THE LAST TO GO

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 35, 10 August 1933, Page 7

THE LAST TO GO

ENGLISH BILLIARDS TITLE

LINDRUM WINS IT

The boast that the Billiards Cham-j pionship ia the only! title in sport that has never been held bjr other thim^an Englishman is no longer possible, says a writer in the "Daily' Mail." Waiter' Lindrum, of Australia/ defeated,.,.the holder, Joe • Davis, ia London^- '*ari<l broke the sequence of Englishmen's victories that began in 1870, when W. Cook—who was given his first lesson by his governess—defeated the elder John Roberts. There have ben. two previous attempts to win the title by overseas players. In 19J4 George Gray, the "red-Sail" specialist, cut an inglorious figure against Tom Eeeee through finding that billiards with ivory balls was a far more difficult game than when composition was the playing medium. The other player from tho Antipodes, Clark McConachy, found the sturdy young Chesterfield player, Joe' Davis, easily his master. Davis is fully entitled to bo called the championship specialist, aa until beaten by Lindrum —and it was a defeat worth many victories—he had never lost a championship game either at billiards or snooker since he first started winning them. Lindrum is definitely not the player he was, and he is nettled by the "linecrossing" restrictions once in every 200 points of a break. There is something in his contention that a player should be allowed to play his own game without being hampered by, being compelled to do something that is actually 4iot in the official rules of tho game. A DIFFEDENT GAME. Billiards is a far different game from what it was in John Robert's time. Tables, cloth, and cushions are much better, composition balls are truer than ivories were, and the lighting is far better. Against this there are limits to cannons and hazards, and two successive safety misses are not permitted. I once saw two players get over 40 each in succession.Roberts often set himself to get 20,000 in a match of a fortnight's duration, and in the only two hours' timeJimit game he ever played he scored 23,509. As. Lindrum to win the championship scored 21,815 in six hours less time, it wuold not appear that there was a great deal between Roberts at his best and Lindrum. ■ There has recently been a falling off in pjublic interest in billiards, and, strangely enough, I regard this as being due to Lindrum's -superiority. When he first came he drew large crowds, but he made the game look so ridiculously easy that those v.ho had seen him once did not bother to go again. "He is sure t win," they said. Roberts, the greatest billiards showman of all times, made his game look difficult, and to the end he had a large following. But -when Lindrum was "up against it" during his match, it stimulated public interest, and he and Davis finished up by filling tho hall, the onlookers displaying a great deal of enthusiasm.