Match Report March 22nd 2006 Away versus Beacon Public House

Bakers managed another away victory this week against a strong Beacon team who finished only 5 points adrift of our championship winning points tally last year. On slow but straight table Bakers relied on some strong play and a little luck here and there to sneak an away win at a tough venue.

Highlights
* Denis Sheriden’s outstanding play at number one slot, Denis will admit he is not our best player, simply produced the best frame I have seen him play to lose a very tight frame on the last couple of balls.
* Dan Cooper’s higher than normal slot in the order resulted in him clearing up from 4 balls out, including clever use of an opponents covering ball to free the black.
* Scott Rose normally incisive play was replaced this week with a long thoughtful style, his snookers at the end and cool head lead to him beating one of the Beacons best players
* Terry Greenwood once more out thought and out fought his strong opponent, however his opponent leaving the last black on edge of the middle pocket helped him to a usful but fortunate win
* Tony Cossey’s cool clearance from 6 balls out to beat the beacon captain (a women so it does not really count – very PC NOT)
* Yon winning the last game against the drunkest bloke in Dagenham, IE Lucked out again.

Lowlights
* Peter Kempster’s ability to keep ending up less than an inch from the object ball in his frame.
* Mitches miscue in his tight frame while in a Chinese snooker AND a normal snooker, so I will think we will let him off.

The bakers are having a good start to the season if all keep performing or being lucky like yon I can see us ending up in the top places once more.

Pool Fixtures for the Next Few Weeks

Pool fixtures on the Horizon
22/3/2005 vs Beacon away
29/3/2006 Cup match vs Drawn opponents (Our 'bye' needs confirming)
05/4/2006 No game
12/4/2006 No game (singles & pairs competetion see me for entry forms)
19/4/2006 vs BPC Goodfellows (Venue to be confirmed)
26/4/2006 Cup match vs Drawn opponents
02/5/2006 vs Roundhouse home

Lets win them all :-) and have a practice night for the NO GAMES

I have spoken with the league official today as i did not collect our fixture list last week and i don't know which fixture we have on Wednesday. I think we are at home......i will send a sms/txt regarding this when i get the information tonight.

Second thing, after talking to the jolly fisherman captain last week and their experiences with the barking supporters club 'bent' table. I mentioned this fact to our league 1 rep Jamie Joyes, he will keep an eye on the situation but will be talking to other league officials about a course of action should the jolly fisherman confirm our feelings on the playing environment

Match Report March 8th 2006 Away versus Jolly Fisherman

The Bakers had an away victory last night at the Jolly Fisherman PH Barking, one of our rivals from last years championship winning run, the 6-2 win was a great result given we played with only 7 players. The whole team played well with only Dennis Sheriden losing his match, however the match was closer than the score suggests.

Highlights
* Tony's delicate snooker with only 4 balls on the table to get the advantage in frame one
* Terry's potting with his new cue!
* Scott Rose's skillful tactics and deadly potting to be beat their player of the year
* Stuarts form
* yons luck once more :-)
* Mitch and his waiting game

Lowlights
* Slightly slow playing surface
* Champions league soccer on the projection TV over the table (well done Arsenal)
* Danny watching the soccer at home instead of playing :-)

All in all better than last weeks drubbing.

Match Report March 3rd Away versus Barking Supporters Club

This match was an absolute disaster, the home sides table was clearly out of line and this was a major influence on the match result. Bakers had our worst defeat ever inflicted on us and went home with our tails between our legs after an 8-0 drubbing (plus a loss in the doubles). I complained to home captain and his 'spirit level' was worse than useless at showing how out of line the table was, in fact is was more of a way of avoiding arguments than lining up the table. Underthe table was a trolly, this shows that the table has to be moved regularly, we know from the old may & baker club this leads to a very low quality playing environment unless you spend an hour adjusting the table prior to the game.

On a shot weighted to travel from baulk cushion to baulk cushion, the cue ball would roll offline by at least the width of two cue balls. The very existence of a spirit level alone shows the table was suspect, the only way to line a table up is by eye and via playing shots across the table diagonally and along the spots. All this sounds like sour grapes but the whole match turned into a joke as the home team obviously were used to playing crown green bowls.

The only player to come near winning was Scott Rose who managed to double the black and was unfortunate enough to knock in a opponents red as the cue ball rebounded off the cushion. My own memory of the game will be the snooker i played when in complete control of my opponent, watching the ball start online and then curve directly into the middle pocket avoiding contact with my red will live with me for some time.

Highlights
* NONE

Lowlights
* Everything

Can everyone post an opinion on if we should register a complaint or not? My vote is NO as it will be viewed as sour grapes and effectively nothing can be done by the league anyway. It reminded me of the home table at the old may and baker club :-( Lets beat them 8-0 on the return fixture.

Match Report February 22nd Home versus Chequers

The first home match of the season turned into classic encounter with outstanding play from both the 'bakers' and the visitors. The match ended in a 4-4 draw with the advantage swinging each way with each game played, Terry Greenwood managed to register his first win for the team, Mitch and myself winning with 5 ball and 6 ball clearances respectively, plus Yon getting a walkover for game 8. Good performances from Peter Kempster & Scott Rose went unrewarded as their opponents played outstandingly well to win. Mitch Dawson & myself (Tony Cossey) managed to lose the pairs game after our opponents doubled the black after a rather weak positional shot left them snookered on the black during their clearance attempt.

Highlights
* Terry's nerve jangling 3 ball clearance to win his game
* Terry's 1st three visits being made with no tip on his cue without realising!
* Mitches clearance under pressure due to his opponents balls being set in an easy position
* My (Tony Cossey) win after being faced with the black over the edge of a pocket after my opponents opening visit and clearance of his 7 reds.
* My (Tony Cossey) 3rd last pot, in the final 6 ball clearance, over the the length of the table along the cushion to leave one yellow and the black over the pockets, known as a 'career' visit....... to win was sweet.
* yons opponent staying at home to give us a walkover at game 8.

Lowlights
* danny having to play the chequers player of the year last year, good play from Danny just seemed to spur on their best player.
* Denis going in off to leave an easy clearance for his opponent
* Food supplied by qball
* bad referee making bad decisions, IE an opposing player ref calling his own player for a foul that never was, he still overcame danny with some great play. Also the ref failed to make any of the standard calls required as this also confused the players.

Please Note; All our membership cards are now ready for collection at qball.

Match Report Wednesday 15th of February AWAY v Unicorn;

The bakers debut this year in league division1 resulted in in a 4-4 draw away to the Unicorn. The unicorn dropped out the premiership last year after relegation and were always going to be a tough test. The match was made harder when only 7 out of 8 required players were available, however a fast start by Yon, Scott and Mitch gave us a 3-1 lead, i as the captain managed to secure the 4th game when playing in slot 6.

The bakers highlights of the evening included;
* total eight ball clearance by Mitch - Great potting, positional play and a cool head
* Scott Rose keeping his cool and producing outstanding pots to get the last 4 balls in his game.
* Yon's luck holding out :-)
* My 'punched' yellow to drop perfectly on the black during the final visit

Lowlights
* My first attempted clearance in my win
* Terry's attempted snooker in game 7
* Denis's unfortunate foul which lead to him losing
* Dan's in off via opponents ball
* Yon's shot selection on his clearance (outstanding recovery to win however - check your shoes)
* attendance as a team

Tonights match is at home versus the chequers PH, due to my holiday break in could only publish this match report today, the next report will appear tomorrow.

Fixtures for the first 4 weeks of the 2006 pool season

Week 1 - Weds 15th February 2006 @820pm - Venue Unicorn PH
Week 2 - Weds 22nd February 2006 @820pm - Venue HOME v Chequers PH
Week 3 - Weds 1st of March 2006 @820pm - Venue Barking Supporters Club
Week 4 - Weds 8th of March 2006 @820pm - Venue Jolly Fisherman PH

We are short on player numbers this year and need all the support we can get from our squad, if you can make it to games then please do so, i am adding to the current squad numbers so this situation will not last forever. After last years championship victory we need to make extra effort this year to maintain our form

Snooker Billiards Pool

PLAYERS! Practice tonight at the cue ball snooker center in wantz lane at 8pm, last chance we may have to hone our skills prior to the start of the new season.

I will be ringing you all over the next few days to ensure i get the player registration forms completed for the next pool league meeting this week. Plus we are desperate for new players, all suggestions welcome, we have only added to our numbers by one so far....after our championship victory last year it would be a disaster not to followup with another good season, so lets all have a think about who you know and if they would fit in the team.

Also i have now created a 'feedburner' site for the pool team blog for those of you who cant get to the http://bakerspool.blogspot.com originating blog site. The feedburner URL is Below, i will be publishing fixture/player-availability details with venue google map references for each game on Mondays via the feed/blog, any more ideas on blog content please fire back to me

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MayBakerPoolTeamBlog

We can earn money for the team by publicising our blog to friends and family, feedburner allows you to earn cash by embedding single google adsense adverts in each blog post. I know someone who earned £300 in one year for the clubs coffers by putting his hockey club blog (what a poof) on the web with google adsense driven advertising with clickthru revenue see (www.google.co.uk/adsense). Weekly fixture/results/match reports on the blog drove the clubs circle of contacts to the site, lets try the same and try to earn enough money for an end of year beano. I have already created a adsense login so watch this space for details

Can all players who have not signed up this year and want to participate,
please email me to arrange signing this years player roster ASAP. We
are a little short at the moment of the 12 players we need, so
suggestions on new players please. Also please welcome Mitches father,
Terry, to our pool team illuminati as he has agreed to play this year.

Email me via tonycossey at gmail.com (- this type of notation should prevent spammers harvesting my email address from this blog with their pesky email harvest robots).

End of 2005 Season Photos, taken with Sony Ericsson Phone w800i in low light!

Ok i screwed up, we missed the off season league by two weeks, apologies to all those who wanted to partake --- DOH! The other news is that this saturday (17/12/2005 @8pm) is the end of season dinner dance, we will receive our trophies for winning the league championship and finishing runners up in the doubles.

Last night Cue Ball Bakers clinched runners up spot in the league doubles competition by beating the matapan public house in a playoff match. The playoff format dictated that each side enter 3 doubles pairs to play at the Barking Pool Club, the bakers pairings were as follows.

Match 1 = Mitch Dawson & Scott Davis
Match 2 = Peter Kempster & Yon Thomson
Match 3 = Tony Cossey & Scott Rose

In match one, the bakers players took an early advantage after the matapan potted too many reds from the break. Mitch and Scott gave the Matapan a late clearance opportunity but they failed to capitalise leaving Scott Davis to pot a smooth long range black ball along the cush.

In match two the frame developed into a safety exchange initially, Peter and Yon playing a series of tactical shots to claim pockets. In the later stages the Matapan were the first to attempt a clearup but this left Yon a clearance in return. Showing his ability to perform under pressure Yon potted the remaining three balls to close the frame and the playoff.

Well Done boys!

Champions !

This week the Cue Ball Bakers pool team had confirmation that we are Barking & Dagenham Pool League 2nd Division Champions. This is the first honour won by the team and we are scheduled to collect our Trophy on the 17th of December 2005 at the annual dinner. Well done to everyone in the team and lets keep up the winning habit.

PLEASE NOTE; We have a playoff for the doubles trophy runners up spot with the Matapan PH on Wednesday 9th of Novmeber 2005 @Barking Pool Club 8pm.

Below are a few facts and figures about the 2005 season.

1. Our Record - Played 23 games, won 14 games, drew 5 games and lost 4 games. This giving us a 47 point total, 2 points clear of the runners up (Roundhouse PH). We as a team won 108 frames and lost 76 frames

2. Squad Records (3 points for win, 1 for for attending a match and losing)

#Mitch Dawson 55 points
#Scott Davis 52 points
#Yon Thomson 46 points
#Peter Kempster 42 points
#Tony Cossey 41 points
#Scott Rose 38 points
#Denis Sheriden 29 points
#Stuart McClemments 29 points
#Dan Cooper 23 points
#Dale Bennett 16 points
#Jim Walker 4 points
#Dave balding 1 points

3. Odds & Sods

#BEST Win = 7-1 v Jolly Fisherman PH
#Worst Defeat = 2-6 v Admiral Vernon Metros
#Only team to beat us home & away were the Admiral Vernon Metro's (6-2 & 5-3). The metro's team finished 9th out of 12 in our league!
#when playing the runners up, the roundhouse PH, we managed a 5-3 win at home and a draw away.

The cue ball bakers played the final two fixtures of the league season in one week due to a game postponement. Both games, versus the BPCL and Barking Supporters Club, ended in 4-4 draws. This was somewhat of a anti climax given the stella performances against the Beacon and Jolly Fisherman public houses. However on the plus side both bakers doubles partnerships won both games in the doubles competition which gives us a chance of winning the title in that league also. The Bakers await the final league tables to see if they have clinched the league title for the first time in their history. Double partnerships named below.

BPCL = Dan Cooper and Peter Kempster
Barking Supporters = Dale Bennett and Mitch Dawson

Game Postponment; The game this week has been postponed due the opposition not being able to field a team due to the england qualifier versus poland and holidays. A recent league ruling allows teams to move games when there is an england soccer match. All this means there are now TWO games next week on TUESDAY 18th October 2005 (HOME) and WEDNESDAY 19th October 2005 (AWAY v Barking USC)

Cue Ball Bakers stormed to another win in the second top of the table clash in consecutive matches. The Beacon public house, positioned 2nd in the league, were defeated 6-2 away by the 'bakers boys' in a match of several tight frames. Both Yon and myself won at the top of the card, Yon winning with an impressive clearance in the opening frame, myself edging out my opponent with a clever snooker 'behind the 8 ball' giving me 2 visits to pot the black. The home team fought back to make it two frames each only for Scott 'the dog', Mitch and Stuart to close the match out with strong performances. The final frame of the evening being a walkover as the home side only had 7 players. This leaves the cue ball bakers 8 points clear of the beacon and 5 points clear of the Jolly Fisherman depending on the result the jolly fisherman had on wednesday this could leave the Cue Ball Bakers as champions with two games remaining.

There have been some problems displaying the new BLOG format via the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser.

The sidebar on the right drops to the bottom of the page, this is caused by problem described in the following blog;

http://jonaquino.blogspot.com/2005/03/fixing-float-drops-in-blogger.html

I am going to try and adjust the blog so it does display correctly however users may find a better (and safrer) all round web experience by using the free browsers below.

Firefox - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Opera - http://www.opera.com/
Netscape - http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/

Bakers Strong Showing

Last night Cue Ball Bakers surged to dominating 7-1 home win against the Jolly Fisherman public house. Bakers made strong start which seemed to inspire the whole team to win close frames all the way down the card. With their strongest 8 players on show bakers needed a good result to keep their hopes of promotion alive and retain 2nd spot in the league.

Last night we managed a 4 all draw against the Matapan away, i think the quick table and generous pockers caught out our first couple of players, i missed the 8-ball on the clearance and had to pot the black as the last ball of the game after a series of snookers. However another point in the bag!

Just to try and drum up some interactivity on the blog, (i blame myself for not advocating this facility well enough), i am going to ask everyone at the match tonight to email me at tonycossey@gmail.com to request a login and start putting some content on the blog. I am starting by publishing results each thursday with a match report......a bit more dedication on updating this blog from me would go a long way i am sure.

League Fixtures 2005 - Cue Ball Bakers UK 8 Ball Pool Team

11/05/2005	Singles/Pairs
18/05/2005	Admiral Vernon Simms	Away
25/05/2005	Matapan	Home
01/06/2005	Jolly Fisherman	Away
08/06/2005	Beacon	Home
15/06/2005	Singles/Pairs
22/06/2005	BPC Ladies	Away
29/06/2005	Barking Football Supporters	Home
06/07/2005	@Barking PH	Home
13/07/2005	Singles/Pairs
20/07/2005	Dagenham WMC	Away
27/07/2005	Admiral Vernon Metros	Home
03/08/2005	Unicorn B	Away
10/08/2005	White Horse	Home
17/08/2005	Roundhouse	Away
24/08/2005	Bull	Home
31/08/2005	Red Lion	Home
07/09/2005	England Qualifier
Thurs 08/09/2005	Hope	Away
14/09/2005	Admiral Vernon Simms	Home
21/09/2005	Matapan	Away
28/09/2005	Jolly Fisherman	Home
05/10/2005	Beacon	Away
Tues 11/10/2005	BPC Ladies	Home
12/10/2005	England Qualifier
19/10/2005	Barking Football Supporters	Away

Another morning in the city of London completed, its seems UK interest rates are kept on hold at 4.75% by the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee which normally points to a slowing economy. .....see how boring the city is.....anyway on with the pool. Check out these links for the new season...

http://www.epa.org.uk
http://www.wepf.org
http://www.professionalpool.org

We have been asked by the league if any of the team would like to join a league 'task force' to review the rules we play this year with a view to changing next year, just shout up......the rules are on the EPA website above. TONY

Ok Guys as you can see i have been playing around with some of the photo facilities, to test a few of bloggers features. It all works very well......On a sporting note; Would anyone like to practice next week at the CueBall? We should all get some practice in on the new tables, nice, straight and fast with pockets that can't be mistaken for buckets like at the previous venue.....

Picture(12)

Picture(12)
Originally uploaded by tcossey.

Photo from my camera phone, pool teamsters can upload photos too by sending them to me.

Well guys here is the new season, we are registered with the league and have a new venue as per my email today , please email me at tony.cossey@gtcibrokers.com or tony@tonycossey.nildram.co.uk for a login to this BLOG

New team for this year is as follows in no particular order;
1. Peter Kempster 2. Steve Thomson 3. Tony Cossey 4. Denis Sheridan 5. Scott Rose 6. Scott Davis 7. Dale Bennett 8. Dave Balding 9. Mitchel Dawson 10. Stuart McClements 11. Dan Cooper 12. SPARE (Bomber, Gordon, Stumpy, Ash could play here.)

Quick couple of notes about last night, it seems the league will have a new results system next year and we will be able to SMS results in, its all going to be chaos i feel as no format has been agreed and i cant see the results guys have the mobile phone number of every team captain in his phonebook. Thus he will get about 300 texts with just 5-3 and nothing else.....time will tell.

Tony.C.

Well here it is the first post on the may and baker pool team blog, mostly this blog will interest team members and allow the trials and tribulations of a hectic 2004 season to be documented. Content here will include team match reports and general opinion on the seasons events........enjoy.