They say that behind every great man is a a great women, and I think this saying certainly applies to Jack as his wife, Miriam, stayed at home to look after their two sons, giving him the freedom to concentrate on his pastime. This allowed him to build on last years success, and for a decade let him progress at his peak, certainly as far as trophies were concerned.
In the next four seasons Jack had both the Huddersfield Examiner and the Halifax Green Final Sports Edition notes to cut out and save, which it appears he did religiously. The new season opens with the announcement in the Green Final that a new team will be playing in the Halifax Parish League: Rastrick Constitutional Club. This is a handicap competition and due to the fact that they will have Jack Mellor, Harold Burkinshaw and Jim Broadhead playing for them, the 6 man team will be off scratch. Last year’s team who were on scratch have been given 125 start due to losing one top player!!!
The first report of a league game, Rastrick Cons (as they were referred to) lost to Thornhill Briggs WMC 831 – 942, though if you take off Thornhill’s start of 275 it would have been 831 – 667. This was the case all season as, despite Jack, Harold and Jim winning comfortably most weeks, the other three members of the team lost occasionally. So perhaps the reason for playing at this stage wasn’t to win trophies but to gain practice against different opposition on different tables. The newspaper report here shows the problem the Rastrick Cons. have in winning games. It is a handicap league that appears to favour the poorer sides, though as the better players will win scratch tournaments, I suppose it gives the lesser players a chance of success.
The Halifax paper was a sports edition, so they give plenty of column space to billiards and snooker, and in “Half Butt” they had a reporter who says it as he sees it. Jack and his Rastrick team mates are not really welcome in the Halifax League, but as this report shows, they are quick to call them their own when it suits them. In the Yorkshire Area English Amateur Championship, Jack played Albert Birkby of Halifax in the final at Thornhill Briggs WMC. The report described Jack as “a grand player” after his win over Albert by 1112 – 885, with breaks of exactly 100 and 113 to his credit, to reach the competition proper in London for the first time.
Jack would join Leslie Driffield, the holder, as Yorkshire representatives in the London finals. In the first round of 16 he played the London champion Jack Karnehm, who later turned professional and became a well known voice on TV; commentating on Cliff Thorburn’s first 147 at the Crucible in 1983. Karnehm had a slight advantage in that he had won his area final on the same table earlier in the season, and soon led by 182. Jack, far from being despondent, reduced the arrears slowly but surely to be only 446 – 516 behind at the interval. After the interval Jack started to master the table and, with consecutive breaks of 73, 47, 40, 41 and 40, led by 132. Jack was a little over confident at this point and was going for his shots instead of playing for safety, which gave Karnehm the chance to take the lead by 2 points. With ten minutes left in the game, Jack made a brilliant match winning 108 to give him a well deserved 1008 – 956 win. The Billiard Player magazine reported that “The Yorkshire player made a most creditable recovery”.
The second round quarter final game was against the Newcastle champion, Alf Nolan, who got off to a flyer with breaks of 117, 140 and 106, to lead 564 – 100. Needless to say Jack could not get his true stroke play going, as Nolan monopolised the table, and so was 230 – 810 behind at the interval. Nolan continued to dominate after the interval with breaks of 127 and 178 and ran out an easy winner 1734 – 502. Nolan lost in the semi-final to the Driffield, 2403 – 1678, with Driffield making breaks of 242 and 254 in the third session of the match. He went on to retain his title against three times champion Edwards, 4136 – 3016, with breaks of 122, 237, 171, 181, 200, 177, 155, 126, 140 and 164 over three days, each day of two 2-hour sessions.
In the Yorkshire Billiards Championship there were 28 entries of which 10 were from Huddersfield, and Jack travelled for his first game, first leg, to Hull to play Douglas Fleet. Jack trailed by 100 with the scores at the end of the night 300 – 400 in Fleet’s favour, but the report here says that his supporters who went on a coach to Hull were confident he could recover the loss in the second leg.
His supporters were correct as, with four breaks over 70, he won the second leg 400 – 243, winning the match with an aggregate score of 700 – 643. His next opponent would be the Huddersfield player Ronnie Kershaw, with the first leg away at Thornton Lodge.
Kershaw started the game really well and took an early lead, but a break of 113 by Jack wiped that out and at the half way stage took a lead of 24 to the Dyers and Finishers second leg. In an evenly contested second leg, Jack went through to the last eight of the competition by a winning margin of only 35. Huddersfield had four players in the last eight with Hoyle, Burkinshaw and Brindley joining Jack, and none had been drawn together.
Jack, in the quarter-final, was drawn against the Keighley player Ray Smith and had a narrow victory. The semi-final game was against Bradford policeman Inspector Ken Rhodes, and would be played at the Halifax Bowling Club. Jack won comfortably without really hitting form, and while he didn’t register a century he still ran out a 600 – 336 winner. Jack would meet his Huddersfield Inter-District team mate and Berry Brow player Jack Brindley in the final, to be played at Almondbury Liberal Club.
The first night’s leg was nip and tuck and the lead changed hands several times. Jack’s best break was one of 108 and Brindley’s was 93. Brindley took a narrow lead of 46 into the second night, which Jack overtook with small breaks to lead 752 – 686 at the interval. Brindley had a slice of luck with a cannon to reduce the lead to 10, and from then on Brindley made successive small breaks before he ran out a 1000 – 930 winner. The Yorkshire Association Chairman, one time Huddersfield official and Examiner reporter, Frank Fisher, presented the cup and prizes.
Jack Mellor 