Dave Anderson and Dad (John Anderson) proudly wearing the Gibraltar national team tops at Bridlington

We are here again: Bridlington, the European Blackball Championship.  I have to admit to feeling a bit dazed at being here, so much has happened in the past 12 months, most of it a distraction to playing good pool, so this year I have  a huge challenge ahead of me.

This year has been full of personal distractions.  I started my own business and had to put heart and soul into getting that off the ground.  Playing pool was almost a form of relaxation rather than training for international games.

Then, at the start of 2017, along with the joy of becoming a grandfather again with the birth of our first granddaughter, came the devastation of losing my mother to cancer.  It's hit me hard.  Suddenly, playing pool, training, competition, didn't seem so important.  It has been hard to pick up enthusiasm the past couple of months.

My Mum and I 

Until last week, when not only did the tops arrive and the wife insisted I get a bag packed and ready for my trip to Bridlington, but Dad came on the phone.  He had decided to put his own grieving aside and travel all the way up to Bridlington from Kent to provide some well-needed moral support.  "Your mother would have wanted me to, son," he said.

My brother John's been a star, and travelled up with Dad, who's 80 now and hasn't travelled on the train for years.  They arrived yesterday evening, in time for today's opening ceremony and first matches.  I couldn't have asked for better moral support.

Yes I'm a bit nervous - who wouldn't be surrounded by European stars of the game you love to play?  But I know I've got Ma on my side, Dad among the spectators, and I can't show myself up in front of my brother.

I'm just about to get my team top on.  It's been stamped with the logos of the GPA sponsors for the event: Premier Cue Sports Ltd. and Rockstream TV Ltd.  I've also added my own personal sponsors and can't thank them enough for their moral and financial support, so a big shout out to Bedrock Gin (and yes, their gin really is the best gin in the world, I have personally sampled it - gorgeous!).  And a special mention to Mum - thanks for everything - I'm playing this one for you xx

Joan Anderson, on form and right behind her son!





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the starting blocks

Image
Photo: "Pool Game" by Serge Bertasius Photography from www.freedigitalphotos.net   Thirty-five years is a long time.  Too long for keeping up with skills learnt in my mid-teens.  Still, I loved the sport and in the depths of the stress of family life and work, home and finance and all that modern, rat-race stuff, I needed to get back to something I loved doing. At the age of 14 or 15, a friend of mine invited me up to the local snooker hall where I lived in Medway.  It was the snooker hall upstairs from Burtons on Gillingham High Street - not the most salubrious place in town - but the place where I was introduced to a sport I was to grow to love.  For a fairly quiet lad, it was a bit of a venture out to me, but I quickly warmed to the place and found that snooker came easily.  That's not a boast, being good at snooker was very tough, but I got the hang of the game pretty quickly, and pretty quickly I was beating my mates.  I had the ability to ...
Read more

Playing pool at the Europeans: Bridlington 2019

Image
Gibraltar Seniors Team at EBA European Pool Championship 2018, Bridlington It's been a mad hectic couple of weeks travelling, playing pool, then trying to settle down to normality afterwards. There's always a build up to an international tournament. Besides being caught up with league matches, the GibOil Cup and Plate tournaments coming to a head and trying to fit in extra practice, there's the tension and the anticipation at playing some of the world's best players. The chill, the grey skies and cold rain of the Yorkshire coast did not dampen our spirits as the Gibraltar team headed for the venue that first morning. We had left behind blue skies, temperatures well into the twenties and a city making its first moves to the annual beach season, but we shrugged off the chill of a typical British spring morning and strode into the opening ceremony heads held high, proud to be waving the Gibraltar flag. The excitement ran through all the players like a current o...
Read more

Getting down to the nitty gritty

Image
Photo "Eight Ball Pool" by ArtJsan courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhoto.net It's over.  The summer, I mean, not my pool playing days.  Not only have the heavens opened to provide us with a long-overdue clean up of the streets, but the glamour of travelling to international competitions of the late summer is now over.  The pool playing season has started, and here we go, head down, cue lined up and...shoot. It was, though, if you can hold with my reminiscing a moment, a bloody good summer.  The EBA 2015 Nations Cup in Killarney was a brilliant event.  The location couldn't have been more perfect: what a lovely place Killarney is, and what friendly, welcoming people.  The venue was superb and what all competing pool players need when travelling is their physical comforts made easy so they can concentrate on their game. I couldn't fault the Gleneagles Hotel, nor the organisation of the tournament.  And then there was the fun.  I met some genuine...
Read more