Date posted: 3 October 2018, 12:48pm

The excitement had been mounting for weeks. The start of the weekly Snooker Blitz season had arrived and you could feel the tension on the Baize.

The first night is always a nervous occasion – who will be first to arrive, who will take home the prizes and what will the Stan ‘The Dapper’ Noble be wearing.

There was some commotion early on in the car park with the rustle of sleeping bags and fold-up tents from the fans that had chosen to sleep over to ensure there had the best seats. The first Blitz night of the season is not to be missed.

First to arrive was Maurice the ‘Menace’ McCudden and he gently eased his way through the throng, cue case tucked under his arm. Next to arrive Tony the ‘Hitman’ Jenkins – nobody saw him coming, nobody could definitely say he was or wasn’t there or what he looked like or whether he won but he was there – I think. Willow and Captain Thunder arrived together as is there way – shook a few hands, signed a few autographs and slipped quietly through the adorning crowd. Karl ‘The Retired’ Unger whose recent book “How to cope with retirement having never really worked” will be released this weekend and he will be signing copies in the Pro-shop on Saturday.

It was great news that we had new faces to join our assembly – Charlie, Trevor, Brian and Vincent – several of them potential ‘A’ players but only time will tell.

We have just completed a very successful snooker season culminating with our Golf invitation day in July - we contributed over €1000 Euro to the club from the season’s events.

Unfortunately the lack of match fitness showed in the evening’s snooker performances as the standard of potting was less than we had hoped but Willow finished with a plus – and that’s all that counts. There were great stories exchanged from the summer activities and with Ivan ‘The Terrible away we have more to look forward to. The winners on the night were Stan Noble and Richard Cullen (Owner of Killiney Travel where there are great bargains on trips away) – (Gordon received a gratuity for this ad – well he is hoping to). The runners up were Trevor ‘New boy’ King and the old maestro himself Michael Thunder.

Gordon