 Falkiner c. 1915 | |
| Born | 11 July 1885 Featherstone, Yorkshire |
|---|---|
| Died | 1979 (aged 95) |
| Sport country | England |
| Best ranking finish | Runner-up, Professional Billiards Championship 1920, 1922 |
Claude Falkiner (died 1979) was an English player of English billiards. He was runner-up in the professional championship in 1920 and 1922. He also entered the 1939 World Snooker Championship.
Claude Falkiner was born in Featherstone, Yorkshire, on 11 July 1885. His father managed a billiard hall in South Kirkby, and Falkiner started playing English billiards there when he was about 12. He worked in a coal mine from the ages of 14 to 17, whilst continuing to practive the game, and made his first break over 500 in 1907. [1]
Along with Tom Newman, Falkiner was one of the first players to develop nursery cannon play, saying that he had learnt it from a French player whilst in France during World War I. [2] : 72–74 In 1920, he was runner-up to Willie Smith in the professional championship. The following year, he lost to the eventual champion Newman in the semi-finals, and in 1922 was runner up to Newman, who defeated him 16,000–15,167 in the final. [2] : 73–79, 212 In 1923 he lost in the semi-finals by 8,695–16,000 to Smith, [3] and in 1924, he decided to tour overseas rather than enter the championship, [2] : 79–81 and did not enter again until 1930. [4]
He introduced Walter Lindrum to nursery cannons whilst playing him in Austalia in 1924, [5] [6] a method which Lindrum, according to snooker historian Clive Everton, would go on to use with "devastating effect." [7] At the 1930 professional championship, Falkiner lost to defending champion Joe Davis. [4] He participated in the 1935/1936 Daily Mail Gold Cup, finishing last after failing to win any of his six matches. [8]
After missing the professional championship for eight years, Falkiner entered again. He also took part in the 1939 World Snooker Championship. [9] In the Snooker Championship, his first competitive cue sports match in several years, he faced Walter Donaldson. Falkiner took three of the five frames in the first session, the pair 5–5 after the first day. Donaldson won four of the five frames in both of the sessions on the second day to lead 13–7. On the final day Donaldson took a 16–8 winning lead and ended 21–10 ahead. [10] [11] [12] [13] The correspondent for The Times , whilst describing Donaldson as "a player of considerable skill", felt that Falkiner's lack of recent match experience contributed to his defeat. [12] In the billiards championship, he lost in his first match, 6,545–11,157 to Sidney Smith. [14]
He died in Bournemouth in 1979, aged 95. [5]
Joseph Davis was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game is now played, such as break-building. With equipment manufacturer Bill Camkin, he drove the creation of the World Snooker Championship by persuading the Billiards Association and Control Council to recognise an official professional snooker championship in 1927. Davis won the first 15 championships from 1927 to 1946 and remains the only undefeated player in World Snooker Championship history. He scored the championship's first century break, in 1930.
Walter Weir Wilson Donaldson was a Scottish professional snooker and billiards player. He contested eight consecutive world championship finals against Fred Davis from 1947 to 1954, and won the title in 1947 and 1950. Donaldson was known for his long potting and his consistency when playing, and had an aversion to the use of side. In 2012, he was inducted posthumously into the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association's World Snooker Hall of Fame.
Horace Lindrum was an Australian professional snooker and billiards player. A dominant snooker player in Australia, he lived in Britain for long periods and played in the major British tournaments. From his arrival in Britain in 1935 he was regarded as the second best player in the world, behind Joe Davis. Lindrum contested three World Championship finals against Davis, in 1936, 1937 and 1946, losing all three to Davis but coming close to beating him on several occasions. Lindrum won the 1952 World Championship which, because of a dispute between the governing body and the players' association, was only contested by himself and New Zealander Clark McConachy.
The 1927 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held at various venues from 29 November 1926 to 12 May 1927. At the time, it was called the Professional Championship of Snooker but it is now recognised as the inaugural edition of the World Snooker Championship. The impetus for the championship came from professional English billiards player Joe Davis and billiard hall manager Bill Camkin, who had both observed the growing popularity of snooker, and proposed the event to the Billiards Association and Control Council. There were ten players who entered the competition, including most of the leading billiards players. The two matches in the preliminary round were held at Thurston's Hall in London, and the semi-finals final took place at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham. Venues for the quarter-finals were determined by the players involved, resulting in one match being held at Thurston's Hall, one at Camkin's Hall, and one each in Nottingham and Liverpool.
Tom Reece was an English professional player of English billiards. He was six times runner-up in the professional billiards championship, now regarded as the world championship, losing three times to Melbourne Inman in finals from 1912 to 1914, and three times to Tom Newman in the 1921, 1924 and 1925 finals. He made the unofficial world's highest billiards break of 499,135 in 1907 using a cradle cannon technique shortly before it was banned from the sport. In 1927, his prowess with the pendulum stroke led to that also being banned from use in competition.
Fred Davis was an English professional player of snooker and English billiards. He was an eight-time World Snooker Championship winner from 1948 to 1956, and a two-time winner of the World Billiards Championship. He was the brother of 15-time world snooker champion Joe Davis; the pair were the only two players to win both snooker and English billiards world championships, and Fred is second on the list of those holding most world snooker championship titles, behind Joe.
The World Billiards Championship is an international cue sports tournament in the discipline of English billiards, organised by World Billiards, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA). In its various forms, and usually as a single competition, the title is one of the oldest sporting world championships, having been contested since 1870.
The 1935 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held at Thurston's Hall in London, England from 8 to 27 April 1935. It was the first edition of the Championship to incorporate "world" in its name, being called the World's Professional Snooker Championship. Joe Davis won the title for the ninth time by defeating Willie Smith by 28 frames to 21 in the final, having achieved a winning margin at 25–20. Davis recorded the first century break in the history of the championship, a 110 in his semi-final match against Tom Newman.
The 1937 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held at Thurston's Hall in London, England from 22 February to 20 March 1937. It is recognised as the 11th edition of the World Snooker Championship. There were nine participants in the event, with debutants Fred Davis and Bill Withers competing in a qualifying match. Withers won the match to join with the remaining seven players in the main event.
The 1938 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held from 14 March to 9 April 1938 at Thurston's Hall in London, England. It was the twelfth edition of the World Snooker Championship. Joe Davis won his twelfth championship title by defeating Sidney Smith by 37 frames to 24 in the final, after securing a winning margin at 31–23. The highest break of the tournament was 104, compiled by Davis in the sixth frame of his semi-final match against Willie Smith. It was the only century break during the event.
The 1939 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held at Thurston's Hall in London, England from 23 January to 4 March 1939. It was the thirteenth edition of the World Snooker Championship. Joe Davis retained the championship title that he had held since 1927. In the best-of-73-frames final against Sidney Smith, Davis won the match 43–30, securing the victory at 37-25 earlier in the match. Fred Davis set a new championship highest break by compiling a 113 in the 22nd frame of his 14–17 semi-final defeat by his brother Joe Davis.
The 1946 World Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament held from 4 February to 18 May 1946. Joe Davis won the title by defeating Horace Lindrum by 78 frames to 67 in the final, although the winning margin was reached at 73–62. It was Davis's fifteenth championship win, maintaining his unbeaten record in the tournament since its first edition in 1927. The highest break of the event was 136, a new championship record, compiled by Davis in the final.
The 1952 World Professional Match-play Championship was a snooker tournament held from 12 November 1951 to 15 March 1952, with the final taking place at the Tower Circus in Blackpool, England. The event was created following a dispute between the Professional Billiard Players' Association (PBPA) and the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC). The BACC claimed that the championship was primarily about honour, and financial consideration should come behind this, whilst the PBPA members felt that the BACC was taking too large a share of the income from the events and established an alternative 'world championship' called the World Professional Match-play Championship, editions of which are now recognised as world championships.
The 1952 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held between 25 February and 8 March 1952 at Houldsworth Hall, in Manchester, England. The event featured only two entrants – Australian Horace Lindrum and New Zealander Clark McConachy. Due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC), most players withdrew from the event. The BACC thought the championship was primarily about honour, and financial consideration should come second, whilst the PBPA disagreed. The PBPA established an alternative 'world championship' called the PBPA Snooker Championship which would later become the official world championship as the World Professional Match-play Championship.
The Daily Mail Gold Cup was an important professional cue sports tournament from 1935 to 1940. In the first two tournaments it was contested as a billiards event before becoming a snooker event. It was sponsored by the Daily Mail. The tournament was suspended following the 1939/40 event and not played again. The concept of a handicap snooker tournament was revived for the 1948 Sunday Empire News Tournament.
The World Professional Match-play Championship was a professional snooker tournament established in 1952 as an alternative to the professional World Snooker Championship by some of the professional players, following a dispute with the Billiards Association and Control Council, the sport's governing body. Fred Davis won the first five editions of the tournament, but didn't participate in 1957, when John Pulman won. After this, the event was discontinued due to a decline in the popularity of snooker.
Conrad Stanbury was a Canadian professional snooker player. He was the first player to make an officially-recognised century break at snooker. In 1935, he became the first player from outside the British Isles to compete in the World Snooker Championship.
Ronald Gross was an English professional snooker player. He won the English Amateur Championship three times before turning professional
The UK Open Billiards Championship, formerly known as the UK Professional English Billiards Championship, is an English billiards tournament, first contested in 1934. Joe Davis won the inaugural title with a 18,745–18,309 defeat of Tom Newman.
Dickie Laws was an English professional snooker player, who competed in the World Snooker Championship in 1939, 1950 and 1951.