Left to Right: Ryan Mears, John Mullane, Terry Azor

Chandlers Trio win Home Nations

Ryan Mears, John Mullane (Captain) and Terry Azor represented England A in this years Home Nations where they competed against 9 other teams, a win against Northern Ireland in the Semi Final set an all English clash in the Final where they defeated England B to claim this remarkable achievement. Terry caps what has been an unbelievable season after a big upturn in form which has seen him become Southamptons No.1 ranked player on top of 5 local and national titles!

Left to Right: Chris Malcolm (sponsor), Aonghus Mcanally (R/up), Terry Azor (Winner) and Clive Scott (Organiser)

Azor cruises to victory in the Channel!

Southamptons Terry Azor has claimed the latest EBSS trophy on his trip to Jersey in June 2022, after defeating Ryan Mears in the Semi-Final by 249-83 Azor made no mistakes against the great Aonghus Macanelly in the final. Its been an amazing journey in 2022 where Terry has now added this title to his maiden Gordon Lewis win in May and has also reached the dizzy heights of World No. 21 in this seasons campaign.

Top row: 1st ???, 2nd ???, 3rd Chris Holland, 4th Frank Buckley.

Front: 1st Danni, 2nd ???, 3rd Alf Hobbs, 4th Roy Bacon.

Flashback to the year I was born and the winning side from The Castle Club

Many thanks to Roy Bacon for sending this in! and if you can, please help to fill in the blanks of the missing few.

The League Shield looks amazing!

Chris Bishop shrugs off slow start to finish with breaks of 43 and 38 to beat Craneswater club-mate Colin Rowe to the Portsmouth Billiards League individual handicap title 2019

Totton Rec's Mick Kunzi wins West of England Billiards Open Plate Final

Saturday 10th November I travelled to The Galaxy Centre,
Torquay for the West of England Billiards Open . . It was an early start and a very late finish !! . .The top players were seeded . . With the 8 tables, I played 6 forty-minute matches . . won 3 and missed out on qualifying by 3 points . . not potting my partners ball to win my last match! . . But played and won the Plate !! . . There were several 100 + breaks with the good standard. I managed a 38 and 46. Also, on the 4th November I qualified with Terry to the Intermediate stage of the English Amateur coming second in my group!

Totton's Mick Kunzi doubles up on Snooker and Billiards Cup win

On 31st May I attended the Walter Child Clark League Presentation Night to receive two trophies.

The Cup was for winning the Snooker Veterans (over 50's) played last December. A one night event playing in a one frame knock-out . . I had five matches to win the Championship.

The Shield. I had five round robin matches . . won four and lost one and scored enough points to make the final which was 300 up played in May. I had a couple of over 30's and a well manufactured 63 in the final.

The Billiard Competition is over 120 years old and my dad won it twice (1964 & 1965) for me
. . now I've done it for him!

The games were played on excellent tables at St James Institute, Bournemouth.

See you at the AGM . . thanks Mick Kunzi

Left to Right: Chris Malcolm (sponsor), Aonghus Mcanally (R/up), Terry Azor (Winner) and Clive Scott (Organiser)

Hampshire trio win English County Triples Billiards Cup for the first time since the 1980s

We’ve been waiting 32 years but a Hampshire Billiards team comprising of John Mullane, captain Terry Azor and Paul Adams has won the English County Billiards Cup. They travelled to the Atack Snooker Centre, Nuneaton and played superbly to shock the glittering stars of the eight counties involved. 1980 was the last time a Hampshire side won the coveted prize

The quarter final saw Mullane beat Yorkshire's Rob Patterson, Adams keep up with ex-professional snooker player Jonathan Bagley, until Bagley eventually pulled away to win and Azor play the game of his day against experienced Steve Crossland, to win the tie 2-1 on the straight one hour timed knockout format

The semi-final inspired all three against Cambridgeshire, winning 3-0, with Mullane making a wonderful 114 break. The last time they reached the final in 2006 they narrowly lost to three Cleveland England internationals, and Hampshire captain Terry Azor quipped, “this time I want to go one better”

Paul Adams said “we knew we had a good chance of making the final again as we were all cueing well. The depth in quality billiard players throughout the other sides was awesome, with the likes of England number one Rob Hull, who made three centuries and an 85, and scored over 600 points in one hour, but his team still lost! We were so focused in the final we barely looked at each other to see how each was progressing. We were so determined, we just had to win it!"

In the final Mullane beat Dave Walker, Azor was beaten by Devon's billiard legend Bill Andress who made an 83 and Adams overcame David Coombes for a memorable victory all three will never forget

"We then headed back down the M40 with Terry calling and texting everyone who needed to know! We couldn't stop smiling, even when we got held up for an hour in traffic. The victory will give us an immense amount of confidence for all our future matches"

PRE-TOURNAMENT REPORT

Hampshire billiard players John Mullane, Terry Azor and Paul Adams are travelling up to the Atack Snooker Centre, Nuneaton on Sunday 25 November to compete with the cream of the amateur county billiard scene in England

The last time all three cueists played together in the tournament, run by the EABA (English Amateur Billiards Association), they reached the final for the first time since 1980. They narrowly lost to five times in a row winner Teesside, with all three of their players playing for England, by only 98 points, 752-654 over the three hours

The three south coast players beat some fine teams on their way, including Norfolk and Lincoln which both included England international players. The quarter-final saw them storm to victory over Norfolk. Mullane made a fantastic break of 147 in reply to England international Phil Mumford’s 90 and Adams contributed a fine 79 as the team won 769 points to 520. The semi-final was the furthest the team had gone previously but helped by breaks of 61, 51 and 52 by Mullane they triumphed 756 – 685 over Lincoln

The trio has been practicing hard and will fancy their chances. If they do fall at the first round stage they will have a plate tournament to focus their skills on, but Paul Adams said, 'we know if we all play well we can go far in the tournament. John was the number one amateur in England not so long ago and the three games are judged on overall aggregate score so we are really looking forward to the challenge'

John and Terry have also qualified for the English amateur billiards championship, progressing to the last 32 which is to be played on 4th December at a venue to be announced

Mullane and Azor put on a billiards show for Mottisfont!

Our very own billiard superstars John Mullane and Terry Azor made a special guest appearance at the Mottisfont Social Club, Romsey on Tuesday 15 May, each playing a 90 minute exhibition match against two Test Valley Billiard League players. The test valley players both received a 200-point start to help them against our talented duo!

John Mullane made a 73 break after ten minutes to stamp his authority on the game against Ian Hares (’Cannons Cup’ winner) and continued to mesmerise his opponent and the crowd with three-cushion cannons. He also made some fantastic red ball potting from distance to get himself out of trouble. A 54 break a the-top-of-the-table in five minutes towards the end of the game helped wow the crowd once more.

Hares is a long established player in the Mottisfont league, but has never been put under this sort of pressure before. He displayed great potting ability and once John had caught him up after 40 minutes, relaxed and showed that he has a good billiards game too!

Terry Azor played some superb ’short jennys’ from tight positions in his game with Kallum Tarrant (Scratch Cup winner), and showed great control with his losing hazards into a middle pocket from hand. Azor levelled the scores after the hour mark, then showed some great all-round billiards. Tarrant is an up and coming talent for the league. He shows great potting ability and is working hard to improve his billiards.

John and Terry certainly helped both players and there was time at the end of the evening for both of them to show some shots and talk about billiards in general to an appreciative crowd!

(Words from Korbin Lowe)

Thanks for Mottisfont for hosting the event and to Korbin Lowe for refereeing and Peter Green for marking

J Mullane 509 (73, 78, 53, 64) V I Hares 384 (28)

T Azor 406 (63, 54) V K Tarrant 330

Terry Griffiths Snooker Room

When Paul Adams met Terry Griffiths for a lesson and a chat about billiards!

In 2011, Churchills Eastleigh's Billiards number one Paul Adams met ex-professional and current coach Terry Griffiths at his superb Snooker Academy venue in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales, for a one-on-one snooker and billiards lesson.

Terry sent me a questionnaire to fill in before we met to find out what I wanted to achieve from the lesson and going forward. So after talking to him about wanting to be more consistent in my cueing and checking if I had picked up any bad habits since having a few lessons with the late great billiards player Jack Karman, back in the 1990s, we travelled north to Llanelli when staying in Gower Peninsula for a holiday in November 2011.

The lesson didn't start too well in my wife's mind, as Terry said he thought billiards was "a little boring"! However, after half an hour of tweaking my grip and various things, he had me consistently potting a red off of the middle spot into the top pockets with ease. The main thing he changed was my bridge hand / cue position in relation to how close to the cueball I was getting. Previously I was too far away from the cueball with my hand, something I hadn't really noticed over the years. After changing this and a few other 'secret' pointers he was really pleased with the improvement in my cueing. I was getting through the cueball much better which helped with accuracy and spin etc.

The proof was in the pudding so to speak. After getting back home and incorporating all the points Terry had suggested, I was amazed at how much better my game was. In fact, making a 131 clearance at snooker and 136 at billiards on the same day was a real bonus! It did take a while to get used to the new tweaks during league matchplay and some of the Hythe Social players during a match said "what has Terry done to your action? It's terrible!" But it all came good after a few weeks of getting used to it.

Terry was such a gentleman and chatted with my wife and I for much longer than our booked two hours. In fact we stayed for over four hours in total. My wife looked a bit bored at the end and was desperate for a coffee and cake, so we thanked Terry for a memorable day. A wife can only take so much chat about billiards and snooker from two green baize lovers!

Azor and Lowe have played in the Thailand Open Billiards Championship!

They didn't win the tournament but they both won a match and Korbin compiled an 83 break. We had better watch out for their newly honed skills in the coming leagues season! Well done boys!

Our very own Terry Azor and Korbin Lowe, who have been regular players on the world billiards circuit this year, will be jetting out to Bangkok next month to play in the Thailand open!

Both players have had a great success so far this season especially with Terry winning the challenge cup when they played up in Scotland. Their results have seen Terry rise to 38 and Korbin 65 in the world for this year’s order of merit which also gained them automatic qualification earlier in the year for the World Matchplay Championships.

With players such as the reigning world champion Sourav Kothari (India), the world number one Peter Gilchrist (Singapore) and the current Asian champion Dhvaj Haria (India) playing in the competition is should prove to be a truly memorable experience.

Awesome Azor obliterates his highest billiards break to make 270

(Yes, you read correctly... 270... against me in a practice session before the Usher Cup semi final!)

Just as England cricketer Ben Stokes found out when he made his wonderful 258 against South Africa this year at Newlands ground, Cape Town in South Africa, these knocks only come along once in a while, so you had better make the most of it! Terry being a keen cricketer will appreciate the comparison, although there weren't as many 6 shots as Stokes played!

We started practicing on the wonderfully fast, left hand table at Chandlers Ford Central, and traded high twenty breaks for the first few minutes. It was all a side show however, as I joked with terry on our highest breaks - mine being 150 and Terry's being 151!

Terry then got to 50 odd with all round play and a touch of top-of-the-table to get the feel of his favourite table. You could see his relief when he got to 70, as he knew that he was cueing well for the Usher Cup semi final that evening. When he got to 102 we both knew that this was not a run-of-the-mill practice session.

When he got to 148, I joked again that he must go on and beat his highest. Well he did that, and then went on to make 10 hazards or more four times in the total break. In my humble opinion he only got out of position three times, and only played three bad shots in the whole 40 odd minutes it took, but recovered with some superb touch cannon play. When he got to 189 he just had the red ball under such control, that he didn't need to play any difficult shots, just in-offs into the middle pockets, pushing the red up and down the table with unnerving accuracy.

When he passed 200 I said, "come on, 250 or 300 now". He was even fielding his own in-offs on the right hand side of the table he was so relaxed. 250 was passed, but he lost my white, so unfortunately the magical 300 was out of reach. But on he went to the fantastic heights of 270. Even Terry remarked that now in his 60s he’s getting better. My late father at the age of 75 was getting better and beating his highest break, so it shows that with a little dedication and belief, that we can all get better at this wonderful game!

Terry's team mate John Mullane said it was within Terry to make another 150, but Terry couldn't quite believe him. Well after that wonderful exhibition I think a few more 200s are on the cards, and maybe even that elusive 300... Well-done Terry!

MULLANE AND AZOR SERVE UP A BILLIARD THRILLER IN DERBY – 2013

John Mullane and Terry Azor travelled all the way up to the Beaconsfield Conservative Club in Derby, to play in the last 16 of the prestigious English Amateur Billiards Championship, and when John’s wife Jane did the draw, she went and drew them against each other!

The matches were played over a 4-hour, non-handicap, timed format and some superb billiards was played. Mullane and Azor put on a fine display, scoring a total of 1762 points between them, with both men making centuries. Azor made his first, a fine 106, and led the ex-England amateur number one by 99 points at the two-hour mark. In the third hour, Azor still led, but this inspired Mullane, and helped by a 108, pulled away to eventually win by 136 over his good friend

Commercial pilot Martin Goodwill (some will remember his name from the 90s, when our own Dave Burgess had some great battles with him) played some of his best billiards against Terry Ward, and several who watched him said the Martin of old was back, but unfortunately he met the man in form Rob Hall and it was game over!

The semi final draw was made on the day, and pitched Mullane against Darren Kell, and Mathew Sutton against Rob Hall. The games will be played at the Joseph Whitworth Centre, Darley Dale, in the Derwent Valley in Derbyshire, over the weekend of 13th & 14th April 2013, for what will surely be a superb feast of billiards. We wish John every success

Totton Rec's Mick Kunzi wins the Walter Child Clark Individual Billiards Championship in Parkstone, Dorset... nearly 50 years after his father won it!

Hi Paul .. I won it . . the match (300 up scratch) was hard fought, with my opponent potting (and flukeing!) everything .. I was unwell, throat like sandpaper and nervous, but managed to win by nearly 50! No significant breaks. I am grateful to all the players of the Soton and District Billiard League. This marvellous win for me would never have happened had I not been playing in our League every week !!

The Parkstone Billiard League started in 1906, and like our Gordon Lewis Trophy, in the past this was the one to win! In 1964 I asked my dad to enter which he did and won, also defending and winning in 1965 . . now after 50 years, I've won it for him !!

Pics are of me with the shield and a black and white photo of my dad who also won two club championships the same year. The third picture is of dad still winning later on in life !! Regards Mick K.

Well done Mick, I knew you could do it and we love your enthusiasm in our league!

Mick Kunzi (Top) with the Walter Child Clark Shield

TERRY AZOR HELPS ENGLAND WIN IN NORTHERN IRELAND!

Our very own Terry Azor has qualified to play for the full England amateur billiards team. He will be jetting his way over to Northern Ireland to face sides from Northern Ireland, ROI and Austria in a competition played on the 21st and 22nd of November.

He was picked after getting into last years top 10 listing of amateur EABA tournament players – he actually qualified at the number eight position, so well done Terry! John Mullane also qualified but unfortunately could not take his place due to other commitments.