What is holding back bar billiards in your county

Some stats for you..................

Taking the 80 'serious posters' on the Forum, ie. those who have made 10 or more entries, this is the geographical split county by county (- and Bailiwick as our C.I. friends will prefer to be classed).

Sussex 42; Northants 10; Oxon 9; Kent 6; Jersey 5; Hants 2; Cambs 2; and Guernsey, Surrey, Lincs and Yorks 1 each.

Speaking as a Sussex-based person myself, it comes as a surprise to find that we comprise over 50% of the voice of the Forum which is intended to be on a national scale.

Should more be done, perhaps, to attract a more active contribution to Forum discussion from the other counties ?

I suppose being one of two from Cambs I have to post or you lot wouldn't know we even existed ::) ;)

However Tommo, how many more do you think will sign up, the total population of Bar Billiard players can't be more then 1,000 and the amount of Bar Billiard players that actually have the internet is small due to the average age (I am not being ageist). I will be suprised if we get many more however I am all for it!

[Ice Man]

I agree, most players probably dont even have the internet and the ones who do might not even know about this website :o Maybe more needs to be done in the way of advertising this site and Bar Billiards in general ;)

First of all, you two guys have expertly recognised the symptoms.
Agreed not everyone has Internet access. I do not believe the age thing comes into it though.
The other Forum site I used to use regularly is a car owners club. Here again we wondered why we had far more members of the owners club than actually used the forum, and guess what ? When we compared professions, about 70% of our forum members work in I.T. !!
In this case, though, I truly believe that there are a lot of people out there who would join in, but they need a bit of coaxing. I've been doing my best, but if I'm the only one who carries the word around, there will just be more and more new members from Sussex.
It is great to have you guys from far-flung outposts of Cambridge and Jersey, and we need more of your ilk. But what about the counties of Berks and Bucks - we hardly have a single member from there. Surely there are computer-literate players from those regions ?

I do try to carry the word around to people.

I believe it is a far cry to think of this forum though when you need more people to actually play the game.

More people playing more people on the forum!

Aye to that Johnny.

I've just had a thought.......we could start a thread asking in your honest view what is holding back bar billiards in your county.

I would imagine in Cambridge it's the loss of venues.
In Sussex (apart from in the coastal regions where the game thrives) our problem is the loss of good public house venues (as pubs convert to restaurants and we tend to find a club with cheap beer as the only viable option.)

Well only one person can start a thread and it was your Idea Tommo.

I shall say that Bar Billiards is in decline in our county for more reasons the I shall say. However we are steady at the moment, with 10 teams and a possible 11 if the Tally Ho re join from there break.
I believe having 2 teams per pub also helps with numbers. However you need players for that.

I shall play in other leagues (if anybody wants me that is) :) when I pass my driving test.

I suppose distance can play a part on a player who isn't dedicated though. I shall wait for you to start the thread Tommo ;D

[davejones]

Interesting post guys.

Just for the record Worthing has 183 registered players in twenty teams.

Is it any wonder that Sussex and the coast features highly!

Here in Cambridge we have roughly 50 players that play.
The numbers are shocking however if the numbers are to grow we should first concentrate on getting B teams together then using pubs with tables that have no teams!
Bet there are a few around Cambridge!

[Hammy]

We have a big problem in Northants now with only 9 teams in the league which comprises of 6 venues. Luckily, as you can see by the forum there is a group of us who love the game and try and keep the league going......................although I must say due to college commitments I am not devoting the time I should anymore! ???

[Owners' Account]

Interesting Discussion. One that I have thought about allot in the past as you can imagine.

One idea I came up with was to make some posters advertising the site, print some off and send a few out to all league secretary's in thee hope they can get some put up in local pubs around the country. I'm pretty sure that this would go a long way to helping even the casual players who are scared to ask about the game log on and take a look at what Bar Billiards is all about....

Then we just have to make sure they like what they see...

Also, what does everyone think to a new players forum? Somewhere that new players can go, ask all the questions they need without the fear of looking stupid.... It would certainly go along way to encouraging more people into the game....

Great idea Glenn (a New Members section).

They can introduce themselves with "Hi I'm New Here" and say where they play, who their teammates are, what parts of the Forum they enjoy reading, etc etc.

[Lolly]

Its not the case of getting more people to attend the forum, its more a case of getting people to play the game!

As jase has stated above, we have 9 teams. Thats the lowest its been for years. We are in danger of collapse, but what do we do to make this game more attractive to 'outsiders'?

[barbelman]

Tommo
I have to agree with Chris - we are in the same situation as Northampton in the Witney league. We have eight teams from six venues and although there are a couple of extra venues to draw from, we are desperately short of players... If we drop even one team in the future then basically the league is finished as a viable proposition. A lot of the major movers in my league are 'of a certain age' and - as I'm sure you have all noticed over the years - if you lose the linchpin of any team then that team is likely to stop playing altogether.

We do lobby new pubs with BB tables but they always say that they do have quite enough to make up a team. Witney is a true country league and people will NOT travel far generally, at least at the start of their BB career. We also suffer from small venues and a change of landlord often brings about the removal of the table due to a perceived lack of space.

The AEBBA does a good job in what it does but I think we ought to be able to look to them for some nationwide publicity and an initiative for selling the game to breweries and landlords, especially now that pool is edging out of popularity. It's no good preaching to the converted and I know Pete F has tried very hard and valiantly to get external publicity in the past, but a national publicity campaign ought not to be beyond the capability and finances of the AEBBA (especially given the relatively HUGE amount of honoraria and expenses that are afforded to some of the officers)

We have to realise that the majority of players in our leagues are just not interested in national comps and heroes - all they want is someone to play against in their league each week and the sooner that is addressed by our National body the better.

I run a good up-to-date website and a weekly blog (!) but I often think that I do it for my own amusement rather than for any benefit for the league as the majority of our players are computer illiterate or disinterested! Personally I enjoy the forum immensely and a few others in my league look in but don't participate greatly. The only way it will grow significantly is by a resurgence of interest in playing the game across the country and by compulsory lobotomies for country folk..... ;D :-*

Tony

Keep 'em coming.

Just to explain to anyone confused over the headers/subject matter of this thread..........It started off as a comment that Sussex had as many regular forum users than every other county put together. (And certainly the game is not dying on its feet along the south coast where there are many strong leagues.)
So a half-hearted plea followed as to how we might get people from, say, Berks or Bucks interested as there don't appear to be any users from those counties.

Then the discussion veered on to what could be done to attract more people in general into playing the game and Johnny and I started debating what the problems might be in each individual county, and others joined in.

As this is a more worthwhile thing to discuss, and to save people having to repeat their posts, I asked Sav to change the thread title to what it appears now.

Very interested in what Tony had to say.
I'll let others speak for the Central leagues of Sussex, though lack of good pub venues is bound to come into it.

To make an observation about Surrey, where I play the other 50% of my bar billiards - Surrey of course equals Redhill, there is only the one league. And boy, do they make the best of what they have.
In spite of the strange situation of having either players who are mad keen/ambitious or "couldn't give a toss" - with nothing in between - competitions are skilfully organised to keep interest going all the year round - even for the 'lesser' individuals who are catered for in the form of having Summer 'handicap' competitions.
Handicap competitons don't always work well elsewhere (though they do in Mid Sussex) but everyone enters into the spirit in the close season and as a result there are, player for player, more reasonably good bar billiards-playing ladies in Surrey probably than in any other county.

The Redhill league are also lucky in that they are able to compete in Sussex's prestigious Interleague competition - which has almost taken over the role of a Southern Counties competition as Tunbridge Wells are also now included.

The only threat to an otherwise rosy future of the game in Surrey is the usual - a dwindling of good Pub venues, and if the Premier league table were to be scrutinised it would be seen that the division consists entirely of clubs apart from the one pub the Old Oak.

[Lolly]

When you look at the Northants league, we have only 2 venues outside of Northampton. Thats a whole county with only 2 sites outside the 'capital'. This is terrible, we should have far more places to go and play the sport we all enjoy.
But the main problem also is keeping these teams going. we have players inside Northampton, who have to travel to these 2 outside venues 3 times in one season, yet they constanlty moan that they have lots of travelling to do.
If we cannot satisfy existing players, then what chance do we have of attracting new blood?????

[milhouse]

Hi all, sorry been ill for a few days, but back now ;D
Interesting topic this one and probably one that most applies to me as a newcomer to the game!
As some of you are aware, i got involved by being asked. I had played in the pub before, but that was it. 800 was a good score! Then Ray Sturgess asked me to play and i said yes. Now this is the best appraoch for people to get others involved. He knew that he was never going to win anything playing with us newbies, but he was keen to bring people into the game and if you asked him he would probably say he has taken more satisfaction in seeing me becoming a better player than if he had picked up a league winners trophy (although we did come runners-up in our first season! ;D )

How many people have done what Ray has done ????

Lolly mentioned the travelling involved. There are always going to be people who moan about travelling any kind of distance to away games. What distances are you talking here ? In the Wallingford league, the closest team in my section is in Didcot - 20 minutes away ! In the Eynsham league, we have to play against the Royal Oak at Burford, but i don't complain as i know they face more miles on the clock than us over the course of a season, it all depends how keen you are to play!

[Chris_Sav]

Oh for an answer to this.

My league has faired better than any other in Kent, largely I believe because we have moved away from the five singles and get thrashed idiom of so many top players. However we are struggling and have had to reduce team numbers to keep going.

I set up an open evening last year where my tables were available for the evening on free play and advertised it in the press. Not a single non league person turned up.

The demise of the local pub is a big factor, its all pub games that are struggling.

We as established players do not use the pubs to show youngsters how to play. When I was a lad there was always one of the 'old boys' to challenge and learn from.

Its viewed as an old man's game and youngsters do not have the patience to learn and cannot count. The latter we are trying to address, but its been on hold for a few months, more info soon.

Teams also must have a leader, without a personality to organize the 'sheep', interest dwindles. These are also harder to find.

We run the most comprehensive website in the country for results and stats, so that people can see their names on the net.

I don't know the way forward. AEBBA make no effort to promote the game, neither do the table companies. I've now got tables in pubs so that landlords who would not pay a flat rent can profit share.

I certainly think that (sacrilege) jazzing up the bar billiard table with the bells & whistles Garry Isles and I are trying to do is a positive move to encourage youngsters.

We have to take the game to the unconverted to move forward and not stick 20k past them the first time they play.

I'm afraid I don't think there is an answer, but I know that, if the new AEBBA exec and this forum do not work together to come up with some form of promotion, the game will die in a very short space of time as a National sport. Apart from Sussex, how may counties are hanging on by their fingertips reliant on a playing base approaching or in pensionable age??

Sav

This thread is developing into a useful document for the "saving of the game".
Sav's "open evening" was an excellent idea, one that could be tried again ?
We need publicity, publicity, publicity, agreed the AEBBA could do more on that front.
We should revisit the thread where Katie asked for re-instatement of a British Open on English soil. Maybe London would be the answer to where it should be staged - to gain it the highest profile possible. Win London over as a place where the game can be played and it could suddenly take off ? Debatable point.
Then there's Glenn's new money-spinner of a competition, to which exactly the same comments apply.

Sav's comment about it becoming an 'old man's game' also very relevant. Over-50s competitions are almost as competitive as an ordinary singles these days - as they include 80% of the usual suspects anyway ! Bar Billiards seemed to skip a generation with the advent of Pool. Now there is slight evidence that some skilful Pool players are making the transition across - Milhouse and Phil Collins are good examples, there are some in Surrey and Sussex also.

But the game falling out of favour in pubs has got to be the main bugbear. Entire leagues have vanished since the 80's. Crawley pubs are devoid of tables where once there was a strong league with three divisions, and I was speaking to Gary Powell the other day and he said the same applied to Maidstone. It's been suggested before, but the AEBBA need to be pro-active in writing to the main Brewing Companies and asking them to review their policy on pub sports. I tried this once off my own bat, and didn't even receive the courtesy of a reply.

[Chris_Sav]

Regarding the open evenings,

This is something any league / county can try the night before/after their open / finals night, whatever they have hired tables for.

I can't speak for Mary & Brian with their tables, but its no skin off my nose if the tables are there one day longer.

Sav

Again it does come down to actually doing it, not just talking about it.

I am all for this idea Sav has come up with, I bet it would promote the game further as people who have never heard of the game can get there and practise and learn from the game.

However this would require local newspaper advertising.

[davejones]

milhouse said:

How many people have done what Ray has done ????

I started playing bar billiards in 1972. In 1974 we started a new team in my local as the landlord Bill Groves of the Crabtree in Lancing wanted a second local based team. The team before was based in Brighton so only visited the pub on match nights.

The B team was the great Crabtree B team of the late sixties with Mike Hinton the first All England winner.

We started with 2 young 18 year old players I was only 20 myself another 20 year old. An experienced captain and a couple of players who could be called on as phone reserves.

The year before last one of the young players told me his son and his mate wanted to learn to play. What an opportunity. We had Barry Squires (one of the 18 year olds), myself, Barry's son Adam (17) and his friend Luke (17) and a couple of second division Brighton players joined. Our own Reggie being one of them. We are in our second season playing division 2 in Worthing at the Dolphin. The first season we were runners up.

The opportunities are out there, we just need to focus and watch people playing our tables.
Get them interested in our game and watch them develop.

It is so rewarding!