Sheffield Billiards Players

[lakerman 16]

16 hours ago, dogsneck said:

Hi lakerman, sorry my mistake it was The Marshall cup that my Grandad won. He played for Upper Heeley  club i think, 

Yes!! Now that makes sense. The Marshall cup was a very prestigious competition and I do believe that Les Ellis won it three times, so he was some player in his time. It was a bit before my time playing but it does come back to me now. A little story that might amuse you about Upper Heeley club. My partner and I won the Sheffield Pairs billiards competition a couple of times in the eighties and one year the presentation night was at Upper Heeley. The Cup was sponsored by Tetleys at the time but the prize money for winning it was virtually nothing. I think we got £20 between the pair of us (so obviously £10 each). I went up on stage to collect the cup and grabbed hold of it by the base. This was loose and the cup came flying off and fell on to the floor below the stage.  The stage was also very high off the concert room floor so it fell quite some distance. When I went to pick it up it had a massive bend in it. I had to have it repaired and I think it cost me £15. Happy days.

[RobLS 0]

My grandad, Charlie Simpson, was well-known in Sheffield as an amateur and later professional billiards and snooker player, from the 1920s to the 1940s. He kept many mementoes, most of which were thrown away when he died.  I have two of his scrapbooks and some photos. He features in "Snooker's Crucible", by Jeremy Watson & Geoff Kemp. He was a close friend of Joe Davis. During WW2, they raised large sums for the Red Cross, The Star's War Fund etc through exhibition matches.  Charlie was also friends with Walter Lindrum, generally considered the greatest billiards player ever. I never got to see him play.

[paulrickett 10]

I once found at work a big old sepia photo of a player holding a cue from the 1930s, didn’t have a clue who it was. It was on the office wall until i came across a tatty old newspaper clipping with the same pic on it - it was a guy from Rotherham called Laurie Steeples, who was a big name on the Sheffield billiards scene and twice won the World Championship in the 30s. I eventually found his granddaughter and gave the pic to her. If i remember correctly, Laurie contracted an illness and died not long after his last triumph.

[lakerman 16]

On ‎02‎/‎09‎/‎2020 at 13:44, paulrickett said:

I once found at work a big old sepia photo of a player holding a cue from the 1930s, didn’t have a clue who it was. It was on the office wall until i came across a tatty old newspaper clipping with the same pic on it - it was a guy from Rotherham called Laurie Steeples, who was a big name on the Sheffield billiards scene and twice won the World Championship in the 30s. I eventually found his granddaughter and gave the pic to her. If i remember correctly, Laurie contracted an illness and died not long after his last triumph.

Laurie Steeples did win the world Billiards championship in 1931. My records only go back to 1926 so he could have possibly won it before that as well. Over the years of the 1900's the format was changed a few times so I'm not too sure exactly how the scoring etc went.

[lakerman 16]

If you Google laurie steeples, a few web pages pop up with tournament info on the man.