Out Of The Blue Artifacts A Library of a lifetime of collecting
The News Chronicle National Newspaper Competition.
In 1956, at the height of their success, the Abertillery Liberal Club team (as seen below left) entered a national team competition sponsored by the News Chronicle national newspaper. The prize was the Championship Table from Thurstons Hall, Leicester Square, London.
The Abertillery Liberal Club Team.
Out of 1,109 team entries, the Abertillery team (as seen left) comprising Mr John Ford (Captain); Mr Len Luker; Mr Des Meredith; Mr Emanuel Marks; Mr Jack Wellington; Mr Colin Meredith and Mr Fred Prewett, won the competition and was awarded the World Championship Table which was made for the 1946-47 Championships held in Leicester Square London, the very table upon which Joe Davis made his record 146 and 147 snooker breaks and on which many record billiard breaks were made by the top players at the time.
The winning team members were also each awarded a brand new Mannock Cue, these cues are now very rare and very valuable. The cue made by Mr J. P. Mannock was labelled as being “Anti-slip” this meant the butt-end was thickly tapered, thicker than normal, this prevented the cue slipping through your grip when attempting Masse’ shots whilst playing billiards. On the team photograph from the time of the win, the players were portrayed holding brand new cues, these were given to the members of the team just for the photo-shoot. These cues were not the presented J. P. Mannock Cues as mentioned but other cues issued as to make the team look uniform for the photograph to be taken.
It was a wonderful achievement by what was considered to be the best snooker team in Britain. The final match of the championship was televised and shown live on TV, (but we were recently told by the B.B.C. that they never recorded it onto tape).
The table (as seen in the main featured image above) was transported to Abertillery and proudly erected in the club where it stayed until its closure. The club still had many successes through the 1960’s and 70’s within the Rhymney Valley and Abergavenny Snooker Leagues and still held on to its huge reputation.
The Club Refurbishment.
The table was placed downstairs at the club, though moved upstairs in about 2004 during refurbishment at the club.
The Closure of the Liberal Club.
On Monday 5th of March 2007, owing to financial difficulties, it was announced the Abertillery Liberal Club would close. Steps were taken by its officers and committee to raise funds and to obtain grants etc, though as the club was a private members male only club (as it had been since its opening in 1902) no monetary help was offered.
The club closed its doors on 2nd of May 2007, all efforts were made to sell and to rehouse the table, even on an international level, practically everyone connected with the snooker authority were written to but no-one responded and no-one locally wanted it, I personally listed it for sale on the well known auction site on quite a few occasions, after many weeks no interest was shown in it and it was taken off unsold.
On Thursday 10th of May 2007, a person came forward to purchase the two older tables that were downstairs and fortunately they took sympathy and did take the Joe Davis table as well, for free, to prevent it going in the skip when the keys of the club were handed in.
(More information to come).