deals with landlords.
I'm afraid that our game will continue to contract as pubs close. Long term licencees are few and far between now and the bar billiards table is often the first thing to go when yet another new manager takes over. They cannot see the loss of trade the table generates even though it may not take much itself.
With regard to your article Matt, if there are different specific areas of enquiry you wish to explore, I would suggest starting a different thread for each. This one topic will quickly become a tangled web.
Chris Saville (Sav)
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Post by barbelman on Jan 5, 2012 10:40:00 GMT
Hi Matt Here is the data from the bar billiards map of tables that we have created. Obviously it is never going to be 100% accurate as tables are forever moving about and there may be some that we haven't tracked down yet! The map is at tiny.cc/onw9j
Total tables Total in league Percent in league
Public houses 523 133 25.4
Clubs 94 64 68.1
Hotels 24 0 0
Bars 7 0 0
Guest houses, 38 0 0
holiday homes etc.
TOTALS 686 197 28.7
As can be seen, there are 686 identified venues with tables in the UK and this figure does not include personal tables in people’s homes of course! There are 617 of these that are viable for league play being either in a public house (523 tables) or a members club (94 tables). In public houses the number of tables that are used in organised leagues are 133 out of 523 or 25.4% of the total. In clubs, the total number of tables that are used in organised leagues is 64 out of 94 tables or 68.1% of the total. There are regional variations in these figures and it is very noticeable that rural leagues have a higher percentage of pubs, whilst urban leagues are just the reverse having a higher percentage of clubs participating. This obviously reflects the need for profit per square metre in town pubs as opposed to clubs meeting the wishes of the members on a non-profit making basis. In rural areas I think the tables are often installed/kept on the basis of existing customers who play league billiards and in my own area in West Oxfordshire (which is about as rural as you’ll get!) a very high percentage of the tables present in the district, participate in our league. The problems of getting new tables has been highlighted by others and the only viable new ones available are the Supreme tables and, unlike some of my colleagues, have found that these are improving very quickly and may be the answer for the future. The last one I played (a new installation in Faringdon) was excellent with a flat, slate bed and it played exactly the same as our more traditional Jelkes tables. It certainly sturdy enough for the rental market if more pub amusement companies come into the market and supply them alongside their more usual pool tables. I think that's enough for this post but if you need more extrapolation of the simple chart above please let me know. cheers Tony (Willis) |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2012 11:57:05 GMT
It may be wise at this juncture to define what comprises the bar billiards world.
The map of venues seems to be fully populated throughout the British Isles, but this could lead to a false assumption, as there are no leagues in Wales, Scotland or the North of England, and the game is only really active in twelve southern(-ish) ;D counties, plus the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey - against whom England stage annual 'Internationals'.
Here is a list of the 9 main Counties belonging to the All England Association with their Leagues, and the number of teams in each League:
Berkshire - 1 league
Reading (11 teams)
Buckinghamshire - 1 league
High Wycombe (8 teams)
Cambridgeshire - 1 league
Cambridge (8 teams)
Hampshire - 1 league
Portsmouth (11 teams)
Kent - 3 leagues
Dover and Deal (11 teams)
Medway (10 teams)
Tunbridge Wells (6 teams)
Northamptonshire - 1 league
Northampton (10 teams)
Oxfordshire - 4 leagues
Eynsham (8 teams)
Oxford (14 teams)
Wallingford (10 teams)
Witney (8 teams)
Surrey - 1 league
Redhill (17 teams)
Sussex - 10 leagues
Billingshurst (13 teams)
Brighton (13 teams)
Eastbourne (5 teams)
Hastings and Bexhill (9 teams)
Horsham (13 teams)
Lewes (8 teams)
Littlehampton (10 teams)
Mid Sussex (15 teams)
West Sussex (11 teams)
Worthing (17 teams)
and not forgetting the Channel Islands.....
Guernsey (GBBA) 7 teams
Jersey (JBBL) 12 teams
There is also a variation of the game played on narrower tables with an extra pin (4-Pin) under slightly different rules, in the following counties:
Norfolk - 1 league
Norwich 4-pin (5 teams)
Northamptonshire - 1 league
Wellingborough 4-pin (9 teams)
Suffolk/Essex - 1 league
Sudbury 4-pin (13 teams)
Clive Thompson
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2012 12:12:43 GMT
To provide evidence of the diminishing bar billiards world, these are the Counties and/or Leagues which have sadly vanished over the years.
Hertfordshire - 1 league
Watford
Leicestershire - 1 league
Loughborough
Lincolnshire - 1 league
Lincoln
Avon/Somerset - 1 league
Portishead (Bristol)
South Yorkshire - 1 league
Doncaster
Wiltshire - 1 league
Pewsey Vale
(from Berks) - 3 leagues
Country House
Newbury
Wokingham
(from Hants) - 3 leagues
Andover
Southampton
Winchester
(from Kent) - 3 leagues
Canterbury
Faversham
Maidstone
(from Sussex) - 2 leagues
Crawley
Portslade
Not all doom and gloom, though, as we are aware of tables being maintained to a league standard in Cornwall, London and East Yorkshire (Hull) - ones for the future, maybe ?
Clive Thompson
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2012 14:31:33 GMT
From another thread, as some points could have some relevance:The last few years have witnessed the following introductions: - development of a close working relationship with the AEBBA
- much work on standardizing and publicizing the playing rules
- adoption of an official (and fairer) ranking system
- the set of championship tables purchased by the AEBBA with the help of individual investments
- similar purchases by individual counties when BB Ltd ceased its trading
- two new 'Opens' (Guernsey and Surrey)
- AEBBA website maintaining full records of all tournaments
other websites springing up all over the place (SCBBA similarly brought up to date)
- a map provided of all known venues for bar billiards in the UK - league or otherwise.
Some things remain as constants, the Forum remains a great vehicle of communication and is used by many as a results service and useful cross-check for individual websites. The top players play the 'Open' circuit and Bournemouth Pairs and the World Championships in Jersey remain as popular as ever. However in the current recession with beer approaching £4 a pint and petrol at an extortionate price, there appears to be a general reluctance to add any more events to the calendar. And, importantly, the bar billiards venues we are left with are utilised to the full, many spanning more than one league, and many taking aboard ready-made teams that have lost their venue through the pub closing (particularly relevant to Brighton at present). Your idea of the News of the World type "Champion of Pub Champions" event (nothing new, incidentally, we had this back in the 1980s) is unlikely to be a goer as the non-league bar billiards world is twice as large as the league world - you only have to view the AEBBA map to see that. However the mooted competition in the title header of this thread, a "British Isles Open" remains on the table as something worth considering........ FOOD FOR THOUGHT......... We have lost the Portsmouth Open off the calendar this year. In previous guises it has been the "Wessex Open" and the "Mermaid Open". Many of us have expressed the hope that "it will return one day, bigger and better". Perhaps this could be reinvented in 2013 as the British Isles Open, played under off-the-spot rules, and from a smart hotel somewhere in the Portsmouth/Southsea region?
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Post by Chris_Sav on Jan 25, 2012 15:49:30 GMT
I have heard from matt Eley to say he has concluded his research and thanks us for the use of these facilities.
He will be sending me a copy of the publication and, with his permission, I will reproduce it on the forum.
I will move this single thread to Bar Billiards Discussion.
Sav.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2012 11:50:07 GMT
Hi all, Just wanted a say thank you for helping me out with this article. Inapub maagzine is a monthly publication that goes to around 11,000 pubs, primarily freehouses. The article on bar billiards will appear in the February issue in a section dedicated to looking at pub sports. Thanks in advance Matt Did Matt ever send you a copy of the February edition of this, Sav ? |
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Post by Chris_Sav on Dec 18, 2013 9:28:38 GMT
Did Matt ever send you a copy of the February edition of this, Sav ? Just reading this from the other recent publicity posts and no, I never did get sight of the finished article  Sav |
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