Australian Billiards & Snooker Council

News

President's Report 2004
20 Oct 2004

This is the third report that I have had the pleasure of submitting, which signifies the end of my 3 year term as President of the Australian Billiards & Snooker Council. I have thoroughly enjoyed the last three years, although at times I have found it rather challenging.

The year has not produced the same high standard of results as the previous year did, when Australia produced three World Champions – a feat that is going to be hard to beat at any time. However, special mention must be made and recorded of Neil Robertson, who produced some scintillating Snooker on the World Snooker Association’s Main Tour, which enabled him to be recognized as one of the major threats to the top professional players for this coming season after achieving several notable high profile scalps last season. Well done, Neil – Australia is truly proud of you.

The 2003 Bob Hawke Australian Open Snooker Championship was won by Aaron Mahoney, who beat Johl Younger in the final, which was also attended by Bob Hawke. The 2003 Australian Ladies Open Snooker Championship was again won by Kathy Parashis who beat Samantha Ridley.

In 2004 the Snooker Championship champions in the junior events were Jenilee Thompson who won the Australian Under 18 Championship, Vinnie Calabrese who won the Under 18 Championship, Chris Horne who won the Under 15 Championship and Kurt Brown who won the Under 12 Championship. In the CL&S Team Challenge the Queensland 1 team successfully defeated the NSW 1 team.

In the major Snooker Championships, the 2004 Champions included Steve Mifsud who won the Australian National Snooker Championships by defeating Shawn Budd in Brisbane and Ben Judge who beat Shannon Dixon the Australian Under 21 Championship. The Oceania WSA Challenge Tour play off was won by James Mifsud in a classic battle against Aaron Mahoney 4-3.

The Australian National Ladies Snooker Championship was won this year for the first time by Tammy Cantoni who defeated Margaret Gorski 5-4 in the final and in the Australian Under 18 Ladies Snooker Championship, young Jenilee Thompson beat Bethany Ross 4-0 to take the title. Jenilee is a player to especially watch for in the future.

The 2004 Australian Billiards season was really dominated by Matthew Bolton by successfully defeating Joe Minici in both the Australian National Billiards Championship and the Australian Open Championship. With Matthew also now turning his cue hand to Snooker as well, Matthew is certainly a player for everyone to be aware of in the future. The Australian Under 21 Billiards Championship was again dominantly won by Shannon Dixon, with the Under 18 Championship being won by his fellow NSW compatriot Michael Lupton.

On the World scene, Australia again was well represented with Quinten Hann, Neil Robertson, Steve Mifsud and Johl Younger all being on the WSA 2003/4 Main Tour and Adrian Ridley and Aaron Mahoney on the WSA Challenge Tour. For the 2004/5 World Snooker Association season that has just commenced again, Australia has Quinten Hann and Neil Robertson on the Main Tour and Steve Mifsud, James Mifsud and James Delahunty on the Challenge Tour. In the 2004 IBSF World Under 21 Snooker Championships in Carlow, Northern Ireland, Australia was again represented by Shannon Dixon along with Ben Nunan and Michael Lupton. Ben Nunan is yet an another player that has emerged from the Pool ranks and is certainly a player of potential and recorded a 141 break in the World Under 21 Championships.

The accounts of the ABSC have been well attended to by Frank Dewens and are continuing to improve as we adhere to our fairly strict budgeting program to make sure that we do not drift back into the past problems.

Barrie Jones again has worked tirelessly as Secretary of the ABSC, with an ever increasing work load, as we progress with all of the initiatives and positive introductions to our sport. If there ever was a committed person to support our sport and work so hard to improve the professionalism of our sport– you would have to go a long way to find someone better than Barrie.

Adam Wyard has continued to keep the ABSC website up to a high standard and must be commended, especially as he has also had to contend with an enormous amount of study to complete his career examinations. Shirley Ridley took on the responsibility of ABSC Media Officer half way through the year and did a tremendous job, in what is a difficult area to achieve the recognition that we really deserve. Unfortunately, we were all sorry to see that John Milburn-Clark had to stand down as the Women’s Director during the latter part of the year for personal reasons.

During the past year it was also very sad to see the passing of some great Australian players in Bob Marshall, past World and Australian Billiards Champion, Geoff Miller former Australian Snooker Champion, George Ganim Jnr. 7 times Australian Billiards Champion and John Purcell a leading NSW player. Special mention must be made of young 12 year old Brock Meyer, the South Australian Under 15 Snooker Champion who also tragically lost his young life in a car accident.

The Australian Billiards & Snooker Referees have performed an excellent job again this year under the leadership of Harold Silver and Tommy Watson and Noel Gourlay as our National Coaching Director as overseen a marked increase of ABSC Coaches in Australia and kept all of the official coaching requirements up to date again to his usual high standard.

With regards to the Australian Confederation of Cue Sports, a tremendous amount of work and negotiation has been undertaken by the ABSC and although we still do not have an ACCS yet that is fully operational and fully representing all Cue Sports in Australia, I am more than confident that this will occur before the end of 2004. A significant step has occurred to assist this union with the AEBF recently negotiating membership of the APPF, which should remove the final hurdle to seeing a successful ACCS to be activated.

As President of the ABSC I am truly privileged to have been able to represent the ABSC in 2003/4 with my visits to the The Bob Hawke Australian Open Snooker Championship, Australian National Men’s Snooker Championships, Australian Ladies National Snooker Championship and the Australian Open and National Billiards Championships and the IBSF special EGM in Austria.

To the sponsors of Australian Snooker and Billiards - to Mal, Ray and Trevor Atwell and the CL&S Group, the main sponsors of the ABSC - to the Mounties Club in Sydney, RACV Club and the Brunswick Club in Melbourne and The Q-Masters Club in Brisbane – all of which have held our major Championships this year and to our honorable patron Bob Hawke – I cannot express enough thanks to you all for again helping the ABSC to support and promote our great sport of Snooker and Billiards.

As I approach the end of my three year term, I would also like to especially recognize the people that have personally been such a great help and support to me as President – to Harold Silver and Tommy Watson, to Noel Gourlay, to Bob Hawke, to Mal Atwell, to the Australian Presidents from each State and to the whole of the ABSC Board, although I must especially highlight the extraordinary amount of work and support that Frank Dewens as Treasurer and Barrie Jones as Secretary has not only given to me, but to the whole of Snooker and Billiards in Australia – To all of those above people and the many others that are too numerous to mention individually, a huge and sincere thank you from myself. It has been an absolute honour and privilege to serve you all and Snooker and Billiards in Australia throughout these past three years and I look forward to involving myself in the future, in whatever capacity that you feel that I could serve our sport the best.

Let’s all play or be involved in Snooker and Billiards – and enjoy our sport!

Michael Peachey
President
Australian Billiards & Snooker Council