20th February 2010 saw the 8th annual Old Boys match take place at its new home of Riley’s in Between Towns Road.
For the 4th year in a row, more than 20 Old Boys turned out for the match, this year played as a triangular event between the "Old Old Boys", the "Young Old Boys" and the students. As would be expected, preparations for the event were nothing if not thorough, although in the case of the Old Boys not thorough enough to actually include playing any pool before the match. Presumably foreseeing this likelihood, the students also spurned the idea of practice in favour of a team night out the evening before.
Come the Saturday morning therefore the scene was set for a keenly fought contest between a load of guys that couldn’t remember the rules, and a load of other guys that wished they were still in bed. Anyone that might have thought that those ingredients would translate into a lack of confidence would, however, have been very much mistaken, and the one thing that everyone still seemed more than capable of doing was talking a good game.
Once play got underway, it initially appeared that everyone’s confidence was at least partly justified, with all but 2 of the first 15 matches finishing 2-1 in a closely fought session in which all 3 teams had something to cheer about. Any thought that the Old Old Boys might not retain the title that had been theirs for the last 3 years however quickly began to evaporate as play went on and by the half way point it was starting to look like there could only be one winner as the Young Old Boys trailed their more experienced colleagues by 31 frames to 47, with the students a further frame behind that.
Half time saw a new addition to the event with a singles speed pool knockout, in which players competed in groups of 4 with the top 2 each time going through to the next round. Unsurprisingly this produced something of a mixed bag of performances, with the pressure of time and the crowd combining to help some people look like they’d never picked up a cue before. Others proved themselves more than able to cope with the pressure though, with some moments of brilliance including Gary Jones smashing in a tricky double on his last ball when his nearest opponent, Lei Xiao, only needed to roll in a ball over the pocket for victory. After a quick fire half an hour of potting, the final was between Adam Brown, Martin Rowland, Gary Jones and Chris Graham, with Adam cruising to victory ahead of a game challenge from Martin.
Getting back to the serious business, the second half of the match was an altogether more even affair, but ultimately no one could put enough pressure on the Old Old Boys and they coasted to a 34-26 victory over the Young Old Boys and a 39-21 victory over the students. In the other game, the students held themselves together well to beat the Young Old Boys 34-26. This meant that the final scores were:
Old Old Boys - 73
Students - 55
Young Old Boys - 52
Top individual stats:
Mark Shepherd - 13/15
Rob Sparkes - 12/15
Pete Franklin - 11/15
Neil Margossian - 10/15
John Murray - 10/15
Adam Brown - 9/15
Richard Walters - 9/15
Teams:
Old Old Boys - Craig Fothergill, Danny Potter, Gary Jones, James Watson, Mark Shepherd, Neil Margossian, Nick Farrington, Pete Franklin, Rob Sparkes, Tom Barkworth
Young Old Boys - Adam Brown, Ben Holroyd, Chris Graham, Chris Hook, Frankie Bostock, Hugh Lund, Mark Priest, Mark Salter, Martin Rowland, Omeed Starmer, Russell Gammon
Students - Ian Ashpole, James Cholerton, Joe Sturge, John Murray, Lei Xiao, Malcolm Begg, Mark Pitfield, Richard Walters, Sam Packwood, Thomas Preston