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: