This week our National Coach PJ Nolan travelled to the warm and friendly atmosphere of the Edenderry & District Billiards and Snooker Club in County Offaly. PJ met up with Ger Murray and he showed him around the club which goes back to the early 1960’s where the local shoe factory had their social club which contained two tables.
The social club then handed over the two tables to a committee to form a club and run it for the people of the town and surrounding area and hence the Edenderry Snooker & Billiards Club was founded.
Peter McNallly RIP, Seamus Brereton and Martin Fennessy were in the 70’s and 80’s some of the leading players in the country with Peter and Seamus representing Ireland in the Home Internationals in Wales.
Patrick English aged 15 was the first member to win a National Snooker title when he won the RIBSA under 17 Championship in 1997 and since then he has become a grade 2 Referee and will referee in his first world snooker championship later this month in Bulgaria.
The club has now four excellent snooker tables and a meeting room. The main man behind the club is Michael Tyrrell who runs practically all the tournaments and looks after the clubs finances.
Paul McLoughlin is the club secretary and Ger Murray himself is the Club Chairman as well as one of the top International Referees and the RIBSA Treasurer.
Vice Chairman is Sean Dunne, Assistant Treasurer is Paddy Murray and the rest of the committee is made up with Gaylon Clancy, Patrick English, Eugene Maloney, Darren McNamee, Shane Lawlor and Mick Leonard.
The Club President is Hughie Byrne who aged 88 years old is believed to be the oldest regular player in the country. Hughie competes in all club events and his love of the game of Billiards has him playing 7 nights a week.
Billiards is very popular within the Club and Liam Byrne runs the Intermediate Billiards Series for RIBSA. Former World Champion Geet Sethi from India played an exhibition in the club in 2009 and was delighted to see so many players interested in the ancient game. The Club now holds The Mike Russell Trophy annually and the club development structure has already produced Mark Nolan who despite only playing for four years has played in two Home Internationals Billiards Championships and he also competed in last month’s World Billiards Championship in Leeds.
The club holds two major open championships annually with The Lawless Junior Hardware Open and it has been won in the past by Josh Boileau, Daniel Dempsey and this year’s winner was Andrew Doherty. The other big tournament is The Peter McNally Memorial sponsored by the Edenderry Credit Union and this attracts all the leading players from all over Leinster.
The weekly club tournaments are why this club is growing their membership year upon year as Thursday night is flyer night in the club in three age groups Under 20, 20–40 and 40 and over.
Every Thursday from January to Easter a 6 red Snooker flyer is held with ranking points awarded and at Easter the winners are presented with their crystal prize. May to September the clubs attention moves to Billiards and the winners are presented in September and from September to Christmas the snooker returns with flyers with the prizes presented to all the winners at Christmas.
