INTRODUCTION
Justification for the appearance of a volume on the game of billiards as it is played early in 1896 is ample, for no treatise or manual exists in which modern developments are considered. Though this is so, it does not follow that the instruction in older works is unsound; much may be learnt from some of them, specially about plain practice strokes, but the science of playing breaks has been completely changed since they were published. If, however, further warrant were needed, it is supplied in the neglect of most players, whether professional or amateur, of elementary facts concerning the motion of balls on a table; and this, though ameliorated as regards professional players by constant practice and observation, obstructs both classes more than they think in the race for distinction. The best French players, from whom we have much to learn, recognise that the closer and more intelligent the study of the game, and the more nearly the implements reach perfection, the nearer do scientific theory and actual practice conform. Hence in this book considerable space is devoted to matters which may seem elementary and self-evident, but which are really the bases of sound knowledge, and of which amateurs (for whom the volume is primarily written) are for the most part completely ignorant. When the behaviour of a ball under various influences is described endeavour is made to use the simplest language; mathematical terms not generally understood are as far as possible avoided.
Several matters of importance to the game and in need of reform are discussed, the opinions of experts, amateur and professional, being occasionally quoted; sometimes opposite views are stated, and efforts are made to consider duly those of all shades.
It is usual, and most of the contributors have not failed to conform to the fashion, to insist on the fact that more can be learnt from a player in an hour than from a book in a year, that an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory, or some similarly original sentiment. Certainly no man can be made a billiard-player solely by the study of books any more than skill in shooting, fishing, or other sport, can be so attained; but much may be learnt from a good manual, both by a beginner and by his instructor. By conforming to the arrangement of a book a system of teaching will be followed, and this, if sound, must help master and pupil.
The amateur who has played for years and acquired a bad style is more difficult to assist; he is apt to find, whilst trying to correct faults and to play breaks, that he has lost his old certainty, and scores worse after than before instruction—a result which causes many to lose heart. But there is no need to do so; the chance of improvement depends greatly on modesty and perseverance, whilst the case is hopeless in proportion to the presence of presumption and conceit. Some give in at this stage and revert to their former methods, others more resolute persevere and improve; but it is hoped that both classes will find this book of service. Those who devote their whole attention to making the immediate stroke will be assisted by the practice recommended; whilst the more ambitious will find advice which may in time enable them to play real breaks and thus derive fresh pleasure from the game.
Personal qualifications have so important an influence in billiards, that too precise definition of the stroke to be played for is avoided. What is the game for one person is not necessarily the game for another, and each must use his own discretion. The qualities usually found in fine players are good nerve, quick and sound judgment, resolution, and temper under control, accompanied by fair sight, a fine touch, and sympathy between eye and hand. Of these some are the gifts of nature and cannot be acquired; others may be improved by careful training. Nerve is little understood, but is strengthened by gaining certainty of play, which creates confidence; yet there is always that which we cannot explain, but may call the ‘personal equation.’ It is perplexing, but must not be ignored, and persons of the most slender experience will admit that they play better with one man than with another, though they cannot always account for the fact.
Much care and time have been spent on the diagrams and figures, but absolute accuracy is not to be expected; indeed, it cannot be attained, for the size of the table must be limited by that of a page, whilst for the sake of clearness the balls are shown on a larger scale, a consequence being some imperfection in the delineation of their indicated paths. In the final chapter many matters connected with billiards are briefly noticed, amongst which are: the suitability of the game for ladies; the French or cannon game, which possesses advantages on account of the smaller size of table on which it is played; and the duties of marker and referee. The observations about etiquette are specially commended to the careful consideration of readers. It is beyond doubt that the vastly inferior play of amateurs compared with professionals is in no small measure owing to laxity in behaviour, whereby attention is distracted from the game. If billiards is ever to be played finely in ordinary clubs, as strict order must be maintained as is usual in the card-room.
Obligations must be expressed to Mr. Boyd, Colonel Allan Cunningham, R.E., Mr. Dudley Pontifex, and Mr. Russell Walker for assistance in various ways; and to M. Vignaux, whose admirable manual of the French game has been of special service. To a less extent the volume is indebted to the works of Joseph Bennett and of other players; but beyond all it owes much of whatever merit it may have to the assistance and advice of Mr. R. H. R. Rimington-Wilson. It is indeed impossible to overestimate the value of this aid, for his knowledge of the game and practical skill are united to a singularly sound judgment, and his help is enhanced by the kindness and courtesy with which it has invariably been accompanied. Acknowledgment is further due to Messrs. Burroughes & Watts and Messrs. Peall and Walder for practical help of great value.
The preparation of this manual was a difficult task which the writer would not have attempted without the co-operation just acknowledged; and readers are besought to recollect, if disposed to resent an air of authority in giving advice, or a too evident want of respect for their knowledge and skill, that on every question of importance the recorded conclusions are the result rather of careful consideration by experts than an expression of personal opinion.
Passing on from these preliminary observations and acknowledgments, it should be at once said that no laborious compilation of the results of research is here given on the subject of the origin of the game of billiards, for the reason that this is obscure in the extreme. Many attempts have been made to trace its ancient history, but little success has resulted. In most books about it, reference is made to the well-known quotations from Spenser and Shakespeare; whilst in ‘Modern Billiards,’ the American text-book, the historian plunges deeper into the mystery of the past, and tells how Cathire More, King of Ireland, who died A.D. 148, left ‘fifty billiard balls of brass, with the pools and cues of the same materials.’ Besides this, he refers to ‘the travels of Anacharsis through Greece, 400 B.C.,’ during which a game which might have been early billiards was seen.
We may, perhaps, safely assume that the game is of considerable antiquity, a development from some primitive form played with balls on the ground. It may, therefore, have been evolved simultaneously in many countries, and have assumed minor differences as it grew older. Then, as intercourse became easier, one country may have borrowed from another what was thought desirable, with the general result that the similarities of the games of various countries are greater than the differences.
Undoubtedly, in 1896 the two great games are the English and the French, and each is indebted to the other.
From the lawn or courtyard the game was promoted to a table indoors, the bed was wooden, the cushions were stuffed with cotton, and there were pockets. The balls, of ivory or of wood, were propelled by wooden maces tipped with ivory, silver, or brass. Such a table is depicted in ‘The Compleat Gamester,’ by Charles Cotton (1674). Improvement for a long time after this date seems slow to those who contrast the strides made during the last half of the nineteenth century. The first step of importance was the substitution of the cue for the mace, and the invention of the leather tip by Mingaud, a French player, who early in the century was, it is said, imprisoned for a political offence, and during his imprisonment made the important discovery. Next came the application of chalk, with which Carr, who had some title to be called the first champion player of England, is generally credited. He was, moreover, a player of the spot stroke, in those days (about 1825) probably a recent invention. Position was maintained by a screw back or by follow, as the slow cushions did not admit of use after the modern manner. Carr is referred to in the following chapter.
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF BILLIARDS
By Sydenham Dixon
Just as there were ‘brave men before Agamemnon,’ so, doubtless, were there good billiard-players prior to Kentfield; but we hear very little about them. One of the few whose name has been handed down to posterity is John—generally known as Jack—Carr. He was originally marker for Mr. Bartley, the proprietor of the billiard-tables at the Upper Rooms at Bath. When business there was slack, Mr. Bartley and Carr used occasionally to amuse themselves by placing the red ball on the centre spot, and attempting to screw off it into one of the middle pockets without bringing the red ball back into baulk. Such a stroke would be easier under the conditions then existing of slow list cushions and rough baize cloths than it is now, and for a long time Mr. Bartley was the only person who could accomplish it. At last he confided to Carr that he did it by striking his own ball upon its side. It seems pretty clear, therefore, that Mr. Bartley was the inventor of the side stroke and screw; but he appears to have made very little practical use of his great discovery; whereas Carr, who soon outstripped his instructor in proficiency at this particular stroke, turned his knowledge to excellent account, and fairly astonished and mystified the frequenters of the billiard-room at Bath by the ease and certainty with which he brought off apparently impossible strokes. They were naturally anxious to learn the secret, and, after Carr had artfully roused their curiosity to its highest pitch by remaining obstinately silent on the subject for a considerable time, he gravely informed them that his wonderful powers were entirely due to the use of a certain ‘twisting chalk’ that he had recently invented, and had then on sale. The demand for small pill-boxes filled with powdered chalk at half a crown per box was naturally enormous, and for a long time the wily marker reaped a rare harvest. If, as some have supposed, this was the first introduction of the custom of chalking the tip of a cue, the half-crowns were well invested; but, unfortunately, the weight of evidence goes to show that chalk had been in common use for this purpose for some time prior to Carr’s smart stroke of business, and that he economically filled his valuable pill-boxes by grinding up some of the chalk provided by Mr. Bartley for the use of his customers.
What with the brisk sale of the famous ‘twisting chalk,’ and the immense advantage that his knowledge of the power of screw gave him over all rivals, Carr must have been making a great deal of money about this time. Unhappily for his own prosperity, however, he was a desperate and confirmed gambler, and all that he made out of ivory in one form was lost through ivory in another. He never could resist ‘flirting with the elephant’s tooth,’ and every shilling that he made was promptly lost at hazard. At last, fairly tired out by incessant losses scarcely broken by a single run of luck, and discontented with circumstances immediately connected with his professional pursuits, he determined to leave England and try his fortune in Spain. It might have been imagined that the latter country would have proved anything but a happy hunting-ground, and that the Dons, on falling victims to Carr’s powers of screw, might have taken it into their heads to lay down their cues and to finish the game with knives. However, the Bath marker was evidently an excellent man of business, and the Spanish billiard-rooms proved veritable El Dorados to him. He made a tour of the principal towns, and succeeded in easily beating everyone with whom he played. The feats he performed by means of the ‘side twist’—as the screw stroke was formerly termed—amazed all who saw him play, and he managed to amass a considerable sum. Still, the old passion was as strong as ever, and once more proved his downfall. Spain was even more amply furnished with gambling-houses than England, and, as Carr’s usual ill luck pursued him, all his doubloons vanished even more rapidly than they had been acquired; he was compelled to return home, and finally landed at Portsmouth almost in rags. ‘Whether’—to use Mr. Mardon’s own words, and it is to his excellent book that I am indebted for much of my information as to these early exponents of the game—‘players of those days were less particular than persons of the present period is not for me to determine; but it is no less strange than true that, even in so deplorable a garb, he no sooner made his appearance at the billiard-table than he met with a gentleman willing to contend.’ In the ‘gentleman willing to contend,’ Carr, in his hour of direst need, must have found a very foolish person, for no man of average sense would have lost seventy pounds to an individual whose appearance loudly proclaimed that he did not possess the same number of pence, and who, therefore, could not possibly have paid had the issue of the games gone the other way.
The dénouement of this little episode fully confirms this idea. Quitting the room with the money in his pocket, Carr immediately proceeded to get himself fully rigged out in ‘a blue coat, yellow waistcoat, drab small-clothes, and top-boots.’ A little advice from the local Polonius was evidently sadly needed; the attire was probably ‘costly’ and may have been ‘rich,’ but it was certainly ‘express’d in fancy,’ and decidedly ‘gaudy.’ Arrayed in all this magnificence, Carr paid another visit to the same billiard-room on the following day, when he again encountered his victim. The latter being, according to Mr. Mardon, ‘a fine player and devoted to the game,’ lost no time in challenging the stranger to play. This match naturally resulted as the other had done, and Carr again won a considerable sum. When play was over the gentleman remarked that ‘he was truly unfortunate in having met with, on succeeding days, two persons capable of giving him so severe a dressing. Carr, making himself known, thanked the gentleman for the metamorphosis his money had occasioned, and wished him a good morning.’
In 1825, Carr played a match against ‘the Cork Marker,’ at the Four Nations Hotel, in the Opera Colonnade. The latter was considered a very fine player in his day, and it is curious that no one seems to have known his name, for he is invariably alluded to under this somewhat vague designation. They played three games of 100 up, and, although Carr won all three, he was evidently encountering a foeman worthy of his steel, as ‘the Cork Marker’ reached 92 in the first game, and 75 in the third. In the second, however, he only got to 49, as Carr suddenly astonished the spectators by making twenty-two consecutive spot strokes. This was naturally considered a most extraordinary feat, and, as an offer was at once made to back Carr against all comers for a hundred guineas a-side, he can fairly lay claim to being considered the first champion of billiards, or, at any rate, the first whose claim to the title rests upon anything like a solid foundation. Pierce Egan, in his ‘Annals of Sporting and Fancy Gazette,’ writes of him as the ‘father of the side stroke;’ and though, as I have previously narrated, Mr. Bartley was the discoverer of the stroke, Carr was undoubtedly the first man who realised its importance and turned it to practical account.
I have been unable to satisfy myself whether Bedford and Pratt, two fine players who flourished in the first half of the present century, were contemporaries of Carr, or belonged to a somewhat later period; this, however, is a matter of small consequence. According to Mr. Mardon, ‘each was celebrated for quietude of demeanour and elegance of style,’ and Bedford was ‘graceful and unassuming, excelling in winning hazards, whilst all [strokes?] are made without apparent effort;’ his best break was 159. The same author gives the following amusing anecdote of Pratt, which will well bear repetition:
One evening, when most persons were enjoying their claret by the fireside, a gentleman presented himself in the billiard-room, where Pratt was seated alone. To a request whether he was desirous of playing, he replied in the affirmative. The lights were placed, and the parties took their stations at the table. ‘What game, sir, would you wish to play?’ ‘I will play,’ replied the stranger, ‘the game of 100 up; and, as it is my desire that you should be rewarded for your trouble, I will play for sixpence!’ The game commenced; and, after the gentleman had once or twice struck the balls, he left his opponent’s ball near the red, which, fortunately for Pratt, being on the spot, he continued to hole in the two corner pockets four-and-thirty times, beating his liberal antagonist a love game, 100 up!
To return, however, to Carr. His challenge was soon taken up by Edwin Kentfield, of Brighton (better known as Jonathan); but Carr fell ill, and the proposed match never came off. Kentfield then assumed the title of champion, his claim to which was not disputed for four-and-twenty years. There is no doubt that Edwin Kentfield, who died in 1873, was very superior to most of his profession. He was a man of refined tastes, passionately devoted to horticulture, with which he was thoroughly conversant, and he had the shrewdness to see that the tables and all the accessories of the game which were in use when he began to play were very crude and imperfect, the tables having list cushions, wooden beds, and coarse baize coverings. He spent many years in improving tables, cushions, balls, cues, &c., and, thanks to his energy, and to the acumen of Mr. John Thurston—the founder of the present well-known firm of billiard-table makers, who thoroughly believed in Kentfield, and was always ready to support his views and carry out his suggested improvements—the old order of things was gradually superseded by rubber cushions, slate beds, and fine cloths.
All the newest improvements were naturally to be found in Kentfield’s Subscription Rooms at Brighton, the appointments of which were wonderfully perfect, considering the date. In 1839 he published ‘The Game of Billiards: Scientifically Explained and Practically Set Forth, in a Series of Novel and Extraordinary, but Equally Practical, Strokes.’ In his well-written and modest preface, Kentfield alludes to the ‘many alterations and improvements that have been successfully introduced, and which have so greatly contributed to the state of perfection to which this noble amusement has at length arrived.’ Compared with the tables that were in vogue before Messrs. Kentfield and Thurston began their improvements, their joint production did doubtless seem wonderfully perfect; yet this extract reads curiously in 1896, in the face of the extraordinary developments of everything connected with the game that have taken place within the last ten or fifteen years.
Kentfield was acquainted with the spot stroke, and played it well, considering the then existing conditions. He devotes a very short chapter in his book to it, and describes four different methods by which it can be made. There are now nine entirely different strokes which may be brought into use in the course of a long spot break; but doubtless, in his day, several of the varieties of the stroke were absolutely impossible, owing to the comparative slowness of the tables. He did not, however, approve of the spot stroke, nor consider it billiards, and on this point was evidently of the same mind as the younger Roberts, who has recorded his opinion that a constant succession of big spot breaks ‘would very soon kill the popularity and destroy the artistic position billiards has attained.’ The thoroughly genuine nature of Kentfield’s feelings on the subject may be judged from the fact that he caused the pockets of the tables in his rooms at Brighton to be reduced to three inches, in order to prevent spot strokes being made; and this, unless he materially increased the charge for each game, must have meant a considerable annual pecuniary loss to him. The table on which Kentfield constantly played is thus described: ‘The table in the Subscription Room is extremely difficult. It is, perhaps, the fastest in England, and has pockets of the smallest dimensions (three inches). The spot for the red ball is barely twelve inches from the lower cushion; the baulk circle only eighteen inches in extent. On many tables the spot is thirteen inches from the cushion; the baulk twenty-two.’ It seems singular that, quite thirty years before the first championship table was manufactured, Kentfield should have put up almost a fac-simile of it in his Brighton rooms; but probably John Roberts, senior, saw it there, possibly played upon it, and derived from it the idea of the table on which, in 1870, the championship was decided.
It is almost impossible, after this lapse of time, to form any trustworthy opinion as to the real strength of Kentfield’s game, and it would be manifestly unfair to draw comparisons between him and any player of more recent date than the elder John Roberts. Let us first take the evidence of Mr. Mardon on the subject; and I may here remark that Mr. Mardon’s book—which was a very great improvement on any of its predecessors dealing with billiards—appears to have been primarily written with the view of giving immortality to the author’s great game of 500 up with a Mr. Porker. This was played in Kentfield’s rooms. Mr. Porker, who conceded a start of 25 points, reached 495 to 475, and then Mr. Mardon ran out. A break of 25, even at the end of a game, does not seem such a very startling feat; still, it was evidently considered as such in those days, and a diagram is given of each of the nine strokes which were comprised in this historical effort. One or two of these were somewhat singularly played according to modern ideas. In one of them, for example, the red ball was near the left top pocket, into which it was very easy to screw, and his opponent’s ball was nicely placed about the middle of the table. Instead of making the losing hazard with a slow screw, which would have just brought the red ball down to the white, and left a capital chance of a good break, Mr. Mardon had a regular bang at it, doubled the red ball right down the table and up again, and, probably more by luck than judgment, finally left it almost in the jaws of the right-hand top pocket. This, however, is ‘another story,’ and I am keeping Mr. Mardon waiting an unconscionably long time in the witness-box to give his testimony as to Kentfield’s abilities as a player. He writes:
Were I to relate all the extraordinary performances of Mr. Kentfield at the period when list cushions and pockets of large dimensions were in vogue, the reader would imagine I was bordering on romance. On one occasion, when playing the winning game, 21 up, Mr. Kentfield gave his opponent 18 points, and won sixteen successive games. In playing the winning and losing game, 24 up, he won ten games, his adversary never scoring! The games were thus played: Mr. Kentfield, in playing off, doubled the red ball for one of the baulk corner pockets, placing his own ball under the side cushion. His opponent played to drop it into the corner pocket, failed, and left on each occasion a cannon; that was made, and the games were all won off the balls! At another time he was playing the non-cushion game, 16 up. On going off he twisted his ball into the corner pocket from the red and won in that manner six games, his adversary not having a stroke! Desirous of ascertaining how many games of 24 up could be played within the hour, he commenced the task with a player of considerable eminence;[[1]] and they completed thirty games within the specified time. Forty-seven games of 100 up were also played in eight and a half hours. In a match that did not exceed two hundred games, he beat his opponent eighty-five love games.
Even allowing that the ‘player of considerable eminence’ was out of form, and that Kentfield had the table virtually to himself, 720 points in an hour was amazing;[[2]] and even the longer test, which works out at the rate of about 550 points per hour, does not compare at all badly with the rate at which our best players score at the present day; so it seems curious that a performer of such ability should have continued for years playing games of 21 and 24 up, in which, as was almost sure to be the case, his opponent frequently never had a stroke. When John Roberts, senior, was fast coming into note as a great player, and people were beginning to compare his powers with those of Kentfield, Mr. Mardon thus expressed his opinion on the subject:
I have been given to understand, within the last few months, that Mr. Roberts, superintendent of the billiard-rooms at the Union Club in Manchester, is considered by his friends of that neighbourhood to be equal to any player in England; and, in order to afford me an opportunity of judging of his skill, balls have been placed in situations of considerable difficulty, and I have been assured that hazards thus presented came quite within his power of cue. I have also been informed that, in playing a game of 100 up, his opponent, aware of, and dreading, his ability, ran a coup at 96 love, hoping, by so prudent and cautious a proceeding, to ensure winning the game. Mr. Roberts, playing from the baulk circle, twisted into one of the corner pockets from the ball upon the spot, and made from a break so unpromising 102 points from the red ball alone! Admitting, however, this information to be correct, still, wonderful and surprising execution does not constitute either a sterling or a successful player; and when I take into consideration the advantages to be derived from playing the game called ‘One pocket to five,’ and learn that Mr. Kentfield has played upwards of fifty thousand games with one gentleman alone, I cannot but imagine that an experience so great, united with his matchless skill, must not only elevate him above all other players, but fully entitle him to the paramount laudatory remarks with which his name will be found to be associated. When I call to mind, and reflect upon, the wonderful execution displayed while playing the commanding game over the table, and the game of one pocket to one pocket commanded, I have no hesitation in saying that on such occasions his power of cue has gone beyond what even the imagination could embrace. I have seen him, like a man inspired, accomplish stroke after stroke, hazards and cannons, against which I, with my knowledge of the game, would have laid fifty to one! From his cue I have witnessed that which I am confident I shall never see again; and, although luminaries may shine forth in other spheres, Mr. Kentfield, the electric light of mine, must, I think, dim their lustre and keep them in the shade.
The only other witness I shall call is John Roberts, sen., who has left on record his opinion that Kentfield ‘played a very artistic game, but possessed very little power of cue. He depended on slow twists and fancy screws, and rarely attempted a brilliant forcing hazard. He gave misses, and made baulks whenever they were practicable, and never departed from the strict game.’ This was not written until many years after all rivalry between the two men had ceased, and may, therefore, probably be accepted as a calm and unprejudiced opinion. At first sight it is difficult to reconcile the entirely opposite views of Mr. Mardon and Roberts with regard to Kentfield’s power of cue. The truth probably lies between the two extremes, for the former’s judgment may have been slightly warped by intense admiration for his idol, whereas Roberts was possibly comparing Kentfield’s power of cue with his own, which was almost phenomenal. The highest break that Kentfield ever made was one of 196, and his best spot break 57 consecutive hazards. It may be taken for granted that neither of these breaks was made on his three-inch pocket table; nevertheless, they may still be regarded as very excellent performances. If, however, there are diverse views as to Kentfield’s powers as a player, I have only been able to discover one opinion as to his merits as a man. Whether or not we may feel inclined to accept the dictum that genius is ‘an infinite capacity for taking pains,’ I think there is little doubt that Edwin Kentfield was a genius at billiards, whilst in other respects it is quite certain that he set a brilliant example to the players who followed him.
During the last few years of Kentfield’s long and peaceful career, the fame of John Roberts was rapidly growing, especially in and near Manchester, and it became evident that at last, for the first time for four and twenty years, the champion would be called upon to defend his title. Roberts was born about 1815, and, as is bound to be the case with a really great player, had a cue in his hand long before he was tall enough to reach the table properly. Indeed, he was only nine years old when he began to play upon an old-fashioned table by Gillow, with a wooden bed and list cushions. This was at the old Rotunda, Bold Street, Liverpool, and he showed such remarkable aptitude for the game that in six months he could give points to most ordinary players. His precocious ability appears to have been unknown to his father, until one day the two played three or four games together, and the youngster won by many points. Instead of being delighted with this display of juvenile talent, the old man, who was possibly a bad loser, concluded that his son must have been devoting far too much time to the game, and, lacking the shrewdness to perceive the possibilities that lay before so skilful a lad, apprenticed him to a carpenter. The boy stuck to this trade for a couple of years; but his passion for billiards remained as strong as ever, and at the end of that time he ran away, thenceforth devoting himself entirely to what was unquestionably his proper vocation. His first engagement was as marker at Oldham, and it is evident that he must have improved very rapidly while there, for he could not have been more than fourteen years old when he played home and home matches with ‘Pendleton Tom,’ a professional player with considerable local reputation, and beat him in both. When he left Oldham he obtained a situation in Glasgow, and in 1844 played a match against John Fleming, a well-known billiard-table maker of that day, for 100l. a-side; and here he met with his first reverse of any importance. They were playing 500 up, and when the game was called ‘485 all,’ Fleming tried for a cannon and missed it, but fluked a six stroke and went out. Roberts then defeated Tom Broughton of Leeds, and this appears to have been his last match of any note during his sojourn in Glasgow. This ended in 1845, when he became manager of the billiard-rooms of the Union Club at Manchester, a position which he retained for seven years. This was very fortunate for him, as he no doubt had far more opportunities for practice than he had ever previously enjoyed, and it was while there that he learnt the spot stroke. The popular idea that he invented the stroke is, of course, an entire fallacy, for Kentfield, Carr, Pratt, and others were in the habit of playing it. It was taught to Roberts by Mr. Lee Birch, a member of the Union Club, who had seen it played in London, and, being one of the best amateur players of the day, soon mastered it to the extent of being generally able to make a dozen or fifteen consecutive hazards. It is curious, by the way, how many amateur players attain this standard of excellence and never get any farther. If a man can habitually make this number of spot strokes, nothing but steady practice is required to enable him to make runs of fifty, seventy, a hundred, or even more; yet not one in a thousand has the resolution or perseverance to take this necessary practice. With Roberts it was entirely different. He at once realised that the stroke must give an enormous advantage to any man who could play it with something like certainty. For six months, therefore, he devoted himself almost entirely to it, and spent hundreds of hours at the top of the table.
When a man who united a natural genius for the game with indomitable perseverance thus set himself to master a particular stroke, there could be only one result, and I should fancy it was then—strong in the confidence engendered by his ability to play this deadly stroke—that he first conceived the idea of bearding Kentfield in his den, and challenging his long-undisputed supremacy. Mr. Mardon’s account of the first meeting of the rivals is as follows: ‘Arriving in Brighton, Roberts called on Kentfield. He informed him at once, in a manly, straightforward manner, who he was, and expressed a desire of playing a friendly game. He neither sought disguise nor secrecy, and would willingly have shown the strength of his game to all who might have approached. Kentfield, on the other hand, was very desirous of avoiding publicity, and, taking Roberts into an adjoining room, locked the door and began a game.’ Then follow a few more lines in Mr. Mardon’s usual rather high-flown style, the meaning of which, translated into the vulgar tongue, is that Roberts speedily discovered that his opponent was not really doing his best. This did not at all suit the man who had come from Manchester on a voyage of discovery, and Mr. Mardon tells us that he thus expressed his opinion on the subject: ‘This, Mr. Kentfield, cannot be your game; to play such as this I can give forty in a hundred. If you are withholding your powers for the purpose of obtaining a bet, I am willing to recommence the game and to play you for five pounds.’ Those who knew the elder Roberts intimately may possibly accept this as the general purport of his remarks, but will entirely decline to believe that he did not express himself in far more vigorous and forcible language. As, however, Mr. Mardon states that the door of the room was locked, and that no one was present excepting the two principals, he could only have written his account of the scene from hearsay, and it differs considerably from Roberts’s own version of the interview. This, given in ‘Roberts on Billiards,’ runs as follows:
I remember perfectly my first meeting with Kentfield, better known as ‘Jonathan.’ It was in the beginning of 1849, at Brighton, where I went on purpose to see him play. On entering his rooms I met John Pook, the present proprietor of the Cocoa-tree Club, who was at that time his manager. After sending up my name, Kentfield came in and inquired my business. I told him that I was admitted to be the best player in Lancashire, whence I had come to find out if he could show me anything. He inquired if I wanted a lesson. I told him I did not, and asked him how many in 100 would be a fair allowance from a player on his own table to a stranger, provided they were of equal skill. He replied ‘15;’ I told him I thought 20 would be nearer the mark, but I was contented to try at evens. He said: ‘If you play me, it must be for some money;’ on which, not to be frightened, I pulled out a 100l. note, and told him I would play him ten games of 100 up for 10l. a game. He laughed, and said I was rather hasty; and eventually we knocked the balls about, and then commenced a friendly 100 on level terms. He had the best of the breaks, and won by 40. In the second game I pulled out a few north-country shots and won by 30, but he secured the third. Then he put down his cue, and asked if I was satisfied he could beat me. I said: ‘No; on the contrary, if you can’t play better than this, I can give you 20 in 100 easily.’ He replied: ‘Well, if you want to play me, you must put down a good stake.’ I asked how much, and he answered 1,000l. I said: ‘Do you mean 1,000l. a-side?’ Upon which he told me he thought I was a straightforward fellow, and he would see what could be done. He then sent Pook back to me, and I explained to him how things stood. He replied: ‘You may as well go back to Lancashire; you won’t get a match on with the governor.’
Accepting Roberts’s version of this historical meeting, one is forced to the conclusion that, if one of the two was not trying to win, it certainly was not Kentfield; for when a man loses two games out of three on level terms, and then calmly tells his victorious opponent that he can easily give him 20 in 100, it is certain that the loser must have been keeping a very big bit up his sleeve. Evidently Kentfield was fully alive to this, for all efforts to get him to make a match proved fruitless.
The fact of the matter undoubtedly was that Kentfield, who was many years the senior of the pair, felt that the coming man was too strong for him, realised that he had everything to lose and very little to gain by risking a contest, and preferred the title of ‘retired champion’ to that of ‘ex-champion.’
John Roberts, therefore, attained the first position in the world of billiards in 1849, and the following year, whilst he was still manager of the billiard-rooms at the Union Club, Manchester, played a great match of 1,000 up with Starke, an American. The latter was a remarkably fine nursery cannon player, and, getting the run of the balls in the early part of the game, reached 600 to 450, thus securing a formidable lead. Then it was that Roberts first reaped the reward of all the time and patience he had expended on the practice of the spot stroke. Wisely abandoning the all-round game, he devoted his energies to getting position at the top of the table; a break which included thirty-nine consecutive ‘spots’ took him to the front again, and another fine run of thirty-six red hazards gave him an easy victory. In a letter to ‘Bell’s Life’ on the subject of this match, one of the best contemporary judges of the game gave it as his opinion that ‘Kentfield showed good judgment in declining a match with Roberts, for, had they played upon a neutral table, he would have been defeated to a certainty.’ Even Mr. Mardon completely altered his mind with regard to the respective merits of the two players, and to his second profession of faith he probably remained steadfast until the day of his death; for, as comparatively recently as the early part of 1874, he wrote a letter to the ‘Sporting Life’ on the subject of billiards, in which he strongly maintained the superiority of old John over his son, William Cook, and Joseph Bennett.
It is doubtful whether, at the period of which I am now writing, the title of champion was of much pecuniary value to its possessor. He could only get an occasional match for money by giving a very long start, whilst such things as exhibition games seem to have been of very rare occurrence. In glancing over the files of ‘Bell’s Life’—the only sporting paper then in existence—of some forty years ago, one cannot fail to be struck with the way in which billiards is practically ignored; in fact, it was some time before I could find any allusion to the game. At last, in the issue dated February 22, 1852, I discovered the following announcement: ‘A silver snuff-box will be given by the proprietor of the Shakspere’s Head, Wych Street, Strand, to be played for by eight of the best players in London, on Tuesday next, at six o’clock. A gentleman from the country will be in attendance to play any man in London for from 25l. to 50l. the same night.’ The most rigid examination of the issue of the following week—in those days sportsmen had to content themselves with one sporting paper, which came out once a week—failed to discover the smallest record of the doings of ‘eight of the best players in London’ on that Tuesday evening, and the destination of the silver snuff-box might have been for ever lost to posterity but for the appearance of the following challenge: ‘Mr. John Dufton will play Mr. Farrell, the winner of the snuff-box at the Shakspere’s Head, Wych Street, on Tuesday last, a match at billiards, from 100 to 1,000 up, for 10l. or 20l. a-side. Money ready any evening at the above-named place.’ It is probable that the challenger was a relation of the well-known William Dufton, ‘tutor to the Prince of Wales,’ as he always proudly styled himself, though I must candidly confess that I had never previously heard either of him or of Farrell, entitled as each may have been to rank amongst the eight best players in London. It was not, however, the battle for the snuff-box that interested me. I was anxious to know how the countryman fared on his adventurous crusade, and had a suspicion that he may have turned out to have been no less a personage than the champion himself, this being just the sort of little joke that John Roberts always enjoyed. However, my curiosity on this point had to remain unsatisfied, and I ceased to be surprised that it should be so when I found that in the same issue of ‘Bells Life’—which in those days was supposed to devote a good deal of its space to events of general interest other than sporting—the death of Tom Moore, the sweetest singer Ireland ever produced, was dismissed in exactly five lines!
In this same year (1852) Roberts resigned the management of the billiard-rooms at the Union Club, which he had held for seven years, and took the Griffin Hotel in Lower Broughton, a suburb of Manchester. Soon after this he played two more matches with Starke at the American game, each of them being for 100l. a-side. It is noteworthy, as marking the rapid manner in which he had ‘come on’ in his play, that whereas, only two years previously, Starke had played him upon even terms, and at one stage of the game looked very much like beating him, it was now thought good enough to back Roberts to give a start of 300 in 1,000. This proved rather too big a concession; nevertheless, little mistake had been made in estimating the respective merits of the two men, for in the return match, in which the start was reduced to 275, the champion won very easily. The billiard history of the next few years is singularly uneventful, and there appear to have been few players good enough to have any chance with Roberts, even when allowed a long start. He, however, did not retain the Griffin Hotel very long, and, after leaving it, took billiard-rooms in Cross Street, Manchester. He must have been living there in 1858, when he played a match with John Herst in Glasgow, in the course of which he made a break of 186, which included a run of 55 consecutive spot strokes. Herst was a brilliant winning hazard striker, and played in very pretty and finished style. Great things were expected of him, and there is every reason to suppose that these expectations would have been realised, but he died almost at the outset of his career. In 1861 Roberts at length left Manchester, to become lessee of Saville House, Leicester Square, and he had not been there many weeks when he played a match with Mr. Downs, an amateur, to whom he conceded a start of 700 in 1,000. In the course of this game, which he won by 93 points, he made two very fine breaks of 195 (53 ‘spots’) and 200 (64 ‘spots’), and scored his thousand points in 2 hours 11 minutes, an excellent performance, notwithstanding the fact that he must have had the table virtually to himself. A rather curious episode occurred in the course of this game. Mr. Downs, in lieu of giving the customary miss at the beginning of the play, ran a coup, expecting that Roberts would give a miss, and very probably calculating that, with his big start, to give three and receive one was really judicious. The champion, however, instantly grasped the situation, and, without a moment’s hesitation, played hard at the red, and sent it and his own ball flying to the other end of the room. In those days there was no penalty for knocking a ball off the table, so Mr. Downs’s carefully calculated and promising scheme of running a succession of coups and receiving a series of misses was summarily nipped in the bud. It was at Saville House in March 1862 that Roberts made his famous break of 346, mainly composed of a series of 104 spot hazards. William Dufton was his opponent, and Roberts won the game in the remarkably fast time of an hour and three-quarters. This break was more than a nine days’ wonder, and never before or afterwards did Roberts make 300 off the balls in public—a feat that is now well within the compass of plenty of men who do not play well enough to get a couple of engagements per season in exhibition matches.
Two of the most prominent players in the ‘fifties’ and early ‘sixties’ were Alfred Bowles and Charles Hughes. Roberts considered the former to be the best player he ever met, and records that ‘no one yet has ever held me at the points as Bowles used to do.’ The points alluded to were 300 in 1,000; but it must not be forgotten that these remarks were written before William Cook, John Roberts, jun., and Joseph Bennett had come to the front. I never saw Bowles play until he challenged the younger Roberts for the championship and suffered an easy defeat. This was in May 1870, when the Brighton man had possibly seen his best day. He played a steady, old-fashioned game, but was hopelessly out-classed by young John, and, though he could play the spot stroke well, of course he had no opportunity of doing so on a championship table. From what I saw of the play of the two men, I should unhesitatingly place Charles Hughes before Bowles; but it would be ridiculous, with the very limited opportunities I had of forming an opinion, to oppose my judgment to that of Roberts; and certainly the results of two matches that were played in the early part of 1864 point strongly to the superiority of Bowles. In January of that year Roberts gave Bowles 300 in 1,000 for 100l. a-side—in those days 100l. a-side meant 100l. a-side, not that each man went through the solemn farce of staking his money, and received it back again at the end of the game, whatever the result might be—and was beaten by 109 points; whilst, two months later, the champion conceded Hughes 350 in 1,000, and beat him by no fewer than 243 points. There can be no doubt, however, that Hughes improved wonderfully between the date of this match and 1869, when he sailed for Australia. The weak point in his game was an irresistible inclination to go out for fancy cannons. He would be apparently well set for a really good break when he would neglect a comparatively simple shot for some elaborate cannon off three or four cushions, which he would either just miss or perhaps bring off, with the result of leaving the balls in an almost impossible position for a further score. He was gradually, however, getting over this propensity towards the close of his career, and undoubtedly played a very good game indeed at the time that he left England. Just prior to sailing he ran into the last three of a great professional handicap which took place at the ‘Nell Gwynne,’ Strand, in which, together with Cook and Roberts, jun., he started at scratch, whilst the champion owed 50 points, and, as there were as many as forty players engaged, this was a capital performance. He also won a handicap of 200 up, which was played to celebrate the opening of the Bentinck Club, upon the site of which the Vaudeville Theatre now stands. In this he received a start of 30 points, the champion owed 20, whilst his son and Cook had 20 each. The best thing he ever did, however, was accomplished in the last game he played in England. He sailed from Liverpool, and, as Roberts had gone down to see him off, the pair took advantage of the opportunity to play 1,000 up at the ‘Golden Lion,’ Deansgate, Manchester. Roberts, as usual, gave a start of 300, and had reached 736 against 794, when Hughes went out with a break of 206, which included 62 consecutive ‘spots.’ Being asked to finish the break, he added 21 more red hazards, and this 269 was a bigger run than anyone had put together since the champion had made his famous 346 about seven years previously. I can find no record of Hughes’s achievements in Australia, but he did not long survive his arrival in that country. As has been the case with too many other fine players, he lacked the resolution and strength of mind to take proper care of himself, and the lavish colonial hospitality which was thrust upon him at every turn speedily killed him.
In the limited space at my disposal it is manifestly impossible to follow the game closely, year by year, and I think the better plan will be to give a sketch of all the principal players, including some account of the most important matches that have taken place since 1870, at nearly all of which I have been fortunate enough to have been present. In ‘Roberts on Billiards,’ which was written towards the close of the author’s twenty-one years’ tenure of the championship, he names Charles Hughes, John Herst, Joseph Bennett, William Cook, and John Roberts, jun., as candidates for the title of second-best player, and adds, ‘probably the two best are William Cook and my eldest son.’ The first and second I have already dealt with; the other three, who kept the championship entirely between them during fifteen years, naturally demand more extended notice, as their doings really form the greater part of the history of billiards from 1870 onwards. Before coming to them, however, it will be better to dispose of what Roberts terms the third class, in which he includes William Dufton, L. Kilkenny, W. D. Stanley, W. E. Green, George Mulberry, Alfred Hughes, George Davis, W. C. Hitchin, Tom Morris, Harry Evans, and John Smith, ‘to any of whom I have been in the habit of allowing 350 in 1,000.’ Of these, I never saw Stanley—who, I fancy, was an elder brother of D. Richards and S. W. Stanley—Mulberry, Davis, Hitchin, or Smith play, and will not, therefore, write anything about them. With respect to Dufton, I feel bound to say that, in my opinion, he was a much overrated man. As I saw him perform for the first time in 1866, when it is possible that he may have been going off, I should have hesitated to write so plainly, had not my view of his lack of ability been fully confirmed by one who constantly played with him, and for whose judgment I have the highest respect. His long ‘jennies,’ on the making of which his reputation almost entirely rested, are now easily within the compass of any professional player, and he would never have made the name he did but for confining his play almost entirely to exhibition games with Roberts. These exhibition matches would naturally have lost much of their attraction if the champion had invariably won, so Dufton had his share of successes, and came to be regarded as being able to play Roberts with 350 points in 1,000; whereas it is perfectly certain that a start of half the game would not have brought them together when the scratch man was doing his best. L. Kilkenny kept pace fairly well with the remarkable development of the game that took place between 1870 and 1880, and managed to hold his own with a reasonable start from the rising stars. He possessed little power of cue and no brilliancy of execution, but played a sound, steady game, and, before spot-barred games became so universal, could generally be relied upon for a pretty good run of ‘spots’ when he obtained a favourable position. Deprived of the strongest part of his game, however, he soon fell out of the ranks. Alfred Hughes was a player of no class compared with his brother Charles, and Tom Morris, a left-handed man, with a somewhat flashy style, was only moderate. Harry Evans, on the contrary, was a thoroughly sound performer, who played an excellent all-round game, and, if he did not go out for gallery strokes, seldom or never missed an ordinarily simple one. Soon after his arrival in Australia he suddenly came out as quite a phenomenal spot stroke player, though he had never so distinguished himself in England, and he held the championship of that colony for many years, till quite recently deprived of it by Charles Memmott.
About 1866 John Roberts, jun., William Cook, and Joseph Bennett began to draw away from the ruck of billiard-players, and it did not require much foresight to predict that old John would shortly find a dangerous rival or two, though it was difficult at the time to believe that anyone would have the temerity to meet him upon even terms. In the October of that year a great four-handed match took place, the champion and Dufton attempting to give 200 in 1,000 to Charles Hughes and Joseph Bennett for 200l. a-side, an attempt in which they failed lamentably, being beaten by no fewer than 344 points. Though Hughes scored 497 points during the game, whilst Bennett only contributed 281, the major portion of the credit of the victory must be given to the latter, who, by the way, is the only surviving member of the quartet. Always remarkable for his fine generalship and wonderful knowledge of the game, Bennett never displayed these qualities to more advantage than on this occasion. He played in front of Roberts, and, although he made a few breaks of twenty or thirty, his sole mission was never to allow the champion a fair opening. Directly he had a stroke which it was not three to one on his making, he at once abandoned the break, and either put down the white and left a double baulk or else gave a miss. Roberts’s game, in fact, was so utterly cramped from start to finish that it was a remarkable feat on his part to make 488 points during the evening. In the meantime Hughes was thoroughly enjoying himself. Having only Dufton to follow him, and well knowing that it did not much matter what sort of a game he left on, he went out for everything, brought off all sorts of fancy cannons, and scored the fastest of the party. Poor Dufton’s show was a very lamentable one. From the style of game that Hughes was playing, he naturally left any number of good openings, but all that Dufton could total during the evening was 136. By Bennett’s clever strategy the four-handed match was virtually reduced to a single-handed battle between Hughes and Dufton, and this could only have had one result, even had they played upon level terms.
It was at the end of 1868 that William Cook and John Roberts, jun., between whom there was destined to be such keen rivalry for the next twelve or fifteen years, played their first match for money, Cook being at that time just nineteen years of age and his opponent two years older. The match took place at the Bentinck Club, and produced a very large amount of speculation. It is quite needless to give any description of the game, which Roberts won by 92 points, but it is noteworthy that his best breaks—at the all-in game, be it remembered—were 120 and 99, whilst Cook’s highest effort only reached 92. This contrasts very curiously with the state of affairs early in 1896, when, in a spot-barred game of 1,000 up, it would be quite safe to back a player of the calibre of D. Richards or H. W. Stevenson to make three breaks of upwards of a hundred each. In spite of this defeat, Cook’s friends did not lose faith in him, and, in his inmost heart, I believe that Roberts, sen., always rated Cook’s play at a higher level than that of his son. I remember having a chat with the old man on this subject at the Bentinck Club. Young John had just beaten Cook pretty easily in their heat of the handicap with which the opening of the club was celebrated, and this, coupled with his recent success in the match just referred to, led me to remark that there could be little doubt as to who would be future champion. ‘I’m not so sure of that,’ said the veteran with a shake of the head; ‘we’ve not seen the best of Cook yet.’ Before the end of that year his opinion was amply justified. In March a return match was played, in which, though the breaks on both sides were very small, Cook beat Roberts, jun., by 323 points, and when the former began playing again after the summer recess the improvement he exhibited was simply extraordinary. His beautiful delicacy of touch was more striking than ever, and he ‘nursed’ the balls with even more than his old skill; but in his anxiety to secure position he did not so frequently miss the immediate stroke, which had formerly been the weak point in his game. Then he had attained a proficiency in playing the spot stroke that entirely eclipsed anything that had previously been witnessed in this line, and three times in one week, with young Roberts as an opponent, he made upwards of three hundred off the balls. Two of these breaks—351 at the Royal Hotel, Dale Street, Liverpool, and 359 at the Prince of Wales’s Hotel, Moss Side, Manchester—beat the champion’s 346, which for seven years had been considered quite unapproachable. After this, Cook seldom played two games of 1,000 up without making a break of 300 in one of them, and left his old rival, John Roberts, jun., completely in the rear. There could only be one end to this series of remarkable performances, and in the autumn of 1869 Cook issued a challenge to play the champion, on or before January 1, 1870, a game of 1,000 or 2,000 up, level, for 500l. a-side. Some little time elapsed before the two men came to terms, and it was decided by a committee of the leading players of the day that matches for the championship should be played on a table with three-inch pockets, and with the spot 12½ inches from the top cushion, instead of 13¼ inches, the then customary distance. As Cook was a member of the committee which decided on this radical alteration in the table, it seems strange that he did not protest strongly against a measure which nearly every expert at once realised must deprive him of the strongest feature of his game—the spot stroke—but the reason was that he apparently did not realise the fact. Cook was then barely twenty-one years of age, but he ought to have had sufficient experience to have saved him from such a mistake. Before he had been playing on the new table for an hour, his error must have been brought home to him in very unpleasant fashion.
Just as the great battle at Farnborough between Sayers and Heenan was read about and eagerly discussed by all sorts and conditions of men who had previously professed the greatest disgust for prize-fighting, so the match between the veteran and his pupil excited intense interest, even amongst people who could scarcely define the difference between a winning and losing hazard. The Prince of Wales was present at St. James’s Hall, and, as no such scene had ever previously been witnessed at a billiard match, and may never be seen again, I need not apologise for reproducing part of a sketch of the memorable night contributed by myself at the time to one of the last numbers of the famous old ‘Sporting Magazine,’ which ceased to exist at the end of 1870:
For the last five or six years the champion has made no very long break nor any great number of successive ‘spots,’ whilst his son, Joseph Bennett, and Cook, especially the last-named, have frequently put together a very big score off the balls. People at last began to realise the idea that the title of ‘second-best player in England’ would not long satisfy one or two of the colts, and were not altogether surprised when Cook challenged his old master for 500l. a-side. Roberts took a long time to reply to this cartel, and it was believed that another walk-over would take place—for as yet there had never been a match for the championship; but at length he made up his mind for one effort to retain his place, and they agreed to play on February 11. Prior to that day a meeting of the leading professionals was held. Rules were drawn up for future contests ... and some important alterations were made in the construction of the tables to be used in matches for the championship, with what results we shall presently see.
The match was played in the large concert room at St. James’s Hall.
Just before eight o’clock the spectators settled down into their places, and the scene was a truly remarkable one. The table, which looked very small in such a huge hall, was of course placed in the centre, and, about three yards from it, a cordon was formed by a scarlet rope, so that a ‘clear course’ was secured for the combatants, even if ‘no favour’ could not be guaranteed. Outside this rope the tiers of benches began, and sloped up to the galleries. Every seat was occupied, and the galleries themselves accommodated a very large number of spectators, many of whom had provided themselves with opera glasses, anew concomitant to a billiard match, but a very necessary one on this occasion. Shortly after eight o’clock the calls of ‘time’ became very loud and impatient, and, with a view of creating a diversion, someone who appeared to have the chief management of the affair began to weigh the balls. He spun out this operation in very clever fashion, and kept the people quiet for nearly ten minutes; but at last they grew tired of seeing him hold up the scales, and remain immovable, apparently wrapped in astonishment that the balls should exactly balance each other, and the noise became worse than ever. At length the two men appeared, without their coats, and apparently ‘eager for the fray.’ They were received with uproarious applause, which seemed to delight Roberts immensely.
At the beginning of the game caution prevailed, and the tight pockets puzzled both men.
At 127 Cook made six ‘spots,’ the longest run of the evening; but the new-fashioned table seemed to have quite destroyed his pet stroke. The red ball required to be played with the greatest care, or it did not go in, and, owing, we imagine, to the change in the locality of the spot, it seemed almost impossible to secure position for the second stroke, even if the first came off. Both men had several tries at it; but they could make nothing of their old friend, and the last half of the match was practically played ‘spot hazard barred.’ The contrast in the style of the two was very noticeable, Roberts’s being as clumsy and awkward as Cook’s was pretty and elegant, the latter playing, as someone near us observed, ‘a very genteel stroke.’ The men were very level at about 450, and then the champion got in, with Cook’s ball and the red almost touching each other, and quietly dribbled them down the table, making six or seven very pretty cannons in succession. He followed this up with a regular ‘gallery’ stroke, potting the red at railroad pace, and making a cannon off two or three cushions, which brought down the house. A break of 22 by Roberts made his score 494 against 495. The announcement of ‘517 all’ produced great cheering; however, 44 and 49 by Cook soon placed him in front again, and, as soon as he passed 600, there was a short interval.
The men soon came back, Roberts decorated with a cross, ‘wearing it for the last time,’ as one of Cook’s backers grimly remarked. A magnificent ‘all round’ 80 took the young one to 785. The knowledge of strength shown in this break was truly wonderful, and there was a thin ‘loser’ in it which even Roberts felt compelled to applaud. There was soon a gap of a couple of hundred points between them, and the champion kept looking up mournfully at the figures at the end of the hall. He never lost heart, however, and, laying himself down to his work, began to creep up again. Cook’s score stood still for some little time, and the old man’s backers got very excited. Roberts now made 62, his longest break during the game, and two or three other good runs brought him close to Cook, whom he passed, the score being called 1,041 to 1,037 in favour of Roberts: but a 31, finished with a double baulk, placed Cook well in front again, and, when his score stood at 1,133, he made a horribly fluky cannon, and ran right out, with a succession of the easiest and prettiest strokes we ever saw, a winner by 117 points.
Here I prefer to take leave of John Roberts, sen.; for, although he occasionally played in public for several years after, he never again exhibited anything approaching his best form. It almost seemed as though he had wound himself up for one great effort to retain his supremacy, and that he never recovered from the consequent reaction: added to which he was then fifty-five years of age, and had consequently seen his best day. In his prime he was a man of extraordinary strength of constitution, and performed several feats of endurance which probably no professional player of the present day could approach. Perhaps the most remarkable of these was accomplished in 1846, when he had rooms in Glasgow, and an amateur, who was in the habit of frequenting them, made a match to play him on the following conditions: Roberts was to concede sixty points in each hundred, mark the game, hand the rest, spot the red, take the balls out of the pockets, &c., and in fact do the work of both player and marker. They were to continue playing until one of them stopped voluntarily or through exhaustion; but I have been unable to ascertain whether or not they were allowed to eat and drink during the progress of the match, though the probability is that there were no restrictions in this respect. The stakes were ten shillings per game: whoever gave in first was to forfeit 25l. and all claim to anything he might have won. Roberts was at that time in full play, and doing strong work round the table for several hours in each day; but his opponent could not have been far behind him in this respect, and must have been a remarkably game man into the bargain, for he struggled on for forty-three consecutive hours before Nature gave way, and he fainted from exhaustion. In that time no fewer than 125 games were played, and Roberts won a good stake, every penny of which he had certainly earned. Differing entirely from Kentfield in this respect, he possessed extraordinary power of cue and a wonderfully strong wrist, which enabled him to perform all sorts of curious feats, such as knocking both balls off the table and making them reach the end of a long room before touching the floor. His worst fault was a too flashy style of play, and I shall always believe that he would just have beaten Cook in the great match for the championship if he had kept himself a little quieter during the game; but he could not resist incessantly chaffing his friends, chalking bets on the floor, &c. Comparison between Roberts’s form and that of the leading players of the present day would be most unfair to the old man. Had he lived fifty years later than he did, and enjoyed all the advantages of the improvements that have been made in the accessories of the game, as well as the opportunities that leading players enjoy of constant practice, it is certain that he would have been found right in the front rank. He had a real genius for the game, and was a great player.
Immediately after winning the championship Cook had a very busy time of it. He played John Roberts, jun., the best of twenty-one games of pyramids, the result being that, after they had won nine games each, Roberts secured the next two and won the match, which virtually decided the championship at pyramids. Then Cook toured for a few weeks, and, in the course of an exhibition game with S. W. Stanley at Totnes, made the hitherto unparalleled break of 512. On April 14, 1870, just two months after he had wrested the championship from the elder Roberts, Cook lost it to Roberts, jun. The length of the game was wisely reduced from 1,200 points to 1,000, and Cook was beaten by very nearly half the game. This is one of the few contests for the championship that I did not witness, and I have never been able to understand the result; for, although Roberts won by 478 points, and scored his thousand in three hours and four minutes, which was the fastest time recorded for a three-inch-pocket table until the last match ever played for the championship fifteen years later, a 47 was the best break he made during the whole evening! Of course, it must be remembered that the winner had the table virtually to himself, for Cook must have been utterly and hopelessly out of form. Six weeks later, Alfred Bowles, of Brighton, a contemporary of Roberts, sen., challenged the winner. It is probable that Bowles, though I believe he is still alive, had then passed his best day, for the result of his plucky challenge was disastrous. He played a good, sound old-fashioned sort of game, devoting himself chiefly to runs of losing hazards in the middle pockets, but had not the smallest pretensions to meet a man of the class of Cook or Roberts on even terms, and never possessed the least chance all through the game. The next challenger, however, was of very different calibre, and the battle between Roberts—as I have now taken leave of the father, it is needless to constantly repeat the distinguishing ‘junior’—and Joseph Bennett was about the most obstinately contested of the entire series. It lasted for four hours and three-quarters, and Bennett, with repeated safety misses and double baulks, at last fairly wore down his formidable opponent, and won by 95 points. Thus ended 1870, a truly remarkable year, which not only witnessed the first match ever played for the championship, but in which the title was actually held by four different men.
To trace the progress of the game minutely from this point to the present time, and to attempt even to mention the principal matches that have been played, would occupy too much space, and I must, therefore, content myself with giving slight sketches of the chief players from 1870 to 1895, alluding to a few of the most remarkable matches. At the earliest possible moment—the two months which were allowed when the conditions governing contests for the championship were drawn up—Roberts played a second match with Bennett, and had no difficulty in regaining his title, as he won by 363 points in the very fast time of three hours twenty-two minutes. Cook was the next challenger, and, although he only got home by 15 points—a really nominal victory—this was the beginning of his marked superiority to any other player, and for exactly four years all efforts to wrest the championship from him proved futile. On November 29, 1872, during an exhibition match at his rooms in Regent Street, he made the previously unheard-of break of 936, which included no fewer than 262 consecutive spot hazards. This break was, of course, made on an ordinary table. From 1871 to 1875 was undoubtedly the very zenith of Cook’s career. During those four years he stood right out by himself, and could defeat all comers on any class of table. The strongest point of his game was unquestionably his wonderful delicacy of touch. Brilliant forcing hazards, and winning hazards made at railroad speed, so irresistibly fascinating to the gallery, possessed little attraction for him, and he was the first man who seemed fully to realise what might be done by delicately nursing the balls and bringing them together, time after time, with perfect strength. Even when at his best, however, he was never too consistent a player; there were occasions when he was completely ‘off,’ and, if he happened to be caught on one of these days, quite a second-rate performer could beat him easily. His personal popularity was simply unbounded, and it would have taken a remarkably strong nature to have resisted all the temptations to which he was exposed. No man ever lost a finer chance of an exceptionally brilliant and successful career. He must have made much money, but when the end came, it found him penniless. I have no wish, however, to dwell on his weaknesses, amiable as most of them were; rather let me record to his credit that no professional billiard-player has ever possessed a higher character for unimpeachable honesty, and that, in his prosperous times, he was never known to turn a deaf ear to appeals for assistance.
It is quite time, however, to introduce the third and only other man that ever held the championship cup presented by the leading billiard-table makers in 1870. I refer, of course, to Joseph Bennett, who is three or four years older than Roberts, and was playing in public before either Cook or his great rival. He rapidly acquired a wonderful knowledge of the game, for he was barely eighteen when he was engaged at Leeds to play and teach. During his stay there he played his first important match. It was with W. Moss; the game was 1,000 up for 100l. a-side, and Bennett won by upwards of 500 points. Possibly this success induced him to turn his thoughts Londonwards again; at any rate, he shortly afterwards returned there. His first metropolitan match was with Dufton; then he played a couple with Herst, winning one and losing the other: but it was the great four-handed match in which he and Charles Hughes so decisively beat old Roberts and Dufton that first brought him into prominent notice.
Whether Bennett, as a player, was ever quite the equal of Cook or Roberts it is unnecessary to discuss here. He beat each of them in turn for the championship, and can well afford to rest contented with that record. In early life Bennett’s health was indifferent, and his nervous and highly strung temperament was by no means in his favour. One of his peculiarities was that, when in training for a championship or other important match, he would never play with anyone, but invariably shut himself up in a room alone, and played one ball against the other, or simply practised one or two special strokes by the hour together. His contention was that a man required all his nervous energy for the match itself, and ought not to waste any of it in practice. There was, doubtless, something in his theory, for few men have ever shown to more advantage ‘in the pit;’ and it was sheer pluck and determination that enabled him to defeat Cook for the championship, as his opponent held a long lead when within a couple of hundred of home. A very severe accident in the summer of 1881 caused Bennett to resign the championship, and, though he completely recovered from its effects, he wisely gave up playing in public. He will be better remembered as a teacher than as a player, for he has virtually devoted his whole life to instruction, and with remarkable success.
In December 1873 Messrs. Burroughes & Watts promoted the first of a series of handicaps, with which they afterwards became so much identified. The important effect that these handicaps had upon the game is scarcely calculable, and, thanks to the liberality of the promoters, several players who afterwards took prominent positions, but might otherwise never have been heard of, were first introduced to public notice. These handicaps gave such men exactly the chance they needed. The following sixteen players took part in this handicap:—W. Cook, J. Roberts, jun., Joseph Bennett, T. Taylor, F. Bennett, S. W. Stanley, Harry Evans, W. Dufton, J. Roberts, sen., T. Morris, A. Hughes, John Bennett, L. Kilkenny, Alfred Bennett, G. Collins, and Stammers. It was won from scratch by Cook, who beat Kilkenny (130 points start)—the heats were 500 up, all in—in the final, winding up with a splendid break of 428; and this appears to be a favourable opportunity for giving brief sketches of some of the players who took part in it, six or seven of whom are no longer living.
‘Master’ Stanley, as he was always designated in print for the first year or two after he began to play in public, was certainly one of the most precocious youths that ever handled a cue, and could not have been more than sixteen when he began to take his own part in good company. The spot hazard was the strongest point of his game, and I shall never forget the style in which he used to dash round the top of the table, getting ready to play the next stroke long before the red ball had reached the pocket. When it failed to drop in, even if it was a couple of inches wide of the pocket, his invariable look of blank astonishment was intensely comic.
Tom Taylor came forward about 1872, just at the time that Stanley was becoming well known, and many were the hotly contested battles between them. Never were two lads more evenly matched. Stanley was a shade the better of the pair at the spot stroke, but Taylor was a little superior all round the table. Tom, like most billiard-players, had a pet stroke. When he had opened a game with a miss in baulk, and his opponent had followed with the answering miss under one of the side cushions, he would invariably play at the red ball for the cannon off two cushions, and bring it off three times out of four. This is a stroke that is never played nowadays, and yet, when unsuccessful, it rarely leaves anything on, which is more than can be said of the cannon off the white ball, the customary game at present. A gamer player than Tom Taylor was never seen. No matter what the state of the score might be, he never ceased struggling; to be apparently hopelessly in rear only seemed to improve his play, and from time to time he would pull a game out of the fire in really marvellous fashion. With the exception of Roberts and Collins, Taylor is the only one of the sixteen players in the great handicap at the Guildhall Tavern in December 1873 who is playing regularly in 1896.
Fred, Alfred, and John were all younger brothers of Joseph Bennett. John, although he occasionally took part in handicaps, was a player of no class, and died in November 1886; but Fred and Alfred worthily upheld the family reputation as billiard-players some twenty years ago, though they seldom now play in public.[[3]] It is difficult to say which was the better of the two when they were in their prime, for both played the spot well and were good all round; but perhaps Fred was the more brilliant, and might have taken a high position if he had been fonder of the game, and devoted himself more assiduously to it.
L. Kilkenny was another remarkably sound exponent of the game as it was played twenty years ago. He, too, was good on the ‘spot,’ and when this stroke went out of fashion it practically killed his game; for Roberts and Richards, neither of whom ever liked the stroke, are the only two of the old school who are playing better now than they did in the ‘seventies. Kilkenny was about the last man that would have been taken for a professional billiard-player; indeed, clad in correct clerical costume, he would have made a model country vicar. He was always exceptionally quiet, unassuming, and well-behaved, and ought to have done well; but for some reason or another he missed his chances and died in poverty.
George Collins always played quite a game of his own. I have seen him make numerous long runs of spot strokes, but they were invariably put together in the most unorthodox style. His own ball was rarely within eighteen inches of the red, and he would incessantly leave himself the most difficult hazards, which he brought off again and again in the most marvellous fashion. In a spot break of 300 he would have to play more awkward shots than Taylor or Stanley would leave for themselves in ten breaks of the same number, and very much the same thing was noticeable in his all-round play. He would constantly succeed in ‘gallery’ shots, but never seemed to trouble himself as to where the balls would be placed after the stroke; and his apparent lack of any knowledge of playing for position was a fatally weak point in his game. It was magnificent, but it was not billiards, and in his best day Collins always played the game of an exceptionally good amateur rather than that of a professional. Of late years he has had comparatively little practice, and has naturally fallen off in consequence.
As long as he remained in England, Harry Evans was always recognised as a sound third-rate all-round player, who was practically of no use on the ‘spot,’ and it was a great surprise to all who had known him over here when, soon after he had settled down in Australia, he gained great fame as a spot stroke player, made some really remarkable breaks, and held the championship there for many years; indeed, it is only comparatively recently that he was deprived of it by Charles Memmott.
With the exception of Roberts, sen., Tom Morris was many years older than any other player who took part in the first great handicap. His game was indifferent, as was that of A. Hughes and Stammers.
Early in 1874 the first agitation against the spot stroke took place, though it was not until twelve or thirteen years later that the stroke was virtually abandoned. It occasioned a good deal of surprise when the final heat of the first spot-barred handicap lay between Taylor and Stanley, two players whose game was popularly supposed to depend almost entirely upon their proficiency in the spot stroke. Yet there was really nothing remarkable about this result, for there is a great deal of truth and good sense contained in a letter from Stanley, which was published in ‘Land and Water’ about a couple of months before the handicap was played. In it he wrote: ‘I believe, as a rule, it will be found that the best player at the spot stroke is the best player, after a time, at the all-round game. To play the spot stroke well requires great patience, a great deal of practice, and a great amount of nerve. Now, anyone who can combine all these is sure to be a good all-round player.’ Cook paid a visit to America in 1874, where he was ill advised enough to tackle Rudolph at the cannon game, with the inevitable result; still, it was impossible to regret that he had taken the trip, for he brought back with him the American system of handicaps, which at once became so popular in this country that scarcely a dozen really important handicaps on the old ‘knock-out’ principle have been played in the last twenty years. It seems hardly necessary to explain that, in an American handicap, each player has to meet every one of the others, and the winner of the largest number of games takes the first prize. The immense advantage of this system is that the element of luck is as nearly as possible eliminated, and that, presuming the play to be fair and straightforward all through, the best man on the handicap terms will win. Messrs. Burroughes & Watts took up the experiment warmly, and presented 100l. in prizes. I formed one of the committee appointed to frame the handicap and to arrange the order of play, and I well remember the difficulty we had over the latter task, which will be fully appreciated by anyone who has attempted a similar one. It must be remembered that, as this was the first affair of the kind which had taken place in England, we had no precedents to guide us, and though it may seem very simple to arrange a list of eight men, so that each shall play against a different opponent on every one of seven days, let anyone who has had no experience in the matter sit down with a pencil and paper and try it. The handicap was as follows: Cook, Roberts, and J. Bennett, scratch; Taylor, 100 points start; Stanley, 120; Timbrell, 140; Kilkenny and A. Bennett, 160. William Timbrell has not previously figured in these pages, and may be dismissed in a very few lines. He was a Liverpool player, who had already been credited with, and to the best of my belief actually did make, a break of 893, which included a sequence of 296 ‘spots.’ On his own table in Liverpool he may occasionally have done great things, which, however, he failed to repeat in London. The moment he began to play in public every atom of nerve seemed to leave him, and on the numerous occasions on which I saw him play he never showed even third-rate form. Roberts and A. Bennett tied for first prize with five games each, and in playing off the former secured a very easy victory.
On May 24, 1875, Cook lost the championship, which he had held for exactly four years, to Roberts, and the match was a very noteworthy one, as it marks the turning-point in the careers of the two men. Up to that period Cook had been generally considered rather the better of the pair, but from the date of this match Roberts asserted his superiority, which became more and more marked in each succeeding year. In 1876 D. Richards, an elder brother of S. W. Stanley, ran second to Cook in an American Tournament. Richards is the doyen of all the professional players before the public in 1896, and is a fine player. As in the case of Roberts, increasing age only appears to improve his game, and there is not the smallest doubt that when he had reached his ‘jubilee’ he was playing infinitely better than he had ever done in his life. Nursery cannons form the strong point of his game, and he certainly plays them beautifully and with remarkable delicacy of touch, though it must be admitted that no one makes more use of the push stroke than he does. About the most noteworthy events of 1877 were two matches on a championship table between Joseph Bennett and Tom Taylor, both of which the latter won, though only by twenty-seven and twenty-one points respectively. Bennett had gone very much off in his play just about that time, or Taylor would not have been matched with him on even terms, and in the following year the two were both handicapped to receive a start of 150 in 500 from Cook in an American Tournament that was played at the Gaiety Restaurant. One of the eight men engaged in it was Fred Shorter, who had a start of 200, and had done very little previously. Never did a young player so suddenly make a reputation, and some of his performances during the tournament were most extraordinary. In his heat with Joseph Bennett, the latter gave a miss in baulk, Shorter followed by placing his ball under one of the side cushions, and Bennett went out for a cannon, which he missed by the merest hair’s breadth. This left a nice game on for Shorter, who speedily worked his way to the top of the table, and went clean out with the spot stroke, thus winning a love game. There is a little story relating to this heat which must be fairly well known, but is good enough to bear repetition. Of course, the game only lasted about a quarter of an hour, and, as we were going out of the room an old gentleman, desiring, I suppose, to make what he considered a soothing remark to the beaten man, said: ‘How do you do, Mr. Bennett? You did not seem quite in your usual form to-day.’ This to a man who had only been allowed two strokes—with one of which he gave a miss in baulk, and with the other as nearly as possible brought off a most difficult cannon—was almost too much. I shall never forget the expression of Bennett’s face, but language failed him to make a suitable reply. Shorter did not treat Cook quite as unkindly as this; still, the latter only scored twelve when he played his heat with the new man on the following day, and most of the other players in the tournament were served in somewhat similar fashion.
A consequence of his beating Taylor was a match which I arranged between them, Shorter to receive 200 in 1,000. An incident that occurred early in this game gives an excellent idea of Shorter’s coolness and self-possession. One of his friends was seated next to me at the spot-end of the table, and thoughtlessly struck a match to light a cigar without watching for a favourable opportunity to do so. Shorter had just worked his way to the spot, and the sudden flash catching his eye caused him to miss the pocket by about six inches. He came round to us and said quietly, ‘Please don’t do that again; I can get on the “spot” whenever I like, and stay there as long as I like, still it isn’t worth while to throw away a chance.’ This was no idle boast, for when the game stood at 444 to 152 in his favour he put his opponent’s ball into one of the top pockets with a brilliant stab shot from baulk, and, his own remaining in perfect position behind the red, he ran right out, winning the match by 848 points. His break of 556 was for many years the largest made in a match for money. On being asked to continue it, he ran it up to 636, including 207 consecutive spot hazards. Just at that time I firmly believe that Shorter had no equal on an ordinary table; indeed, I offered to match him to play Cook 1,000 up, level, if the latter would stake 500l. to 200l., but the proposal was politely declined. Unfortunately, Shorter’s prospects of ever attaining a position at the head of his profession were marred by the fact that he had no liking for the game. It was the most difficult thing in the world to get him to do any practice. When he afterwards took part in tournaments, his first two or three games were generally devoted to playing himself into form, so that his big breaks towards the end of the week came too late to give him any chance of success. His constitution was never a strong one, and, as he could not be persuaded to take any reasonable care of himself, symptoms of consumption showed themselves in 1884. A voyage to Australia was recommended as the best chance of saving his life, but the remedy came too late, and he died at Deniliquin in August 1885. On a match between Roberts and Timbrell at the Gaiety Restaurant, Timbrell receiving 300 in 1,000 and winning by 449 points, it is not necessary to dwell. It was played on an ordinary table, spot stroke in, but Roberts never made more than 35 off the balls, whilst Timbrell’s best break was 73.
The year 1879 was remarkable for the first appearance in London of William Mitchell. The ‘Sheffielder,’ as he has always been called, though, as a matter of fact, he was born in Derbyshire, had long been known in the provinces as a player of exceptional ability; but few were prepared for the form he showed on the occasion of his London début in an American Tournament at the Royal Aquarium, Westminster, when he won six consecutive games and took the first prize. This he followed up by securing another tournament at the Baynard Castle, and then he was taken on a provincial tour by Joseph Bennett, in the course of which he made many very remarkable breaks. Four years later, in a match of 3,000 up with Cook for a stake of 1,000l., Mitchell at last cut Shorter’s record in a money game with a brilliant 739 (55 and 189 ‘spots’). Prior to this, however, when practising at Brighton, he had made a break of 1,839, composed almost entirely of 612 consecutive spot strokes. This was generally discredited at the time, but subsequent events showed Mitchell to be well capable of such a performance. When at his best, Mitchell never played a long game without making two or three four-figure breaks, and it was probably his own fault that Peall eventually became his master at the ‘all-in’ game. He played the ‘spot’ at a tremendous pace, and has never had an equal in one particular stroke—that of going all round the table and regaining position. A somewhat delicate constitution has always been against him, but his gameness is quite on a par with that of Roberts and Taylor. There has never been a more brilliant hazard striker; and, strange as it appears, considering that for many years the spot stroke was the backbone of his game, he was always seen to great advantage on a three-inch pocket championship table. When at his best, his all-round game is always a singularly free and attractive one to watch, and few players could surpass him in a push-barred game.
It was in 1880, the year after Mitchell had taken London by storm, that his great spot stroke rival, W. J. Peall, made his first appearance as a professional. Rumours had long been flying about as to the big breaks he was in the constant habit of making when playing as an amateur, and his appearance at the Royal Aquarium in an all-in American Tournament was watched with great interest. He and R. Wilson received the limit of 175 points start in 500 from Joseph Bennett and W. Mitchell, who were at scratch. Peall, however, disappointed expectation at first, though playing sometimes brilliantly in exhibition games. He did not show to advantage when a stake was at issue, but in time he acquired confidence. In May 1884 he won an exhibition game with Mitchell at the Aquarium in four breaks exclusive of his initial miss, scoring 1,000 points in forty-four minutes, which still remains the fastest time on record. Later in the same month the same pair were giving an exhibition game at Cambridge, and Peall made a wonderful break of 1,989, which included 548 consecutive spot strokes, though as all of this break, with the exception of the first 411, was made after the game was over, it is questionable whether it should be counted as a record. Fortunately for Peall, he can well afford to dispense with this 1,989; for at the Royal Aquarium, on November 5 and 6, 1890, he completely eclipsed it with a phenomenal break of 3,304, all made inside the game, and comprising runs of 93, 3, 150, 123, 172, 120, and 400 spot strokes. I have no hesitation in giving these records of breaks made almost entirely on the ‘spot,’ for though the tables on which most of them were made may have been comparatively easy, there is no sort of doubt that the breaks were genuine in other respects. With spot-barred breaks, however, the case is very different, and I prefer to write very little about them. In matches where no money has really been at stake, although each party to them had solemnly deposited his 50l., or 100l., or 200l., as the case might be, it was clearly to the interest of each man to have as many big breaks made as possible, for the reports of these were likely to improve the ‘gate.’ Most of these big spot-barred breaks are composed largely of nursery cannons, and some of these long runs of nursery cannons which are credited to different players were never really made at all. Either a cannon was scored which was not made, a very difficult thing for a marker to detect, considering the express speed at which some professional players rattle up these ‘nurseries,’ or the player, when his ball was in contact with one of the others, calmly proceeded with his run of close cannons, instead of having the red and his opponent’s ball spotted and playing from baulk. This is something of a digression, but it seemed necessary to explain why I have written so little about ‘records.’ They are easily to be ascertained by anyone who is interested in them, and can be taken for what they are worth. From these great performances of Peall’s it may be easily gathered that his nervousness had entirely left him, and, after he had once acquired confidence, there never was a more consistent and trustworthy performer. Whatever any of us may fancy Mitchell might have done, there is no getting away from what the latter has actually accomplished, and, as a spot stroke player, he has never had an equal. For a long time past he has been ready and willing to meet anyone at the ‘all-in’ game, and is entitled to call himself champion of English billiards. It might have been imagined that the virtual disappearance of the spot stroke would have completely disposed of his pretensions to a place in the front rank, but, so far from this being the case, he was for a considerable period second only to Roberts as a spot-barred player. Short stature has always precluded the possibility of his being a very stylish player, but the extreme deliberation which rather detracted from his play years ago has to a great extent disappeared. His name has always been associated with all that is honourable and straightforward, and no member of his profession is more universally and deservedly respected.
No match for the championship had taken place for nearly three years and a half when Joseph Bennett challenged either Roberts or Cook to play for it. The former waived his claim and left Cook to meet Bennett on November 8, 1880. This match was one of the most interesting and exciting I ever witnessed. Bennett, who was favoured with a good deal of luck in the early part of the game, did not fail to take the fullest advantage of his opportunities, and, at the interval, held a lead of 122 points, a very big advantage indeed on a small-pocket table. The interval, however—like luncheon time in an important cricket match—often used to produce a marked change in the aspect of affairs, and soon after resuming play Cook put in a fine break of 107, passed his opponent at 795, and entered the last hundred with a substantial lead. The contest then seemed all over, but Bennett, playing up with any amount of coolness and resolution, won by 51 points. This was about the first time that I noticed unmistakable signs of Cook’s nerve failing him; he missed two or three easy strokes just when points were most wanted, and I doubt if he was ever quite the same player again.
Cook and Roberts sailed for India immediately after this match, and Taylor at once challenged Bennett for the championship. The match came off on January 12 and 13, 1881, at St. James’s Hall, and though, soon after starting, Bennett made a break of 125, the highest that had then been recorded in a match for the championship, Taylor stuck to him in his usual dogged fashion, and was only beaten by 90 points. Shorter was the next aspirant, but failed to make good his final deposit, so Bennett received forfeit. An off-hand match, however, for 25l. a-side took place between the two on the table on which they ought to have played for the championship. Bennett, who conceded a start of 100 in 1,000, was defeated by 193, and as he soon afterwards met with the unfortunate gig accident to which I have previously alluded, this was about his last appearance as a player, all his energies being subsequently devoted to teaching. I must not omit to mention that in September of this year, during an exhibition game with Alfred Bennett, Cook made a spot-barred break of 309, the longest then on record. It was without the semblance of a fluke, and was a far finer performance than it looks to be on paper, for the ‘top of the table game’ was then unknown, and it was put together by open play all round the table.
In January 1882, Cook, for the first time, took points from Roberts, who gave him 500 in 5,000, all in, for 500l. a-side, and won by no fewer than 1,658 points; the winner’s best break was 430 (5, 11, and 107 ‘spots’). A return match was played for a similar stake at Newmarket during the July week, and was witnessed by the Prince of Wales and a large and aristocratic company. This time Cook’s start was increased to 750, and he won by 918. His highest break was one of 412; Roberts had two consecutive runs of 653 and 395.
Very early in 1883 John North, who possessed a high reputation in Wales and the western counties, made his first appearance in London. This was in a spot-barred American Tournament at the Albert Club, and a more trying ordeal for a comparative novice cannot well be imagined, for, as is very truly stated in ‘Billiards, by W. Cook,’ in allusion to North’s début:
It is comparatively easy to perform in an ordinary tournament or match, where the least noise or interruption to the player is instantly checked; ... but billiards at the Albert Club is a different thing altogether. Betting on the game, and often on individual strokes, is carried on without let or hindrance, and that a stranger to London should have displayed consistently good form under such trying circumstances was conclusive evidence that he had plenty of nerve and self-possession.
North won this tournament, but it cannot be said that he has ever fulfilled his early promise. Fit and well, and at his best, he is an undoubtedly fine player; but his style, never a pretty one, becomes terribly ugly and jerky when he is out of form. Towards the close of the year 1883 Roberts offered to give any man in the world 500 in 5,000, all-in, or 200 in 3,000 spot barred. There was no response, and I only mention the fact to show how the status of certain players has altered in the last ten years. Few people would now care to pit Roberts against Peall on even terms at the all-in game; whereas his supremacy at the spot-barred game, to which he has entirely devoted himself, is so complete, that his offer of such a start as 200 in 3000 reads almost ludicrously.
Choosing a Cue.
At the end of the year J. G. Sala, a Scotch player of considerable repute, appeared in London for the first time in an American Tournament. On his day he was a fine spot stroke player; indeed, his feat of making 186 consecutive screw back red hazards into the same pocket remained a record for years, when it was completely wiped out by Charles Memmott, who made 413 similar strokes in succession in a match in Australia. Sala was, however, by no means strong at the all-round game. In 1884 Roberts took a company consisting of Mitchell, Taylor, Shorter, North, Collins, White, Coles, and Sala for a provincial tour, and organised tournaments in Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester, where some really magnificent play took place. Writing the names of these players reminds me that I have said nothing of Harry Coles and Fred White. The former originally came from Birmingham, and made no particular mark for some years after arriving in London, though he was always regarded as a sound and consistent player. Perhaps his form was never rated quite as highly as it deserved to be, for there was nothing in the least ‘flash’ about his style, and he never appeared to be playing nearly as well as he really was, in this respect being the exact opposite of Richards. The virtual abolition of the spot stroke, however, gave him his opportunity, and he improved very rapidly indeed, until about 1892, when I saw him make upwards of 500 off the balls, twice within a few days at the Aquarium, he was playing a really fine game, and only wanted a short start from players of the class of Peall and Dawson. Nearly twenty years ago White was regarded by some few people as a promising youngster, but for a long time his health was very indifferent, and never gave him a real chance of doing himself justice. When he became stronger he played brilliantly for a brief period, making spot stroke breaks of upwards of a thousand on two or three occasions in matches; but as he depended almost entirely on the spot stroke, and was very weak as an all-round player, little or nothing has been seen of him of recent years, though it is gratifying to know that he has done exceedingly well in pursuits unconnected with billiards.
It may be interesting to record that the first game of 10,000 up ever played was begun at the Aquarium on May 24, 1884. It was between Roberts and Peall, ‘all in,’ and the latter, who received a start of 2,000, won by 589 points. Once started these long games became very popular. They were soon extended to as many as 24,000 up, which took no less than a fortnight to play, and the spot stroke was invariably barred. I am not sure that the change was a judicious one, for it is by no means so interesting to witness a couple of hours’ play in the middle of a long match, with one of the players possibly hopelessly in the rear, as it is to see a game begun and finished at a single sitting. The last matches ever played for the championship took place in 1885, when Roberts defeated Cook and Joseph Bennett in turn, each game being 3,000 up. The champion at this time was suffering from an attack of rheumatic gout, which prevented him from touching a cue for a week prior to the match with Cook, and made it very difficult for him to hobble round the table; but he won by 92 points. Bennett suffered defeat by more than half the game. It is only fair to state that Bennett was so unwell that he could scarcely hit a ball on the first and second days, but the one-sided nature of the contest was in a great measure atoned for by the splendid exhibition given by Roberts. He made breaks of 155 and 147, the largest ever put together in a match for the championship; and also scored sixteen successive spot strokes, the largest consecutive number ever made in a championship match. A notable ‘all-in’ match of 15,000 up on even terms between Roberts and Mitchell was played in February 1886; Roberts, who certainly had the better of the luck, winning by 1,741 points. His longest breaks were 693 (230 spot strokes), 544 (179), 616 (88 and 104), 722 (230), and 716 (47 and 184). Mitchell’s highest efforts were 745 (244), 601 (197), 969 (321), and 532 (175). The result was particularly instructive, as it showed that, though Mitchell was at his very best just then, and in full practice at the spot, whereas Roberts had not played the stroke in public for months previously, the champion was still able to assert his supremacy at the all-in game. In the following week Roberts and Peall began a six days’ spot stroke match. The conditions were that they should play four hours per day, each man to place his ball where he chose at the beginning of a break, and the highest aggregate scorer at the end of the week to be the winner. Peall had matters all his own way from the outset, and eventually totalled 16,734 against Roberts’s 11,925; it was a terribly wearisome affair and attracted very few spectators. Later in the year Peall challenged Roberts to play 15,000 up, all in, on even terms, and as Roberts declined the offer then, and whenever it has been renewed, Peall, as already remarked, has certainly been entitled to claim the championship at English billiards ever since that date.
Since 1886 genuine matches for money have gone greatly out of fashion, and we have had to content ourselves with battles for more or less fictitious ‘purses,’ varied by an occasional tournament. The great feature of the past few years has been the wonderful play of Roberts, who, although he was born on August 15, 1847, has made greater improvement during the past few seasons than any of the younger players, and was never better than he is at present. Everyone who is interested in the game must have seen him play, and one visit to the Egyptian Hall will give a better idea of his inimitable skill than pages of description.
The young players who have come most prominently to the front since about 1888 are Hugh MʻNeil, Charles Dawson, Edward Diggle, H. W. Stevenson, and William Spiller. At one time MʻNeil, who is a left-handed player, was generally regarded as the ‘coming champion.’ He was the first to grasp something of the champion’s style, and certainly played the ‘top of the table game’ better than any of his contemporaries. Roberts had a very high opinion of him, and long ago said that he ‘would be a splendid player if he would only keep steady.’ A very severe illness unfortunately obliged the young Scotchman to give up playing for a long period. Dawson’s improvement was rapid, and well maintained for several seasons. His form is generally very consistent, and would be even more so if he were less sensitive when luck seems to be against him. Diggle is now generally regarded as one of the most promising of the younger men. He is by no means a pretty player, and does not appear to have the least idea of making a bridge, sometimes playing through his forefinger, sometimes between his first and second finger, and in various other extraordinary fashions; but, bridge or no bridge, he keeps on scoring. Stevenson is by far the youngest of the professional players, being still under age at the time of writing, and there are great possibilities before him, for he has a beautiful delicate touch, strongly resembling William Cook in that respect. It has been amply proved during the season of 1895–6 that Spiller only needed the requisite public practice to make him a fine player, and, though he performs in somewhat loose and haphazard style, he continually runs up long breaks. Nor must I forget Charles Memmott, a remarkably game and capable performer, and equally good at the all-in or spot-barred game. J. P. Mannock is a player who would have come into prominent notice long ago had he appeared more in public.
The game is just now in a somewhat curious state. It was never so popular in clubs, and where there was one house possessing a private table a dozen years ago, there are now twenty; but the public support of billiards is fitful. There is no doubt that exhibition matches have been terribly overdone during the last few seasons, and some genuine battles are sadly needed to revive the fading interest in the doings of professional players. It may, I think, be taken for granted that the push stroke—which has been abused to such an extent that a big cannon break is only put together by means of a number of glaring fouls—is doomed. Probably, indeed, the table of the near future will have smaller pockets with the spot a little nearer to the top of the table than it is at present. There will then be no occasion to bar any fair stroke, for such gigantic breaks from the spot stroke as have been made by Peall and Mitchell would be a sheer impossibility. The barring of any fair stroke makes the game a bastard one, and I feel certain that an alteration in the tables, such as I have indicated, would make billiards far more interesting to watch than it is at present, and would, therefore, prove of the greatest benefit to professional players.
The history of the development of the modern game of billiards is scarcely complete without reference to the games between Roberts and Frank Ives, the American champion, because the capabilities of the cannon game, even on a table with pockets, were so conclusively shown. Since then, cannons have played a conspicuous part in most long spot-barred breaks; and although cushion nurseries with the aid of the push stroke are so open to objection that some restriction is probable, yet it is certain that as pockets are made more difficult, cannons will become more important. Indeed, this would seem to lead ultimately to the adoption of the cannon game and the abandonment of pockets; a consummation to be regretted, for winning and losing hazards are attractive features in the English game.
In the summer of 1893 the champions met at Knightsbridge and played on a table with 3¼ in. pockets and with balls 2½ in. in diameter. At first Roberts had the advantage, but afterwards Ives cornered the balls, making 1,267 cannons in a break of 2,539, and 402 cannons in a break of 852, and won with ease. At the end the game stood, Ives, 6,000; Roberts, 3,821.
Neither player could be expected to show his best form under the circumstances, for compromise in the matter of tables and balls cannot be satisfactory; but the power and control possessed by Ives were a revelation to most of our experts. Putting the great break on one side, he was easily able to run up very long scores by means of a series of cannons played almost perfectly, without the push stroke or suspicion of a foul, and with but slight recourse to the massé.
During December 1895 Eugene Carter, another American player, has been giving exhibitions at the Argyll Hall, and those who are capable of judging cannot fail to have realised from his performances how important the cannon is likely to be in the English game of the immediate future.
To the various professionals who have been mentioned the names should be added of Green, the veteran Scotch player, who has often performed very well in London, and whose game is sound, if old-fashioned; and of Lloyd, who won the first prize at the Association Tournament held in December 1895, after a most determined struggle with Peall. The games during this tournament were played spot and push strokes barred.
More detailed notice of John Roberts and his remarkable breaks[[4]] would have been made here were he not so frequently alluded to in other parts of the book, for the history of the modern game is mainly the history of his career and that of his father. The elder revolutionised the game by the cultivation of the spot stroke, whilst the younger has advanced its interests by virtually abandoning that mode of play. Each of them for long was without a rival on even terms, and the respect entertained for the play of the younger Roberts is, we trust, evident by the references elsewhere to his opinions and practice.
CHAPTER II
IMPLEMENTS
By Archibald Boyd
No game in the world is so absolutely dependent on all its various accessories as billiards. Cricket can still be played, and played well, although the pitch may be not quite first-rate, and a bit of rough ground is not fatal to a golf links; but if the room be not large and airy, if the table be ill kept, the cloth unbrushed or badly stretched, the balls foul, and the cues ill cared for, the skilful player at billiards will be reduced to the level of an ordinary performer, and anything like a decent break will be out of the question. It is, therefore, of paramount importance that all the implements connected with the game should be of the very best kind, and in the very best order.
Before dealing seriatim with the various subjects, it is with pleasure that I acknowledge the great assistance that Messrs. Burroughes & Watts and Messrs. Thurston & Co. (I place the firms in alphabetical order) have cheerfully given me—assistance without which I could not have hoped to carry out my allotted task, and with which, I fear, I have hardly done justice to the time and trouble they have ungrudgingly expended upon me. I have also to thank Messrs. Wright & Co. for the drawings of the Standard Association Pockets which appear amongst the remarks on tables.