taffy
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Post by taffy on Nov 19, 2021 9:07:44 GMT
if they ever write the history of our game ............... Taffy Thought I penned the Timeline (Parts 1 to 4):
Maybe I just imagined it !
now, now, self praise is no praise! I disagree with you about the tables. But let's not get into a heated debate on the wrong thread..... Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Nov 18, 2021 8:04:06 GMT
if they ever write the history of our game, surely somewhere it will say something like; "......but during the 1960-2020 period, the tables remained largely untendered by the very people that owned them and stood to gain from their better preperation. That they didn't, resigned too many tables to dingy corners where despondent customers walked away from a game never to spend their earned coin in that way again"
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Nov 17, 2021 10:06:46 GMT
Just thought I'd open a thread to discuss the value of tables.
Jelks are - in November 2021 asking around £2,500-£3,000. Sams are asking around £2,000 both on ebay.
the Jelks which are 'for sale at £*****' while the Sams are sometimes more likely to be bid on. They are coming down all the time and are hovering around the £1,250-£1,400 mark which is still around 50-70% higher than November 2019...24-months ago.
I think they will still come down but it is unclear to me what is happening to the Jelks as the prices asked aren't gained and they don't appear againat lower prices.
Rileys seem to get to £900 but push on because they are the cheapest thing left.
There is definately a dirth of tables though at the moment. Are they already in man caves never to appear again?
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Nov 15, 2021 17:47:31 GMT
excellent Tommo!
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Nov 15, 2021 10:15:07 GMT
in the Cambs thing Tommo, the Fordham RBL is a 4-pin table. There's another new table; Newnham Croft Sports & Social Club Hardwick St, Cambridge CB3 9JB 01223 311453
This will make 4 x 4-pin tables in the City.
This table will go in this November.... it is 4-pin.
The Six Mile Bottom Social Club opens just 2-3 days a week at weekends and still holds its table I believe. it's 3-pin. so uncross that one unless you know it to have left?
The Exning Road Working Men's Club in Newmarket needs putting in with the Cambs area because it is just 4 miles from Fordham RBL and 7 from Soham Comrades but it is about 35-40 miles to Stanningfield the next nearest Suffolk pub with a table (40+ miles to Sudbury). Like you did with the Fenland Snookerette when you put everything in Lincolnshire.
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Nov 4, 2021 16:44:03 GMT
yes I have thought of ruining a few old Snooker scoreboards myself....
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Nov 3, 2021 19:02:45 GMT
Has anyone any idea if anything like them can still be found anywhere? Cheers Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Oct 10, 2021 9:37:40 GMT
by those dimensions it is a narrower than narrow table
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Oct 8, 2021 8:37:22 GMT
well no, he's a copier Seamus, he doesn't make a 'new design'. I ended upo opening the lock to see what was happening. calls his business postkeys. postkeysgrahamburrell(at)gmail.com
change (at) for @
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Oct 8, 2021 8:32:34 GMT
not seen that colour before. French Blue perhaps?
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Oct 7, 2021 9:54:21 GMT
Whato Seamus
Have look at the photo Tommo and sav have replied and look at the bottom edge below the third point of the 'E'. on some tables you can get away with 3-4mm of that bit but I spent ages looking and saying 'what the f....' when i spotted that the bottom edge being 1mm higher - cured it. so what i mean is, quite literally, take 1mm off the bottom edge.
as it does a circular motion you could start by curving the bottom edge so that when seen end on the bottom edge would be the shape of a saucer. I have both types to hand as i had many made. I have an address if you want to get your own. a guy near Wroughton.
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Oct 5, 2021 10:40:16 GMT
Thanks Taffy I've just been reading through your table restorations. The detail will be really helpful thanks, I might try to deaden the sound a little but as I'll be playing an outbuilding I quite like the thunk. I didn't follow the bean bag bit too well so when I come to remanufacture that section I'll be back in touch for some more tips if that's ok. Seamus The beanbags broke up eventually. they did work....sort of. I enjoy that kinda stuff, just mucking about. I will be doing a big bit imminently on more tables I've worked on. The table where I put the dropping edge back 1" really did work though. So the balls roll down, hit the bulkhead, drop into the tray. that 1" I gained was great. the trouble is, the ball tray is now 1" shorted and you do distributew the balls evenly that much more. all good fun! Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Oct 4, 2021 9:27:36 GMT
You'll find he goes under the nome-de-plume "Alan Turner" here and has made many a post in the repair and maintenance section. I have his email if he doesn't reply. He's a Cheshire man so he'll understand you!
I saw the table but asked the women to look for the clock etc and gave her all the photos of what a clock would look like etc. I guess you got the benefit of that...she never came back to me anyway.
There were some Sams that weren't Sams. it should be 90cm to the top of the tables. A Sams should have bean feet. if you don't have bean feet then the tables will be 78cm tall and awaiting them. If it is 90cm tall then it is a faithful replica by a member of the old works staff from just after Sams closed - but he didn't do the bean feet. This is according to Ivor Champion a man who knows his tables.
I bought a non-Sams Sams 5 years ago at Southport just up the road from that area.
regards
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Sept 28, 2021 19:11:11 GMT
Having tried a piece of 5/8" Northern Rubber along the top end of a table I'm working on, I can say that it is way better than the 3/8" I currently have.
So I need to know if it is worth even considering 5/8" Chinese rubber or to know it is probably only comparable to the 3/8" L-shape I have anyway. I'd like more bounce, more return just like that one piece of northern rubber gave.
so has anyone a piece of 7/8" Northern Rubber made for the big snooker tables I could at least try? 33" long or 56" long would do.
I then also have to consider if a company i know could take some of that 7/8" and peel 4-5mm off?
any thoughts and anyone with a strip please contact.
cheers
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Sept 21, 2021 8:56:47 GMT
I meant; how do they play?
I've ordered some 5/8" club and some 7/8" club to try on the end cushion.
could have done with 33" of 7/8" Northern Rubber; may as well see how good the best is. but I don't have any.
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Sept 20, 2021 8:57:09 GMT
Does anyone have a record of the difference in quality of cheaper (far east) 5/8" versus Northern Rubber 5/8"?
also, has anyone tried the full 7/8" rubber on a table. This is still made by Northern Rubber and the quality is gauranteed. the difference is 6+mm which needs to come off the wood.
cheers
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Sept 11, 2021 6:44:31 GMT
well, its a Sams and it'll need sprucing up, all Tarratt's are. The first tables under direct auction on ebay have now finally come up since lockdown. A beautiful Jelks last week made £1,750. that was an exceptional one.
Expect a standard Sams to make £1,000-£1,200 tops at ebay. But I need that Sams! If Dipper could get the details this week for me if he doesn't actually want it himself - there's a drink in it for you! I've a Social club that needs a table....
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 30, 2021 9:54:42 GMT
I watched the final. Neither Jason nor Nigel could fix the break shot. Nigel opened a small lead when Jason inexplicably went straight at a 50 skittle losing just over 1,000. Then Jason took a risk and swopped the break shot and they started just falling down! He got a 3,300 break or so which was also the highest of the day and that gve him a 2,000 half-time lead.
Honours were even in the second leg with Nigel doing the same shot. There was much open play, not all break shots as the 'one up' caused both troubles.
Then with 2-3 minutes to go both played like a coupla school boys as Nigel needed some points quick and Jason was misfiring as well. It was nearly comical and i think at one point 6-7 balls were on the table. But that risk and that 3,300 had seen Jason flip the lead.
I think the Semi's were Jim Millward v Jason and Nigel versus Phil Osbourne. In the quarters i had a handy lead at the beginning of the second leg v Jason but he got hold of that break shot and was gone! I think Damien Coates, Joe Ellison and Curt Driver were the other quarter-finalists.
Lorin Clough beat Simon Coleman in the plate final - convincingly I believe. I don't think they finished the second leg?
The Northampton tables were really, rally good and I don't mind a bit of variety, each table had its own character! All Jelks and all well looked after. The comp was well run and a pleasure to attend. Plenty of space; "the right crowd and no crowding" as Muddly Talker would like to say (unless I'm very much mistaken!).
They had three interesting rule varieties; 1) play any coloured ball in open play. 2) for the final shot, it had to be the 100 or the 200 only with the 100 peg removed. 3) the 200 skittle was only a 'sin of death' on the final ball.
personally; not fussed on (1) as nearly all waited for the red. on two I enjoyed it but it isn't a significant idea....just different. on 3 though i love the "idea" of the 200 not being 'pain of death' but I have done it here in Cambridgeshire from when the bar drops. Far better!
although i can do the Oxford shot, many simply can't. as one who cqan, i naturally want to pull the drawbridge up behind me. Gotta be made of bigger stuff though!
I also again like the Cambridgeshire one of 'every break shot must have a different result to the previous one in that current break'. This would take a little more off the Oxford breakers. Because Nigel and Jason are now so accomplished at 4-pin, although they won't want open play, i don't think either would fear it. They had some clearing up to do in nearly every game. Nigel didn't have many big, big break scores this time due to each table just not letting it happen.
Great!
Some of us (just me then) watched the 2018 final. If Jason hadn't been poor at one scenario I think Sav might agree he would have won that one too! Twice Jason rested a ball up against the 50 skittle and twice took the wrong option blowing something like 2K or 2.5K. I watched him make the same mistake Saturday and he took the correct shot and didn't even stop to look at it.
I liked Northamptons bravery to try either way, i hope they'll maybe look at the elephant in the room.
Can i thank all involved in running the comp, it was truly a great day out!
cheers Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 29, 2021 7:41:35 GMT
that's a beautiful piece of work!
I'd be tempted to cut out the front face of wood leaving about 5 mm of wood sticking up and the near-too cross wood, keep it high in the corners and low in the middle. possibly have a front shelf to rest a hand.
really nice job!
taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 18, 2021 10:23:57 GMT
Antm4n, I am in the process of finalising the plans for my home BB table. As far as cushions are concerned I have done a lot of questioning as to why the side rails are the shape they are with the cloth going down at an angle after the rubber. No one I have spoken to can give me an answer. I have decided to use cushion rubber the complete depth of the side rail. This makes fixing the cushion so much easier. Also, sourcing rubber sheeting [10mm] to cut into strips is so much easier and a lot, lot cheaper than commercially available cushions. Unless someone can up with a good explanation for the existing shape [apart from tradition itself] I am going ahead with the full side rail depth. I have ordered some materials and will be testing them within the next week. Contact me if I can help you. The deeper a ball goes into a cushion, the more it bounces out to the middle of the table. so for example, if the rubber is hard and an object ball hits it at 45 degrees, it will straighten up to bounce off at 30 degrees. It straightens up. if you use a soft thin strip of rubber like the old L shape, the ball goes into the rubber deeper and the rubber infront and ahead of the ball acts like a corner, so the ball goes in at 45 degrees and comes out at 45 degrees. Thin rubber is available on ebay and does give reasonable bounce but you have to hit the ball very subtly a little harder meaning the object ball is OK but that the cue ball is off to the races! taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 16, 2021 10:45:27 GMT
Group 1 looks tasty!
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 12, 2021 8:25:26 GMT
it's not essential Tommo, its dormant. It might be how a Jamacian plays the game but they are down to less than a a handful of tables and he's been left Jamaica 40 years (looking through his rose tinted glasses too! after a bit of Jamaican Rum and some Ganga). and Sav, having one man able to do one shot is the proof of "an exception to a rule".
I'm telling you that if these tables were made today without the 200 we wouldn't miss it, we'd get on. if you had the skittle there as a guard but no hole and you played from the middle of the table the game would be in A LOT MORE PUBS.
being smart and quoting 'the one time when....' is all in the past, old men's stuff. We can't expect young men to show the wisdom and fortitude of an older generation. We have to provide it for them, that's the wisdom bit.
You have to give something up or all we are going to do is listen to the guy that can score 10,000 in a game and says; "well, I like the game just how it is?" you have to do right by the game.
I have had a 19-year old lad working here for three months and he's played one game every lunchtime for 11 weeks so that is about 50 games. He loves it, he still can't get the ball up ready for me the lazy git but he gets 2,000 in a game of 4-pin once per week.
He has even been to the Black bear at Walsoken (in Wisbech) even though he's tee-total!
he came into work on the Monday and said; 'its crap (a technical term I'll grant you!). I ain't going there again".
The table is a Sams and needs a 9-iron on the fairways and bofors gun on the green. they play from the middle of the D only. fair enough but the sunken hole in the D for the ball is nearly 3mm deep.
I keep telling you boys, you're going to hell in a handcart.................
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 11, 2021 7:38:14 GMT
here's a special French one for you Tommo so are they Mushrooms in the photo or central defenders? Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 11, 2021 7:29:52 GMT
I agree Tommo, a table shouldn't be in the corner but if that was where it gets played instead of coming out of the pub then that's alright with me and that has been my point here. It is but for one shot really, its there as a guard, nobody dare play it, it isn't involved in the game except as a finishing flourish or a piece of luck that sees it in the game - which is rare.
I'm continuously being told that people do not have the space for how "I" would like to place the table with the playing end kicked out. I wish now that I had bought a French table and had offered it up to landlords oblivious to any preconceptions and said to them that all that is need is to stand on the end. I think I can name 2-3 pubs that would have taken a table.
Now whether argument A(this problem) would have been replaced by the fallback of argument B will never be known but it is a needless problem to my mind. Leave the skittle and give the hole no value. 'lose that break' if you knock it over.
at the moment I can boast that a BB table takes up 1/3rd the space of a pool table....It could easily even be a 1/4.
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 9, 2021 18:52:57 GMT
I'm convinced that removing it would make the game more attractive to pubs. that and out of bounds lines pushed further up the table would affect the game little but make it something - among many things - needed to get the game palatable to pubs. But I kind of knew all the fossils would say 'not over my dead body'.
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 7, 2021 14:11:11 GMT
Whenever I try to get a table in a pub I have to ask for the playing end to be well away from a side wall. Why?
Because of the 200 shot.
When space is at a premium for a pub, its a shame we even have the 200 hole or that when it is there it even has a value.
maybe the French and their "Billard Russe" had it right?
BTW, I was talking to a London area 'Geezer' last week who said that Bar Billiards night always finished with an all-in game for fun; "we called it Russian Billiards - I don't know why? we put the three pegs infront of the 100 and the 50s and the 200 was taken out of the game".
so without knowing it, these guys were aping the start of the game back in 1930's France.
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 5, 2021 8:46:55 GMT
Hello Mark As you may note looking around this site, there are two versions of the game. 3-pin has the holes 30-20-10-20-30 while the 4-pin version has them scored as you say; 10-20-30-20-10. the other holes are the same. Luckily the tables are easy enough to adapt between games. you need the 'spot' in slightly different places for the two versions. for 4-pin the dot must be halfway beween the back of the D (the straight edge and the leading edge of the 200 hole) this usually works out at about 225mm approx. for 3-pin it is a little nearer and must be 170-175mm from the back of the D. You can mark the table for both forms of the game, you can use mushrooms or skittles which are also known as pins or pegs. Everyone has a preference but i would say using mushrooms that create a shadow over the 4 holes isn't a 'top idea'. My area always used skittles in 4-pin. Americans use the term 'Body English' as we use the term 'body language' so you mean do we put 'top' or 'bottom' or 'side' on the ball? We sure do! but it is a 'touch' otherwise we're hitting the ball too hard. Only one shot as I know is played HARD in either form and that is to get a ball off the top cush with side so it comes back at the 100 hole where a ball awaits. Even then the object ball will have to be bang in the middle of the hole or it will rim and fly off. remember, while you're getting 10 points your buddy is sat ion the chair, your trying to get more points than him just like snooker and unlike pool. what you'll find when you set the table up is that if the table is slightly uphill the 'oxford shot' for a 50-50 alters. uphill, and one ball goes in the 50 and the other can hit the peg (or come player side of the hole), downhill and one can go in and the other sails past the hole. with a trace of side, top or bottom you can correct this. As for top, yes, as for bottom or as we would say; 'a deep screw back' well no because the object ball is going too fast. if the object ball is going into a pack then maybe yes but if you're playing with 7 balls on the table you aren't getting much else right anyway! how you place your slate in the top frame will be critical. all the old tables from 70 years ago have 1/4" around the sides and you chock them in. I did one this morning that had the cenre back hole (the 30 on my 4-pin table) 10mm to the left of the middle line of the table until i chocked it in place symetrically. as for cues, the best players use a long two-piece snooker cue which is naturally heavy because of this and has a narrower tip. I use a short light one piece cue that because I'm a big chap means I can do a softer touch on the airy-fairy stuff. But my long range shooting is improved with a longer cue. I'd like a very light long cue i guess. You see Bar Billiards longest shot is 120mm or 4'. for snooker it is triple that distance. I attach paperwork which is for 4-pin and makes it clear that at the beginning you don't want to be accurate (yes, you read that right). Then when you get better you start getting like Eddie Rickenbacker and not Frank Luke.....you wait, and you wait and then there it is, a reverse 100, a 50 off the side with the red then back to the bread and butter 10/20/30 till the next opportunity. One thing to know is that when you watch those youtube videos is how GENTLE the top boys are otherwise the ball rims and flies off. In 4 pin it rims and takes out the pin. so it is a gentle game which takes some getting used to and is very un-American. You'll like it because (and get this) you and your buddy stand at the back of the table 2 feet apart having a quiet chat, a whisper. there'll be no need to shout, no need to bawl over the bar music, just a great chat and swapping places. There's no body language in BB, no swanker around the table, you just swop places and play. regards Taffy Apologies for my diagram being different. Only at Newmarket is the cue ball the red, in both the 3 and 4-pin version, the cue ball is always the white. But if able to do 150 with the 'Oxford Shot' at the break our version nets 110 while the normal version nets 70.
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 4, 2021 8:29:57 GMT
The Exning Road Working Mens Club in Newmarket has a table. 4-pin friendly at present. it's a mile from Cambs in about 3 directions due to the unique position of Newmarket but Suffolk it is! One of mine - it has gone the Mushtittle route.
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Aug 1, 2021 16:32:08 GMT
if not here then where?
Please add;
The Olde England 13-14 Silver Street Wellingborough
Little Harrowden W.M.C. 94 Main Street Little Harrowden
The Locomotive 111 Finedon Road Wellingborough
The Ranelagh Ranelagh Road Wellingborough
The Queens Head Broad Green Wellingborough
Taffy
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taffy
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Post by taffy on Jun 24, 2021 15:52:29 GMT
Lee_Mason is active here and may spot this.
the three pinners were meeting last night I believe to sort out their future. They still have at least two tables looking for pubs and hope that the Swavesey White Horse will still want a table back someday.
As it stands they have the White Horse at Milton and the Bottisham Sports and Social Club.
Taffy
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