Fakenham man makes billiards history

FOR the first time in the history of the sport an amateur billiards player and administrator has been selected to be tournament director of this year’s world professional billiards championship to be held in Leeds next month.

Fakenham businessman Clive Scott (pictured below) is the man who will be in charge of the event, writes Peter Bird.

“I feel honoured to be asked to run the championships as an amateur,” said Scott, owner of Wheelspeed, a car parts and accessories business in the town.

He is currently the tournament director for several countries including Austria, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and Jersey. He supervised the European championships in Rumania this year and has already been invited to do the same job in Iceland next year.

But this will be the biggest and most important job to date for Scott who also oversees major amateur tournaments in England.

He was instrumental in starting the referees’ section of the English Amateur Billiard Association and currently co-ordinates the activities of all the amateur referees in the United Kingdom. As such he is the tournament director of the annual English Open Billiard series, from which England selects their international representatives.

Scott was chosen as tournament director after the EABA bid to hold the event was successful. Masterminding the championships at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds is a feather in the cap of this lifelong billiards enthusiast.

“To be picked shows the association respect me for my capabilities,” said Scott.

Entitled a Festival of Billiards, it opens on October 23 with a two-day English Open Billiards event, followed by two days of a pre-qualifying event for the world championships which then run from October 26-31.