BILLIARDS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1090, 26 January 1911, Page 11

BILLIARDS.

STEVENSON-GRAY MATCH. Nothing definite has been done in settling the hitch that looks like interfering with this game, when the mail left, says “Snooker” in the “Referee,” readers will remember that Gray’s employers offered the champion £2OO to play their protege, with an additional £250 should he win, which appears good payment for two weeks’ work; but as the match would probably draw from £2500 to £3OOO, Stevenson naturally thinks that the emoluments offered him, liberal though they may appear, sink into insignificance compared with what Messrs. Riley would draw. There is a further lion in the path in the shape of the Bonzoline Ball Co., to whom Stevenson is engaged. Will they give way and allow their employee to use a rival make of ball? But that is. not all. By playing the match Stevenson may lose the position he holds in the world of billiards. At the present time he is the kingpin of the game, and can get terms that none of his contemporaries (Gray excepted, perhaps) would demand or have any hope of receiving. The position is stated in the following par. in the “Sporting Life,” which shows 1 what Stevenson would risk. If it were possible to capitalise all the honours and all the kudos attaching to the position, it would be found to represent a good round sum in current coin of the realm. Yet Stevenson is

expected to jeopardise this capital for ■what at best could only be £450. How different with Stevenson! Other views to the contrary, defeat for him would mean a slump in the champion’s stock. It might not seriously prejudice him in this country, where all the'circumstances are appreciated, but in the event .of the champion touring abroad (including Australia) there is not the slightest doubt it would militate against him professionally in more ways than one. This, I venture to point out, is a phase of the matter which has not entered into the reckoning of the public, but it is well that it should be pointed out, .n case the negotiations do not have a successful issue. The next point which readily occurs to my mind is that of playing conditions. Not only has Stevenson to sacrifice —or at least, prejudice a big proportion of the emoluments attaching to the position of champion, but he must play under conditions which are unfamiliar to him, and, obviously, those with which his young rival has a thorough acquaintance.

So it would appear that unless there is some unbending, the chances of Stevenson and Gray meeting under conditions which the Australian is versed are rather remote. This will be disappointing to followers of the game. After Gray’s showing against Higgle, their appetites were whetted for the greater ordeal with the English champion, whose chances do not appear as rosy as they did when the negotiations were entered into.

Discussing the prospects of a match between young George Gray and some of the leading players in England, a writer in the London “Sportsman” expressed the opinion that a match between Reece and Gray, if played at Manchester, would in all probability yield a gate of seven or eight hundred pounds. Stevenson and Gray in London next March would be a tremendous aii’-actlcn, and would draw anything from £l5OO to £2OOO.

What our own knights of the cue thmk of it all, I don’t know, says a

wntei in “The Asian.” I am afraid it has very badly upset the calculations of some of them. The advent of Gray and his wonderful red loser was, I think, the finest thing that ever happened for billiards in this country. There are those of our prolessors- cue in particular —who were !gv getting the game into their own hands, end playing the part which John Holerts enacted at the Egyptian Hall —the part of the dictator. “You can play me on my terms, of course; only I must win. The people come to see me, not you.” That was the ambition which Gray has knocked out of joint.