Winners on cue at D and D Club

It was a quiet afternoon at the Dundee and District Club on Saturday with the only sound to be heard, except for the occasional cheer, was the soft click of a cue ball striking one of 22 coloured balls over a baized table.
Snooker originated among British Army officers stationed in India in the latter half of the 19th century. An individual game, or frame, is won by the player who scores the most points. A match is won when a player wins a predetermined number of frames.
Snooker gained its own identity in 1884 when army officer Sir Neville Chamberlain (not the Prime Minister of that name), while stationed in Ooty, devised a set of rules that combined pyramid and life pool. The word “snooker” was a long-used military term used to describe inexperienced or first-year personnel.
The D and D Club holds annual singles and doubles snooker championships and following a series of round robin matches, the championships culminated on a rainy Saturday afternoon under the gaze of the trophy heads that hang on the wall of the snooker room in the Club.
In the end, father and son, Glen and Craig Owen took the doubles honours after a comfortable victory over Ronnie Kriel and Willem Wentzel. The singles was a closer affair with young gun Joff Davies out ‘cueing’ old hand Dolf Kruger 3-1. The players were enthusiastically supported by family and friends and the serious play was followed by a braai.
The World Snooker Championship has taken place since 1927, with Joe Davis becoming a key figure in the early growth of the sport with 15 championship wins from 1927 to 1946. The modern era began in 1969 after the BBC commissioned the snooker television show Pot Black and began to air the World Championship in 1978, leading to the sport’s new peak in popularity. Ray Reardon dominated the game in the 1970s, Steve Davis in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s; Ronnie O’Sullivan has won the most world titles since 2000.