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Equating snooker tables to football pitches

Postby cupotee

I’ve noticed when i post on youtube about the exclusivity of pro snooker tables i often get the reply that ‘ well young or amateur footballers don’t start on smooth fast top conditions pitches so it doesn’t make it exclusive ‘ like that has anything whatsoever to do with snooker , how many fathers are out taking their kid to a snooker club for competitions on sunday morning like in soccer , what on earth multi million pound pro snooker establishment has youth and junior academies bringing in younger players to eventual equal status to pro’s , or sending them off to slightly poorer snooker academies for development , the funny thing is i got a reply from someone knowing the difference in quality between pro tables and basic club tables yet he still mentioned the premier league football pitch analogy , just bonkers , am i going mad , thoughts….

Re: Equating snooker tables to football pitches

Postby SnookerFan

Football is one of those sports that's it is fairly easy to go out and play outisde. Just need a bit of space, and a couple of kids to have a kick about with. I had very little interest in sports as a kid, and still kicked a ball around with my mates on occasion. Not necessarily official games. Just games like 3-and-in. (Where a group of kids designated a goalkeeper, and then took it in turns to take penalties, until one kid had scored three goals and he then became the goalkeeper.)

Snooker is a bit different. Though technically, I was brought a 'snooker table' as a kid. It was small, probably not even a quarter size of a real one. And it wasn't even a proper table. More of a thing you put on top of the dinner table to transfer it into a snooker table. To learn how to play properly, I'd say you have to learn how to play on a full size table. Which probably means going to a snooker club or some such.

I wonder how many of the current pros actually started playing snooker on a professional standard table as a kid. Probably more than used to. Jimmy White, for example, used to bunk off school to go to the snooker club. I can't imagine those were professional quality. But kids now have to be born with snooker cues in their hands to have any chance of success. It's probably different now.

Re: Equating snooker tables to football pitches

Postby cupotee

SnookerFan wrote:Football is one of those sports that's it is fairly easy to go out and play outisde. Just need a bit of space, and a couple of kids to have a kick about with. I had very little interest in sports as a kid, and still kicked a ball around with my mates on occasion. Not necessarily official games. Just games like 3-and-in. (Where a group of kids designated a goalkeeper, and then took it in turns to take penalties, until one kid had scored three goals and he then became the goalkeeper.)

Snooker is a bit different. Though technically, I was brought a 'snooker table' as a kid. It was small, probably not even a quarter size of a real one. And it wasn't even a proper table. More of a thing you put on top of the dinner table to transfer it into a snooker table. To learn how to play properly, I'd say you have to learn how to play on a full size table. Which probably means going to a snooker club or some such.

I wonder how many of the current pros actually started playing snooker on a professional standard table as a kid. Probably more than used to. Jimmy White, for example, used to bunk off school to go to the snooker club. I can't imagine those were professional quality. But kids now have to be born with snooker cues in their hands to have any chance of success. It's probably different now.


'I'd say you have to learn how to play on a full size table.'
by my experience its much more than that unfortunately , the standard club table's up and down the country are far and away's removed from the pro game to be almost a different sport , i'd actually say once you're confident with the fundamentals you're actually just better off watching pro matches on youtube than playing on club tables and I'm not trying to sound rhetorical at all .
Last edited by cupotee on 27 Aug 2020, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Equating snooker tables to football pitches

Postby cupotee

i think jimmy white went up and down the country spending a lot of time playing in amateur tournaments before was it the english governing body eventually gave him a pro ticket , so he probably had sufficient support and money behind him . :-)