Category: North West Tournaments

The Lancashire area qualifiers for this years North West Open will take place at the Stephen Hendry Snooker Club in Preston on Saturday 5 March.

The Liverpool area qualifiers will take place at George Scott’s on Sunday 3 April.

The last four players remaining from each qualifying event will go forward to the Grand Finals which will also be at George Scotts on Sunday 8 May.

All matches will be on a KO basis with all matches being Best of Five frames.

The draws will take place the weekend before each event.

All players will be notified of the draw and their scheduled match time as soon as possible after the draw.

There will be NO cash payments accepted on the day of the competition.

All entries should be received before the closing dates –

Lancashire: Friday 25 February at 9pm

Liverpool: Friday 25 March at 9pm

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL PLAYERS MUST BE OF AMATEUR STATUS AND BE RESIDENT IN THE NORTH WEST OF ENGLAND. 

DRESS CODE: Smart Casual (No jeans /T-shirts/ trainers allowed.

Entry fee is £20

To enter: Please send Tony Cook a message via WhatsApp or SMS to 07850030916 – saying which event you would like to enter.

Please don’t call. Tony is likely to still be in America and either performing, travelling or sleeping!

Tony will contact you to advise you of the bank details

You may only enter one of the events!

***FUTURE COMPETITIONS NEWS***

We will be announcing details of an exciting new competition starting in September which will be called the North West Snooker Masters. We will also be bringing back the North West Junior Championship in June this year which will be for the Bob Tonge Trophy.

At long last we can get the 2020 event played!

Although we will have to miss out on 2021, at least this event can now be bought to a conclusion.

The finals will be played at The George Scott Snooker Club in Liverpool on Sunday 5 December starting at 10:00am.

Lancaster Qualifiers

1. Anthony Wall
2. James Silverwood
3. Ian Martin
4. Josh Corless
5. Mark Ainscough
6. Dave Holcroft
7. Kevin Harris
8. Steve Scott

Merseyside Qualifiers

1. Mark Richardson
2. John Welsh
3. Jamie Jones
4. Eddie Lott
5. Andrew Pennington
6. Brian Robertson
7. Adam Brown
8. Mikey Roberts

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Please Note: The draw will be done on the day. Any player that arrives after 10am will be docked one frame and another frame for every subsequent 10 minutes.

Dress Code: Smart

The Prize Breakdown will be announced on the day.

The Lancaster Qualifier for the NWBSA Open Amateur Snooker Championship 2020 will take place on Sunday 16 February at Squires Snooker Centre in Lancaster.

All Matches Best of 5
**Smart Dress Code**

Players in the Prelim Round matches M1 to M9 should be at the venue in time to start at 10:30am.
Matches M10 to M14 can start as soon as a table becomes available.

Prelim Round

10.30am Start
M1. J Tart v A Pearson
M2. J Silverwood v F Ajaib
M3. D Stephenson v I Martin
M4. P Govan v S Croft
M5. M Wilcock v J Snape
M6. M Nixon v W/O
M7. M Simm v D Hicks
M8. R Alston v W/O
M9. G Knowles v D McDonald

11.30am
M10. M Ainscough v J Simpson
M11. A Stackhouse v D Holcroft
M12. P Burns v N Morris
M13. A Jeffers v W/O
M14. T Arnott v V Gemson

Round of 32 (approx Midday roll on/roll off )

Winner M1 v T Lamb
Winner M2 v S Blackwell
Winner M3 v M Cousins
Winner M4 v J Culligan
Winner M5 v J Corless
Mike Nixon v J Cassidy
Winner M7 v J Wibberley
R Alson v K Harris
Winner M9 v D Taylor
Winner M10 v J Purcell
Winner M11 v A Veitch
Winner M12 v J Mulholland
A Jeffers v Z McClelland
Winner M14 v D Wilcock
A Wall v M Salmon
T Whittaker v J Naylor

Players who reach the LAST EIGHT, will qualify for the Grand Finals on Sun 5th April in Liverpool

On Sunday the 7 April 2019 the last 16 of the North West Open Amateur Snooker Championship was played at the George Scott Snooker Club in Liverpool

The first round began with Alex Taubman in fine form beating Tony Kinsella 3-1 with breaks of 52, 90 and 76.

Robert Marshall could not repeat his fine form from the Lancaster event losing easily 0-3 to Leo Fernandez. Leo made breaks of 39, 44 and 49.

Clayton Humphries had a comfortable 3-1 win over Jack Bradford, finishing off with a 73 break.

Junior player Paul Deaville continues to improve, winning the first frame against Mark Salmon on the black, then recording an 80 break in the next frame before wrapping up the match 3-0.

Andy Milliard had a titanic battle with David Holcroft. David made an 86 break to level the match at 2-2. However, Andy replied in the decider with 82.

In the remaining matches, Simon Blackwell beat Jamie Jones 3-0, Sean Maddocks beat Jason Tart 3-1 and Mike Nixon received a walk-over with the non-attendance of Danny Hicks.

The first quarter-final was a cat and mouse affair, with Alex Taubman taking the opening frame. Leo Fernandez levelled with 33 and 36. Alex again took the lead, aided by a 48 break. Leo dominated the fourth frame with a top break of 38. Alex at last produced his best form and took the decider with a 68 break.

Paul Deaville continued his fine form, defeating Clayton Humphries 3-1. Paul had a top break of 55, while in the only frame Clayton won, he made an 80 break.

Andy Milliard started off well against Simon Blackwell, winning the first frame with a 50. From then on, it was downhill as Simon won the next three.

Sean Maddocks played out a marathon match against Mike Nixon. Sean established a 2-1 lead before Mike hit back with a 56 break. The decider was a very tense affair with Sean trailing for most of the frame before snookering Mike on the blue and eventually potting the pink for the game.

The semi-final produced straight forward wins for Taubnan over Deaville, three nil and Blackwell over Maddocks, three one.

The final started with Taubman taking the first frame with the aid of a thirty nine break. There then followed an exhibition of consistent power potting by Blackwell who reeled off the next four frames in style to take the magnificent silver trophy, on loan from Thurston’s museum, a replica trophy and the five hundred pound winners cheque.

Alex received a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds and a trophy.

Robert Marshall had the highest break of one hundred and nineteen, worth fifty pounds.

John Twist refereed the final stages and received a commemorative medal.

Report submitted by Eddie Fielding. 

The final of this event will take place on Sunday 7 April at the George Scott Snooker Club in Liverpool, starting at 10:30 am

The draw will take place at 10:15 and all 8 matches will start at 10:30

Dress Code is a collared shirt, trousers and shoes.
No jeans, t-shirts or trainers.
Anyone not adhering to the dress code will not be allowed to play.

Format is best of 5 frames up to the final which will be the best of 7 frames.

Winner: £500

Runner up: £250
Semi-finalists: £100 each
Quarter-finalists: £50 each
Last 16: £25 each

High break: £50

Tournament Director: Eddie Fielding 01524 67199
Email: info@nwbsa.co.uk

Robert Marshall has retained the title of North West Billiards Champion after defeating Chris Achilles in the final on Sunday.

16 billiards players from across the region took part in the event at Mill Brow Sports Club, Widnes, playing for the Strachan Challenge Cup.

Four groups of four players were whittled down to eight for the knockout stage

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Some of the regions finest cue-men descended on George Scott’s Snooker Club in Liverpool for the first of two qualifying events of the 2019 North West Open.

Fifty-two players had to be whittled down to eight to qualify for the Grand Finals, which will also be played in Liverpool on Sunday 7th April.

Alex Taubman and Jack Bradford will be looking forward to the Grand Finals after a successful day, as will Tony Kinsella, David Holcroft and Clayton Humphries. Sean Maddocks came from two frames down against John Welsh to win 3-2 before beating Roy Bennett 3-0 to qualify. Jamie Jones produced a very exciting moment as he was heading for a maximum before missing the 13th red, but his classy 96 break remained the highest of the day.

The final remaining player to qualify was Simon Blackwell who beat a resurgent Andy Molyneux in the final qualifying round.

A great day at George Scott’s…..now it’s over to Lancaster for the second qualifying event on Sat 16th Feb where another eight players from around the region will be looking to book their places at the Grand Finals in Liverpool on 7th April…

Report from Tony Cook

You can see the scores at

https://challonge.com/nwbsa_liverpool

The history of the event

This tournament has been contested since 1964 when The Pontins Cup was presented to the Lancashire Billiards and Snooker Association by Frederick Pontin. The first winner was Jimmy Heaton of Westhoughton and the runner-up was George Scott of Liverpool.

This competition is one of the most, if not the most, prestigious competitions in the North West of England. To be crowned the North West Open Champion is certainly something to be proud of.

The names on the winners band of this magnificent trophy include John Spencer and John Virgo. The trophy itself is housed in the Heritage Museum at Thurstons in Liverpool.

Who will be next on the winners list?

In 2019 there will be two qualifying events – one in Lancaster and one in Liverpool. There will be 8 qualifiers from each event who will go through to the Grand Finals.

The 2019 North West Open Grand Finals will be in Liverpool at the George Scott Snooker Club on Sun 7th April.

As the competition grows, in future years we hope to stage more qualifying events across the North West.

This event is open to all billiards players in the North West Counties

The Strachan Challenge Cup was won last year by Rob Marshall, beating Chris Achilles in the final.