Again I have turned to the Billiards and Snooker magazine to see what I can find about the season, due to the lack of reports that Jack has left me. This is the last Editorial that would have been done by Richard Holt, who retired from his position at the end of the year. He had been editor of the magazine for the past 18 years and a fund was set up to mark his achievement. This editorial reports on the change of the Amateur Billiards Championship to fall in line with the Snooker Championship that had changed four years ago. The reason for this could be the impending closure of Burroughes Hall as a playing venue. Burroughes & Watts Ltd were taken over by group of property developers who later demolished the building and built a new modern office block.
This shows the call for all fans to encourage television companies to show more of the game they loved. The first televised Pot Black show was shown in July of 1969. “Whispering” Ted Lowe came up with the idea for the BBC and, along with the new editor of this magazine, Clive Everton, became the voice of snooker.
Clive Everton was a very fine billiards player and reached the final of the English Amateur Championship this year after winning the Southern Area. He met the Northern Area winner, Leslie Driffield in the All-England Final held in Liverpool, as mentioned above. Leslie beat him in the three day final by 3395 – 2328 to win his eighth title. Clive did go on to reach the World Amateur semi-finals in 1975 and 1977 before coming a professional snooker player in 1981.
There had been 31 entries in the Northern Area for the new format of the English Amateur Billiards Championship, of which two were from Yorkshire. Here is the result from that match, which shows Harry Holroyd from Bradford beating our Brian Cousen. Holroyd went on to beat Bert Eglington (Stockton) in the first round, 1126 – 833, but lost to Herbert Beetham (Derby) in the quarter-final, 1581 – 562. Apart from this there wasn’t anything else of note in the magazine relating to the Yorkshire area. The new editor seems to have brought his own style to the paper and, though it is early days, it doesn’t appear to be northern based.
How fitting that perhaps the last billiards or snooker game to be played at the famous Burroughes Hall would be the in aid of the Richard Holt testimonial fund. On the evenings of March 28, 29, 30 and 31 there would be exhibitions by many well known exponents of the game, to show their appreciation of his work. Tickets for the first three evenings would be 5s and for the last evening were 10s 6d – 25p and 52.5p in today’s money. The fund closed at a total of £221 16s 6d, and the benefit evening at Burroughes Hall raised £218 18s 6d (less £22 10s 0d expenses), giving a total of £418 4s 6d. According to Google, that amount back in 1967 equates to a princely sum of £6393 in spending power in 2020, which is certainly better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!
Jack Mellor 