Scottish Pool Association

Extended News

The venue for the sixth event of the series was Cue Here in Airdrie which is run by Gary Cunningham. Cue Here has become THE place to play pool in Lanarkshire and attracts all the top players for any tournaments held there.

Onto the action from the 1st round and there was a few cracking ties none more so than Stevie Robertson and Martin Fisher, Stevie finally knocking Martin out with a very good 5-3 victory. Young Airdrie hopeful playing in his first event was unlucky to land top Scottish Pro, Scott Ross, as his opponent and after taking a 1-0 lead quickly succumbed to a 5-1 defeat. Wullie Biggam and Chris Slack fought out a tense 9 frame thriller with Wullie just edging it in the decider. Alan Whisker pulled out a great performance to beat Martin Jones 5-4, a few other 9 framers included Mark Williams edging out Gary Ferguson, Paul Harkness beating Chris Brown and John Watson beating Robert Williams.

Second round and the ties of the round were Steven Campbell jnr beating Stevie Robertson 5-3, Sean Donachie beating George Fagan 5-4, Danny Lunn beating Renzie 5-2, Alec McDowell beating Mark Armstrong 5-1, Pat Holtz beating Stuart Weeks 5-1, Freddy Williams defeating Gerry Quigley 5-0 and perhaps shock of the round was Robert Douglas beating local hero Paddy McMullen 5-3.

Into the last 32 and first to secure a last 16 spot is Aldo McLeod with an extremely hard fought win over Gary Skene. Next to book their place was Scott Gillespie with his win over Steven Campbell jnr. Scott Ross and Jayson Shaw fought tooth (I’m not slagging you Renzie) and nail but GG (Scott) carries out a very nice break and dish in the decider to win 5-4. A very temperamental match between Darren Orr and Stevie Sheridan ended up with Darren pulling out some cracking pots to win the match 5-4. Gary Scott beats Danny Kinney 5-2, Billy Stirling takes full advantage of some extremely unlucky play by John Watson to steal a 5-4 victory and John MacFarlane ends Robert Douglas’ run with a 5-3 win.

Last 16 gets underway with Aldo knocking out Scott Gillespie for his first time in quite a few attempts in recent months, Sean Donachie is in full swing with a 5-0 win over local player Ross Hendrie. Pat Holtz whitewashes Gary Scott, Billy Henderson produces another great performance to defeat Old Snowy (Ross McInnes) 5-3.

Quarter finals start with Aldo McLeod beating another of our young stars by knocking out Scott Ross 5-2. Alec McDowell defeats Sean Donachie 5-2, Billy Henderson shows he means business with another flawless performance and a 5-0 win over Pat Holtz and Bert McAdam beats close friend John MacFarlane 5-3 to complete the semi final lineup.

Onto the semi-finals and we are guaranteed a new champion in 2008 as none of the semi finalists have made a final this year, and only Bert McAdam has won one of these events in the past. Aldo McLeod finally ends Alec McDowells interest with an extremely hard fought 6-5 win while Billy Henderson makes his first major final with a 6-3 win over Bert McAdam.

The final begins with Aldo getting a couple of small rubs, and even with these rubs he still finds cause to moan and quickly races into a 2-0 lead. Billy finally gets to the table and gets into top gear himself and gets himself in front with some fantastic finishes to take a 3-2 lead.

Aldo then takes a scrappy frame to level the match and takes a nice finish to get back in front again. With the match at 4-3 to Aldo, Billy decides to lay the snooker instead of going for a makeable plant, the white behind a ball but only millimeters off the bottom cushion and Aldo’s last two balls are over both bottom pockets, he plays of the two knuckles of the top cushion and nails it perfectly to send the white right up the cushion and pots one of his hanging balls leaving a tap in.

Probably the best shot I have seen in a long time and as is usually the case this gave Aldo so much confidence that it was hard to see a way back for Billy, and so it proved with Aldo running out a very tidy finish to win his first major title.

It was tremendous to see two new players fighting out the final and can only testify how hard it is to win one of these events.

Would like to thank all the players on the day as it was a very easy tournament to run and a huge thanks to Gary and his staff on providing the hospitality. Also like to thank Rex Leisure for sponsoring the series and also providing the winners trophy for each event.

Roll on the Grand Final which is on Sunday 21st September in Hustlers, Rosyth.

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