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24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

I'm taking part in a 24 hour Snookathon next weekend along with my CIU team captain James Kilmarten. It will take place at Heworth Con Club in York from 10am-10am on 22nd and 23rd of September.

The cause is for a little boy called Blaise who has close links with James and his family and who has been diagonsed with terminal cancer. You can read his story here:
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9896128 ... pecial___/

The Snookathon is just a part of a big fundraising night. We have pros and former pros coming down for the night to help raise money with members being given the chance to bid to play frames against them and there will also be an auction of various snooker memorabilia. So far confirmed we have Mike Dunn, Simon Bedford (the one who beat Ronnie on his "comeback") and former world number 5 Gary Wilkinson taking part with possibly more to follow.

All money raised at Heworth Con Club on the night and all money raised via sponsorship forms handed out to people we know will go direct to Blaise's mother Theresa to help Blaise tick off things on his "bucket list" which will give him something to look forward to and give his family some positive lasting memories.

All money raised online will go to the chosen charity of Blaise's mother which is Brain Tumour Research and Support Across Yorkshire http://www.andreasgift.org.uk/ and you can donate for the cause by visiting our Justgiving page here http://www.justgiving.com/Snooker-Island

The rules of the Snookathon are that one of myself and James must be playing snooker at all times during the 24 hour period. We will play each other most of the time but will have occasional breaks during which one of us must remain on the table playing snooker against an opponent for a maximum of 2 frames before the other has to return. All very simple really.

So please support us by donating whatever you can spare to the Justgiving page, and follow live updates next Saturday during the Snookathon on the Snooker Island twitter feed.

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Still only one donation so far from SnookerFan. Come on, need more than that!

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Nice one Wild, you've raised the bar!

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Wildey

Come on guys for buck sakes £5 will do

this weekend instead of having a few pints lets help others.

tight hammers

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

I've got over £100 in local sponsors so far, will hope the justgiving picks up during the marathon.

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

25 hours until the start and I had a rubbish nights sleep last night. Not good!

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Casey

Good luck :spot on:

It will be interesting to hear what your breaks are about 6-7 hours in.

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Currently 3-1 to me in the marathon battle but we're taking on all comers in between. One of us has to be on table at all times, so far we're only sitting out 1 at a time. Top break so far only 30 but everyone's stressing and it's hard to focus at the moment. Mike Dunn due very soon.

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Cheers Mark for the donation! I'm on twitter at the mo because it's easier. Jim said before we started that if we don't make a 50 we should give up. Well I missed a brown on 46 when going for the 50 and since then had a 40 and 38 both with nothing to go at after. The 50 will come soon!

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Just had my first half century of the day, a 61 against former World Number 5 Gary Wilkinson.

Buzzing :-)

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Missed last red down cush with the rest

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Kev

Im certainly no pro but if your short of players give me a shout its a hours drive away but don't mind for a great cause if its not too late, just let me know threw Pm
Kev

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby PLtheRef

Sonny wrote:Just had my first half century of the day, a 61 against former World Number 5 Gary Wilkinson.

Buzzing :-)


Wait ten years and then enter the World Seniors

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Just played Kev, I fluked 2 amazing snookers!

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

still going strong, 7 hours 4o to go

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Kev

Good for you keep going boys !!

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Wildey

Kev wrote:Good for you keep going boys !!

yea if you fall asleep now i want 50% cash back ;-)

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby SnookerFan

Wild WC wrote:yea if you fall asleep now i want 50% cash back ;-)


Wild WC wrote:this weekend instead of having a few pints lets help others.

tight hammers


:john:

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Had a fantastic time from start to finish. All the pros that came in went down a treat with the locals and we raised we reckon over £1000 with more to follow.

Thanks to everyone that came down and in particular Adrian Baraclough who saw what we were doing and helped turn it from a one table snookathon to a full on snooker festival lasting from 1pm till 1am with all 3 tables in play solidly between those times.

I'll try to write more but fact is I've been awake for the last 37 hours and can't even think straight at the moment! Main thing for me is that after the first couple of hours I found my range and pretty much kept it up until about half 7 this morning when I lost it completely and couldn't string more than 2 pots together, and then it was a battle to the line. I was flagging badly about 9pm last night but had a pick me up in the form of vodka red bull and about 20 minutes after sinking that I was right back into it and zoned in, I think I peaked from 3am-6am which wasn't bad going considering I'd been playing for 16 or more hours up till that point! I can't imagine how bad it would've been if I was playing rubbish but I was loving it and that made the hours fly by and I think Jim was struggling at times with his form but I pulled him out of it by staying focussed on the snooker, and by the end he wasn't missing.

We had the marathon table in the middle with things going on on the outside tables. We had a rule that either me or Jim had to be on the marathon table at all times and we were only each allowed a maximum of 2 frames out before returning and we kept that up throughout. We were also playing others on the outside tables a lot of the time as well so it was far from being a 12 hours each athon, plus we spent a lot of hours total with both of us on the marathon table.

The spell from 1am when everyone left was quality because our mate Alex the muscles stuck around until a team mate of me and Jim called Andy finished his night shift and took over about 6am. Alex watched us and played a few frames when one of us needed a break and Jims girlfriend Faye hung around for moral support and made us cups of coffee and vodka red bulls. We had music on the laptop which caused a few arguments (nothing more annoying than putting something on and trying to play a frame only to see one of the others when you're down on the shot head to the laptop and look for something else to put on before the first track had even reached the good bit! And we were all at it!).

When the Shanghai final came on we had that on the screen as well and one overriding memory will be stopping play when Higgins was on 56 and watching the rest of the maximum and cheering when he potted the black after something disturbed him when he first got down on the shot. What bottle! That was inspirational for a couple of frames afterwards and lifted our games.

As we got inside the last hour a feeling of elation came out in our games and we both got another wind and started enjoying it again for the home stretch. We also had to cope with the delirium and brain freeze making us take on the wrong shots and forget the scores and lose count on the breaks. The funniest part was when Jim announced he was taking on a cross double (in reference to Mike Hallett) and hit it quite hard and when the double missed he called "treble" and that missed and then he called "quadruple" and it just reached the middle pocket. As the white had travelled up and down the table before the ball dropped I tried to say "that was a double cross quadruple" because the white had twice crossed in front of the object ball, but it was like a really hard tongue twister and I couldn't say it, and Jim knew what I meant and he tried to say it but he couldn't either and then I finally got it right and we couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes which meant we had to abandon play for a bit to calm ourselves because neither of us could cue up for laughing. Total delirium in action!

Anyway to finish for now, the whole day was about raising money for 6 year old Blaise who has terminal cancer and he made an appearance and stayed for a couple of hours with his brothers and cousin Jo who is the same age as him and is also Jim's niece.

They stopped Blaises treatment because they know his cancer is too far gone and can't be fixed, and his family want him to have quality of life for what's left of it, so his hair has grown back and he looks like a normal kid and he was playing hide and seek with the others and running around and loving watching the snooker. You can tell the other kids all think the world of him and it is devastating to think how they're all going to cope over the coming weeks, months and years and lifetimes. It is all very upsetting and it's really hard writing this at the moment because it's impossible to understand how absolutely cruel and totally unfair it is that this poor little lad and his family have such a death sentence hanging over them. 6 years old is no age for a lifetime.

We were all glad to see them because it gave us extra incentive to finish the job and raise as much as we possibly could to at least try to help the family have some good lasting memories of Blaise before he's too ill to do the things in life he deserves to do. And obviously this isn't an isolated case, it's just close to home for Jim and therefore me as we're good mates which is why we wanted to set up the online thing to help others in a similar situation.

So thanks to all that donated and the site is still taking donations http://www.justgiving.com/Snooker-Island so if you've only just come across this and want to chip in then please do.

Right, I think I need about 20 hours kip. I'll stick some photos up in the next couple of days when I get chance.

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby Roland

Last night there was a story on Facebook saying Blaise had enjoyed his last Christmas and had lots of presents and played pass the parcel but he slept through much of the day. Then this morning news has come that he died in his sleep last night.

At least he will be in no more pain but I am absolutely devastated for his family and the kids who loved him so much and were playing with him during the marathon. And what a time to go, I suppose it's a small saving grace he didn't die 24 hours earlier on Christmas morning but even so, for a 6 year old to die at Christmas is heart breaking. My own niece is the same age and she was so spritely yesterday, so full of life and loving everything Christmas. Sometimes life just isn't fair.

RIP Blaise

Re: 24 Hour Snookathon!

Postby PLtheRef

Really sad to hear this news Sonny, Terrible time to lose someone, particularly a young child.

You're right, sometimes life is really not fair.

RIP Blaise