Berkshire Ladies 13 - 31 London Ladies

The ladies travelled to Berkshire's new venue with high hopes of a convincing win and did not disappoint.

The girls won each set convincingly - especially the second 10-1, and the outcome of the match was never really in doubt.

Berkshire's new venue is a massive improvement in terms of space although some of the tables proved to be more level than others.

With a 31-13 scoreline you'd expect a few 4/4s and there were 4. Well done to Rebecca Osborne, Lindie Snyman, Sarah King and Sue Studman. Player of the Match goes to Sarah with a cool performance but a mention also for Rebecca who has won every frame she has played since joining London earlier in the year.

Our next match is against Kent in August, who will obviously prove a stronger test, however we go into the match in joint second place with Surrey and know that we have a squad capable of at least remaining in second place at the end of the season.

Dont panic boys , we had 2 very good players and 9 not so very good players in our 6th county fixture of the year and we still cant be beat. We're still 7pts clear at the top of the league with 4 matches to play. Yeah Surrey caught up a bit, but they beat a team that everyone is beating with ease including us and we still have to play them again. The script is pretty much being written for the second half of the season the same as the first. Everyone bashing up Hamps and Sussex, then us and Surrey having tough matches with a very much improved Berkshire side and tough matches against each other. All we have to do is keep doing what we've been doing and although i expect us to beat Surrey at JFKs in the last game of the season, another draw will be enough.
We arrived at the new Berkshire venue missing 2 of our more experienced players, Jamie Fay and Kyle Merrigan but welcomed back into the team Michael Brown.
I wasnt impressed by the fact that C team pool had been given preference over B team pool by way of giving the C team match two tables next to each other and the B team match had to be played on two tables at different ends of the club. It was very hard to watch the games, get any momentum going or any atmosphere. I hope they pay Surrey the same courtesy as i think any team going there will find hard to play in circumstances they are not used to. That said i thought the venue is very good and much improved on the chiswick venue they used to use, tables were very good and a very nice buffet was laid on. Although the break for food came at the wrong time for us, just as we was gaining momentum and a bit of a lead.
The match itself was a bit topsyturvey with some flashes of brilliance and some downright unforgivable mistakes, but to be fair on both teams, there were about 10 break and finishes, more than i have seen in any B team county match. We won three of the four sets which is what is needed to win matches, but loosing the 3rd set 8-3 is what cost us. Something we shall have to put right in our next match at home to Kent on the 9th August.

On an individual level.

Myself, Paul Mchale, Chris Snyman, Chris Yates could of done better. Darren Baker came to the match after pretty much having had no sleep and suffered as a consequence.Rob Chalmers and Adam Coppen had not so good days with Adam being broke and dished in two of his frames. The two Barnet boys had a better day for themselves with Ian showing some of his great potting skills with his last frame of the day to produce a great clearance.
The two stars of the day were without question Tony Bailey only making one mistake all day and being our anchor man who again saved the day break and finishing the last frame to get us the draw we desrerved. Saying that we didnt deserve to win the match either and a draw was most definately the fairest result. And Michael Brown who played perfect pool all day and desrved his 4/4 and the MOTM award.


2/4 Rob Chalmers
2/4 Paul McHale
2/4 John Kelly
1/4 Darren Baker
2/4 Chris Snyman
2/4 Ian Clarke
3/4 Tony Bailey
0/4 Adam Coppen
2/4 Chris Yates
3/4 Steve Wallace

Another great win for London A team today, getting to the 30 mark for the third time in our six matches so far this year, and against one of the strongest Berks line-ups I've seen.

To be honest though, we started a bit flat, and were a bit lucky to end up winning the first 2 sets with 6 and 7 frames. At least 5 times that I can think of, one of us (myself included) had thrown a frame away only to have it thrown back.

Still, there's always a bit of that kind of thing, and at the end of the day we were getting the blacks down more than them which is what matters.

The second half of the match was much more one-sided in every way, the improvement during the match reflected in the fact that every set saw us win one more frame than the set before.

Danny Miller was the only player to win all 4, but those that won 3 included Dean who lost a frame to a roll-off and myself who ost it to a break and dish. Apologies if I've forgotten anything similar relating to thers... I seemed to end up reffing some very long frames today - felt like I missed half the match!

Mark Thrussell's reappearance, from the bench at half time, produced a great dish, but I think just about everyone managed at least one of those. Except Etienne who was unlucky in his 2 frames but ended up being the one to make way for Mark. The truth is he didn't deserve to come out any more than a good few others - at least 4 or 5 of us were in contention. But that's a sign of the strength of the squad we have now. Like I said before, we can't consider a 50% average as securing a spot any more... because we're all there (see stats below).

Deciding who plays isn't going to get any easier because we have 14 players all of whom are up for the job. But that's the best kind of difficult decision to have.

Berks new venue in Reading is a huge improvement, although I imagine there'll be pressure on them to try to rearrange things a bit... having to play their match on 2 tables such a long way apart can't be easy for the B team (home or away).

Shame about the longer drive... and the traffic coming back was a nightmare... but on balance I think everyone will be glad not to be going to Chiswick anymore (although a little bit of me might have disagreed as I passed through Chiswick on the way home... two hours after leaving Reading!)

Current stats for the A team...

To those that are interested: J.F.K's is proud to deliver the continuation of the J.F.K's Summer Shield, by launching the first ever J.F.K's Winter Shield, except this is for amateurs only, so only players out side the top 32, on the I.P.A Tour can participate.

This tournament will be a £20 a man one day event, which will be played to World Rules, on 22/11/09 (22nd Nov 2009) at J.F.K's, doors open 11am for 12 noon start.

All Encounters from round one to the finals, will all be Race To 6's (Best Of 11's) and you must win by 2 clear. If and when a match goes to 9-9 after 18 frames of pool, in that particular encounter, then the two players will re-lag, to decide, who will be breaking in the one frame pool, sudden death decider and the breaks between players, will alternate per frame.

This comp is subjected to a maximum of 64 runners, so it will be a first come, first serve basis and we will pay out from the winner all the way down to the quarters.

Please Note: We will also be running a £10 a man plate event for all 1st & 2nd round losers, plus a Texas Hold Em Poker Comp, which will be late on that evening. In the main comp, we will add an extra £60 to the prize pot, should we get 32 or more runners and £120 if we get 64 runners.

P.S. I would like to take this final opportunity, to wish all entries the best of luck and if you have anything to ask about the comp structure or anything else regarding the comp details, then please don't hesitate to post a reply or contact John (G) Kelly aka 2nd_visit.

Thank You

Best Regards

Kevin Martin Dempsey aka gerbil

On Sunday 7th June the London B team won their 5th match in a row defeating the current National Champions, Surrey.

The victory was mainly down to Three Men and a Boy. Three of the team’s most experienced players and one of the team’s newest young guns, namely, Tony Bailey, Paul McHale, Darren Baker and Rob Chalmers. These 4 players won more than 50% of the 23 frames needed to beat Surrey. But on a whole it was probably our worst performance as a squad for the whole season. Maybe the pressure got to a few people? I know it did for me. I knew London hadn’t beaten Surrey for some time; I knew Surrey were the defending Regional Champions and the current National Champions; and as captain, I knew we had a very good squad of players and that we had a team capable of beating Surrey, but feared that the pressure might be too much. And as a result, my own game suffered and I can only apologise for that, someone with my experience should have done better.

Now that we have beaten Surrey, myself and the rest of the team will be able to relax and play our game for the rest of the season, knowing that WE ARE good enough to beat the Regional Champions, and WE ARE good enough to beat the National Champions. If we play the way we can, we can win everything, the only thing that can prevent us is complacency.

Another great win for London A, although we fell one short of the 30 mark today.

Dean Wisher and Neil Toms opened things up with wins over Nosher and Steve Petty to get things started, and both ended up with 4 out of 4. With 5 players getting 3, it was possible for a couple to have off-days and for us to still get a big win, which is nice, against the National Champioms. Not that I’m saying anyone played badly… of the 2 that only won 1 frame, Jack was on the receiving end of first-visit dishes in his first 2 frames, amd John had a very unlucky in-off to lose a frame in which he’d played some great tactical pool to give himself any kind of chance in. In amongst the 3s was Rob McKay, back for good we hope and playing some very solid stuff as ever.

Surrey were a bit off-colour, and it sounds like they have been all season. But they’re still a quality side and I’m sure they’ll get their focus back when it comes to Yarmouth in the spring. London A are now about 40 points clear (of Hants I think) in the race to join them.

I have to say, Surrey’s new venue is a massive improvement. So much room, which made it easy to hang around and watch the B team and Ladies complete an excellent trio of wins. Well done to all 3 winning teams.

Surrey 19 - 25 London. Get in there!!! This win has been a long time coming but all the sweeter for it.

We certainly didn't have it all our own way though and at 3-0 down we could have been forgiven for letting our heads drop. But we didn't. We fought back. At at the end of the first set we trailed by the narrowest of margins - 6-5.

The next set started in a similar fashion but confidence had been restored and we went on a 7 frame winning streak at the end of the second set to lead 13-9 at the half way point.

I would have said that we went off the boil again at the start of the 3rd but to be honest we didn't, credit where it's due Surrey have a very strong top 4 and the 3rd set also went to Surrey 6-5 but we remained ahead at 18-15.

We did get off to a better start in the final set when the pressure was well and truly on and I'll admit to being pretty nervous in my frame for the draw at 22-17. It was left to Lucy Nettleingham to sink the winning black at 23-18. With the win under our belts we were in the mood to celebrate, however there was the business of the remaining frames which went 2-1 to London giving a final score of 25-19.

There were plenty of great performances today but worthy of a mention were 4/4 from Rebecca Osborne and 3/4 from Lucy Nettleingham, Sue Studman and Keely Clarke with Keely being named Player of the Match.

Our next match is in a fortnight's time at Berkshire's new venue at Rileys in Reading. Normally I hate having two matches so close together, but this time . . . I can't wait!!

The World Championship qualifier at JFKs turned out to be quite a fun day out at the office for those that turned up. Especially after Brendan Connors said "Shall we do a Calcutta?", which we did. It added a bit of fun at the start with the bidding wars for who wants to back which player kept the interest in the rest of the comp for those that were knocked out.

The day started with 17 runners, there were a few no shows that had let us down right at the last minute (Sefton Payne, James Sheed and Etienne Wagner), but we still had enough for the comp to go ahead.
The draw was done with one prelim match which was ex London A team player, Stephen Wallace against the fast improving London C team player John Munro, with John being rewarded for for all his efforts as of late with the win and going into the first round proper.

The GLCPA World Masters Qualifier will be held at JFK's on Weds 27th May, 7pm registration for a 7.30 start.

All matches best of 9 frames. £15 entry. Open to all London County players with one 1 space for every 8 runners.

Qualifiers will receive their £40 entry to the World Masters in Blackpool plus £80 towards accommodation costs.

Contact Jerry Tickell for any further information required.

Whats going on ?????????? LoL

We lose Etienne to the A's, we had no Jamie Fay or Kyle Merrigan who in previous matches were our No1 & 2 in our team line up and leading the team stats and we still win 31-13.

It just goes to show what a great strength in depth squad we have.

We started of our match with Hampshire with a very strong first set winning it 8-3 , with Rob Chalmers struggling lately with his confidence, I decided to put more pressure on him as I thought it would give him the kick up the arse he needed and I gotta say, my great captaincy worked lol. He started the match much more confidently and was unlucky not to get 100% for the day.

The 2nd set was our strongest winning it 10-1 with some very commanding performances.

The 3rd set was our worst. We did this in the Berks match, we got to a point where we got complacent with the fact that it was only a matter of time before the match was won. By only winning this set 6-5 we ruined our chances of really killing them off. And though the match was won our heads had dropped because we all knew we had let ourselves down.

Uncharacteristically, myself and Mr Chalmers lost the first 2 frames of the last set to prevent us both getting 4/4 for the day but fortunately the rest of the team held it together to win the 7 of the last 9 frames to close out the match with a very resounding 31-13 win, which puts us 14 points clear at the top of the table after Surrey only beating Kent 24-20. With us playing Surrey next on 7th June , if they was worried about us before they will surely be shaking in their boots now. Choowowwa

On an individual level.

Myself and Rob Chalmers put in very solid performances as did Tony Bailey, Michael Brown and Robbie Robb, all of us getting comfortable 3/4's.

A bit of a shaky match for vice captain Steve Wallace and Alex Lawrence getting 3/4 and 2/4 respectively.

Bri Chudasama had an absolute nightmare of a day, which was very unexpected after playing so well in the previous 2 matches.

Adam Coppen had a good match after returning from Yarmouth an England U21 Int'l by not only getting 3/4 but winning what in my opinion was the best frame of the day.
Paul McHale also had a steady match which is no more than expected of him.

MOM

This has to go to Chris Snyman who i promoted from the C team, he handled the pressure with ease. A very confdent 4/4 and with displays like that it wont take him long to cement his place in the squad. Well done.

3/4 John Kelly
3/4 Rob Chalmers
3/4 Tony Bailey
3/4 Michel Brown
3/4 Steve Wallace
4/4 Chris Snyman
3/4 Adam Coppen
0/4 Bri Chudasama
4/4 Paul McHale
3/4 Robbie Robb
2/4 Alex Lawrence

League Table

139 London
125 Surrey
099 Berkshire
090 Kent
067 Hampshire
057 Sussex