SNOOKERETTE

Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, Friday 02 September 1938

SNOOKERETTE.

One of the post-war changes in this country, which apparently applies generally, and not merely to London, is the eclipse of billiards by snooker pool. Even the big professionals, whose green-table artistry at first rebelled against the innovation, have now had to bow to the vogue. They find it is a far more paying entertainment than billiards, and, perhaps, for much the same reason that football draw’s bigger crowds than cricket. The game is brighter, and the results more sudden. People can follow a match, or one session of it, from start to finish. Now another innovation is creeping in. Snookerette tables are springing into popularity all over the place. This is a sort of hybrid snooker-bagatelle, with a number of holes, more or less protected by easily-displaced mushrooms, into which the balls must be directed, chiefly by cannons. It can never compete with snooker proper, but it is an amusing and irritating sort of game. I saw an expert compile a break of over a thousand—and then forfeit his whole score, break included, by accidentally toppling over a mushroom. The snookerette table has for some time been a popular feature in Riviera resorts.