FROM THE CHAIRMAN
Welcome to another season of snooker, I can’t believe that this is our fourth year as a committee and I am amazed at how quickly those seasons have flown by.
I start my column this year with the sad news that during the close season we have lost one of our members after a long illness. Kevin Dooley of Birchley St.Mary’s. On behalf of the committee and the league we send our deepest sympathy to his family and colleagues. Kevin was a long standing member of the Birchley club and of the snooker team there and will undoubtedly be missed.
We can say we are never afraid of trying out new ideas and last year was no exception. With the launch of our snooker website we were able to let club members have access to what was going on within the league showing various links ranging from competitions, match scores, plus other links with various snooker related topics for you to look at.
For the benefit of the league two new competitions were introduced to keep the interest alive. The first was a plate competition for all clubs who were knocked out of the first two rounds of the major trophy to give them a second chance of obtaining some silverware.
Secondly it was decided to introduce an under 21’s competition, this would enable us to adopt a youth development programme so as to attract more youngsters into our game. The inaugural winner of this was Matty Doran (Huyton Cons) with John Phillips (Greenalls) as runner up. Both these competitions proved to be a great success.
Last year we were fortunate to be able to boost the league with two more new teams, which shows how committed we are to try to expand the league.
We are proud to announce the league had found a new sponsor for the 2008 / 09 season in Hatton’s Solicitors of Victoria Square St.Helens to whom we are truly grateful for their generous support. In all I feel it was a very eventful season.
That left us with the question WHAT can we do to make next season as good as the previous one? HOW can we possibly take it forward to the next level.
FIRSTLY I can announce that it is with great pleasure that once again Hatton’s solicitors have agreed to sponsor the league for the forth coming season and we are delighted to have them on board again and thank them for their continued support.
SECONDLY as Chairman of the St.Helens (Hatton’s Solicitors) Thursday Snooker League I can confirm that the committee and I are proud to announce that we are to add a further TWO new competitions to our calendar for 2009 / 10 one at the start and one at the end of the season.
Our FIRST NEW TROPHY is an in-house Champion of Champions Competition to be held between the winners of Divison 1 and Division 2. It will be played the week before the season gets underway (venue’s T.B.A.)
The SECOND NEW TROPHY will be played for at the end of the season. This trophy will be contested between the Division 1 winners of both the Wednesday and Thursday St.Helens Snooker Leagues. This will be known as the St.Helens Snooker Interleague Challenge Trophy. This trophy was played for some 30 years ago (and has seemed to been forgotten about). After various meetings with Tom Burke and his committee we have agreed to re-introduce this local derby challenge against our Wednesday colleagues, which gives us the opportunity to work together for the good of the game of snooker. (venue T.B.A.) I would like to thank Tom and his Committee for their time in meeting us to add this fixture to both snooker league calendars.
For the first time as far as I can remember we will be introducing as a bonus a Divisional Player of the Year award for both the 1st and 2nd division AS to what format this will take is yet to be confirmed.
I believe that the committee and myself have put together another exciting package for the forthcoming season and hope ALL member clubs will be behind us to make the forthcoming season as good if not better than the last one.
Good Luck
S.Burrows (Chairman)