Old Records of AEBBA Competitions

Thought it would be of some interest of those of you who were around in the 1980s to see the fruits of my research of Sussex efforts at National level. (This has a Horsham/Billingshurst bias by the way, as these were strong leagues at the time, holding their own with Brighton, Worthing, Portslade and Littlehampton)

www.horshambarbilliards.co.uk/page8.html

A few surprises are thrown up, namely that there were separate organisations the AEBBA and the NBBA (a fact which has been strongly denied in the past). The NBBA used to run the Watney Mann pub championship and for a few years there was a separate AEBBA team championship running side by side.
Another surprise is a mention of Suffolk taking part in a team event, also there is mention of a Kent v England challenge match held at Canterbury with 'funds raised for the benefit of local Kent charities'.
Finally a reminder of how good my (later-to-be) teammate Jackie Spooner was, getting to two major finals (I never even realised, shame on me, although she used to top our averages regularly at the Victory !)

I will be adding more press clippings to the page after I have had a chance to scan them.  Menwhile if anyone else from any county has any records of past successes dating from this era (pre-1990) here is the place to display them................

[Chris_Sav]

Interesting stuff and I'd like to see more history recorded here.

Don't think the existence of NBBA has been denied. It was the table operators association rather than AEBBA, the players association. I've been collecting NBBA memorabilia for years, I'll take a few photos. I was not aware that the NBBA and AEBBA Pub Team comps ran alongside each other, my impression was that the table operators NBBA Pub Team was renamed to the AEBBA Pub Team not many years ago. AEBBA ran it under sponsorship from the table operators when it was the old Watney Mann competition, but that sponsorship dried up years ago.

Interested to hear from those nearer the centre in those days, when nearly 500 people watched a national final!!

Sav

Just to add some more interesting points of reference:  Mentions of the great Viv Shepherd, an early mention of Aunty Pauline playing for her county in 1981/82 - and Hertfordshire seemed to be quite strong as a county - with Sir KT flying their colours!

To follow, memtions in the Press of early forays into Jersey, and early Under 23 championships.

[barbelman]

Aug 25, 2010 9:07:24 GMT tommo III said:

Just to add some more interesting points of reference:  Mentions of the great Viv Shepherd, an early mention of Aunty Pauline playing for her county in 1981/82 - and Hertfordshire seemed to be quite strong as a county - with Sir KT flying their colours!

Ah Watford / Herts!  They had some really strong players in those days along with a reputation as trouble makers. (not Kevin I hasten to add!) :)

Any sort of bother at an Inter Area or All England do and you could almost guarantee that a few of the Watford players were at the centre of it. It was almost a relief when their league got so small that they didn't enter comps anymore as there was a lot of tension at certain events.  Some of the good guys are still playing though I believe.

cheers
Tony

Spot on, Tony.

In those days I was a 'wanabee' rather than participant and used to attend events in support of my mates John (Slee) and Tony (Franks) and clearly remember Hertfordshire as a really rowdy, mouthy lot  (KT and Viv Shepherd excluded of course !)

As you say, bar billiards still exists in that county, there being I believe tables in Watford, St Albans, Hertford, Hemel Hempstead, and also here:
www.thestrathmorearms.co.uk/

[barbelman]

Aug 25, 2010 12:48:31 GMT tommo III said:

Spot on, Tony.

In those days I was a 'wanabee' rather than participant and used to attend events in support of my mates John (Slee) and Tony (Franks) and clearly remember Hertfordshire as a really rowdy, mouthy lot  (KT and Viv Shepherd excluded of course !)

As you say, bar billiards still exists in that county, there being I believe tables in Watford, St Albans, Hertford, Hemel Hempstead, and also here:
www.thestrathmorearms.co.uk/

Haha, Tommo.  Have you looked at their beer list?  There is one called 99 Red Baboons by the Blue Monkey Brewery!!  They have a very eclectic mixture of ales...  I liked the grudging "keg stuff" heading as well!

Viv Shepherd-Wright ran the Bull at Aston (near Witney) for a while with Peter Wright and they had a team with us for a couple of years.  Nice people.  Peter played but Viv travelled back to Kent to play each week.  The pub is a private house now... >:(

cheers
Tony

Aug 25, 2010 13:08:57 GMT barbelman said:

[
Haha, Tommo.  Have you looked at their beer list?  There is one called 99 Red Baboons by the Blue Monkey Brewery!!  They have a very eclectic mixture of ales...  I liked the grudging "keg stuff" heading as well!

cheers
Tony

...............well-behaved children on leads and dogs welcome, apparently.   ;)
Seems a shame there's no competitive bar billiards there, now:  Herts and Beds seem to be a black hole in the centre of the bar billliards universe.

[peetee]

Just looked up an old programme ( Not sure of the year). It was sponsored by Watney Mann.

It was called the Watney Straight Eight Bar Billiards Challenge Cup....Oxfordshire Final between Lord Napier and the Bell Headington.

It qoutes
              " This is the first ever sponsored Bar Billiards competition of it's type ever to be played.It is being played this year? on a County basis with 8 counties taking part:- Oxon, Sussex,Kent,Surrey,Hamps, Berks, Bucks & Herts"

The teams were .....Tony will remember most of them.

Bell
Dave Jones..Pete Slater..John Drinkwater..Graham Hensby..Tony Wood and PEETEE ( Pete Ewins )

Napier ..Pete Wells..Ron Webber..Pete Kitchen..Alan Sales..Ivan Roberts.and Butch Longford.

Result Napier 3 Bell 2.

Pete

[peetee]

The All England Team Championship Finals Sunday 20th Nov 1983 at British Aerospace Club.

Do you remember the teams......
Group 1....Blue Anchor Portsmouth...  Sportsman Chorleywood...  Woodbridge Inn North Newton...  Lord Nelson Morton.

Group 2  Prince Regent Great Shelford...Welsh Harp Sturry?...Quarry Gate Oxford (I was in the team)...Falcon Tadley.

Group 3   Bold Dragon Weston Favell...Hour Glass High Wycombe...Ham Worthing..Royal Oak Redhill.

Pete

[bigtj]

1983 Worthing Ham possibility Roger Taylor would have been involved, maybe Pete O`Brien as well. Sure if Roger was and he notices the thread he will shed light on whole team.

Aug 25, 2010 6:07:41 GMT Chris_Sav said:

Don't think the existence of NBBA has been denied. It was the table operators association rather than AEBBA, the players association.
Sav

Entirely correct, and here's the evidence:

[Chris_Sav]

You've all seen the picture of the massive NBBA Silver Cup I sold

Some of my NBBA memorabilia

Cuff Links


Tie Clip


Silver Medal


Silver Medal


Tankard (have several)


Sav

[dipper]

Hi, I remember the Ham being in the All england finals, I did not play for them at the time as I was still playing for the Gardeners, but I do remember the team as I went along to support them the team was :
Peter O`Brien.
Sheila Pinner.
Peter Rourke.
John Symington.
Dave Flavin.
They did not do very well as I remember but the drinking session was good.

Yes, the Gardeners were quite good in the 80's too, according to this:

www.billingshurstbarbilliards.co.uk/page41.html

[David.G]

Are You selling your memorabilia Sav??

[Chris_Sav]

Aug 27, 2010 21:18:45 GMT David.G said:

Are You selling your memorabilia Sav??

Not at the mo Dave,

AEBBA can have it all when I finally pack it in.

I talked to AEBBA about the big NBBA Challenge Cup before your time Dave, but there was little interest.

Sav.

Some more from tommo's archives:



(from 1976/77)Bubbly being poured into the Joy Tarratt All-England Ladies Team trophy won by Sussex




(from 1988/89) Report of England Under-22 team event held at Oxford, won by Sussex.

Top one: Report of early inter-counties final (zoned North v South in those days)  - and a scare with the transport on the way home.

Bottom one: TV Times report on the Indoor League (must have been the 2nd or 3rd series).  Obviously I know Rod (former Horsham teammate) but I also remember Jon Peters of Redhill.  He married a girl a lot younger than himself and they moved abroad.   Was John Baker a big name in Kent ?

I am hopeing that sir K,T or Milko can help me with this,
when i ran the Vikings sports club i hosted a England team agains a select Oxford side but can not remember who the players were in both sides, so come on Kev and Kieth let me know who they were, it was about 12 years ago

[milko]

Oct 17, 2010 14:14:04 GMT @gillian said:

I am hopeing that sir K,T or Milko can help me with this,
when i ran the Vikings sports club i hosted a England team agains a select Oxford side but can not remember who the players were in both sides, so come on Kev and Kieth let me know who they were, it was about 12 years ago

Dave, I can't remember this but I will try and find some info on it.

[peetee]

Oct 17, 2010 14:37:43 GMT milko said:

Oct 17, 2010 14:14:04 GMT @gillian said:

I am hopeing that sir K,T or Milko can help me with this,
when i ran the Vikings sports club i hosted a England team agains a select Oxford side but can not remember who the players were in both sides, so come on Kev and Kieth let me know who they were, it was about 12 years ago

Dave, I can't remember this but I will try and find some info on it.

Dave, I think I have the full draw and scores if this is the one I think your on about.

Pete

[peetee]

Hope this is the one........Played at the Vikings and we used two tables, not sure where the other table came from.

Oxford X1  (1) v England X1 (10)..Over two legs

Ken Barrett 2230 v Tony Walsh 29100
Pauline Withey 6110 v Steve Mariner 22010
Brian Jones 1450 v Kevin Clark 31990
Maxi McDonnell 4450 v Keith Lewendon 10690
Alan Wilmer 11570 v Keith Sheard 17990
Kevin Godfrey 13000 v Sue Mariner 1960
Trevor Cooke 3880 v Simon Tinto 17560
Alan Lacey 7340 v Kevin Tunstall 12060
Tony Smith 8230 v Gail Woods 16150
Simon Ellam 4360 v Paul Sainsbury 23940
Pete Higham 6440 v Mark Turner 18160

The tables must have been good looking at the scores.

Pete

Just stumbled upon this photo from "Indoor League":



Can't say I recognise anyone though - apart from the John Baker mentioned earlier :-/

[milko]

Isn't that barbelman doing the checking? ;) ;D

[barbelman]

Jul 20, 2011 3:52:56 GMT milko said:

Isn't that barbelman doing the checking? ;) ;D

Are you coming to my 110th birthday party next week, Keith? ;D ;D

cheers
Tony

Could be a teenage Chris Toner over to the right ?  (Someone once told me she took part in the series.)

[Colemanator]

The series was filmed in Yorkshire I understand, so I would assume that they were the then South Yorks players?

I think the Yorks link came about through Charlie Wheeler, who helped to form the South Yorks league with tables supplied by Tarratts of Sussex.

But there was a good spread of participants, with Kent's John Baker (shown cueing in the picture), a Welsh chappie, and several from Sussex (Rod Tarratt and John Thayre being two).

I have the lineup for the knockout somewhere (maybe in an old BBQ) so will have to see if i can dig it out.

Jul 20, 2011 15:00:40 GMT tommo III said:

I have the lineup for the knockout somewhere (maybe in an old BBQ) so will have to see if i can dig it out.

Got it !  Here is the transcript of the Indoor League 1977 event, according to Fazza's BBQ No.58 (scoresheet courtesy of Dave May) .........

Round 1. Roy Buckle (Bucks) 1800, Jon Peters (Surrey) 3710; Gerry Lambert (Bucks) 4260, Tony Mayfield 3460; Alan Sales (Oxon) 2440, Alan Ignatowski (Berks) 2720; Tony Sculley (Oxon) 4240, Rod Tarratt (Sus) 2700; Lawrence Brown 3950, Stan Pratt (Kent) 4150; Charlie Hastie (Berks) 4550, Mick Samwell (Nthnts) 2470; John Thayre (Sus) 2220, Brian Paul (Nthnts) 3660; Christine Cole (Hants) 1880, Viv Shepherd (Herts) 3440

Round 2. Jon Peters 2260, Gerry Lambert 2340; Alan Ignatowski 1710, Tony Sculley 1940; Stan Pratt 3920, Charlie Hastie 3760; Brian Paul 4240, Viv Shepherd 3920

Semi-Finals. Gerry Lambert 3890, Tony Sculley 0; Stan Pratt 2440, Brian Paul 1660.

Final. Gerry Lambert (Bucks) 2180, Stan Pratt (Kent) 3890.  

This currently on eBay:
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANTIQUE-1937-SILVER-ENAMEL-NATIONAL-BAR-BILLIARDS-FOB-MEDAL-ALBERT-WATCH-CHAIN-/151295031944

Have put on this thread as further up other examples were displayed.