Playing Pool in Gibraltar

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...

Image courtesy of GPA I've been sorting out my packing, passport, cue and kit this week, getting ready for the trip to the EBA European Pool Championship in Bridlington next weekend. Looking forward to it, I certainly am, but it would be all too easy to let the event get on top of you or affect nerves. So, along with making sure my team tops and trousers fit comfortably and that my new shoes aren't going to rub my feet to shreds (I am a great believer in being totally physically comfortable when playing a match), and getting in some extra practise in between work engagements, I've been doing lots of relaxing. Ok so some of my favourite ways to relax is watching the game. This weekend, it is the  World Snooker Championship at The Crucible in Sheffield, and there's been some cracking matches. I watched James Cahill showing Ronnie O'Sullivan the door, something that still has the pundits twitching. It was a brilliant match to watch and if there was someth...

It may be Easter and that may mean a bit of chocolate and a few indulgences here and there, but we are on countdown to the EBA European Pool Championship 2019, so, once today is over, it's down to pre-tournament preparation. I guess every pool player has his or her own particular routine that they use to get ready for a major tournament. I had a chat with some of my pool playing buddies and had a trawl round the internet to see what preparations seemed most popular among players. Here are the most common ways that players seem to like to prepare for a major tournament: Think about what goes in           Intake of food and drink is key to how your body performs in any circumstances, and in            particular in stress situation such as competitive pool playing. Eating well - not too little, not             too much - helps you to stay focused and keep up your energy level...

Friday afternoon. Sunshine and showers and a howling gale tossing the boats in the Marina about their moorings. A rush to the venue after cutting short my work day and before I had much time to think, the doubles match, postponed from a few days ago, was under way. It was a tough match. Later, Her Ladyship Indoors, who had come along to watch and lend her support said (expletives deleted): "It was like watching you mix concrete with a teaspoon." Always direct, Her Ladyship. But that is pretty much how it felt. Every shot was an effort, every movement felt as if I had a steel reinforcement bar shoved up my jumper, or across my shoulders. I struggled to position the white, every pot was a bonus rather than a given, and even my legs (quite handy for steadying you into perfect balance at your chosen position) felt as if the knees and ankles had seized up with rust. I had been alright half an hour earlier, or so I thought. My doubles partner was not faring muc...

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 ...