SNOOKER WAGER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 14 February 1939, Page 15

SNOOKER WAGER.

Joe Davis Backs His Brother For £IM.

After Alee Brown had won the snooker tournament, and received the gold cup, Joe Davis, the champion, who at last had been handicapped out of the prise, startled his fellow professionals by declaring his willingness to wager £100 that his brother Fred would beat any of thenr except two. "Name them," the company demanded. Davis stated that the only players he excluded from the challenge were Horace Lindrum and Sydney Smith.

Tom Newman was the first to jump in. "11l take your £100," He said. So there and then the match was made, and I Shall not be surprised if others, in which the men back themselves, follow.

Fred Davis does not hold a place in the front rank of professionals, but he has been carefully coached by brother Joe, and he is * better player, specially at snooker, than is realised. Although it was not suspected that his eyesight was defective, it was not until be began to wear spectacles that he made the advance hoped for. Then he began to make the long shots -with mora certainty.

I do not think there ha* ever been a first-class bespectacled billiards player. The glasses which Fred Davis wears "are made to swivel np and down to any angle. When he looks down his cue. the lenses swing back flush with his eyes, and he does not look over the top of them. By this arrangement, too, there is no possibility of his view being affected by reflection from the table hts.