When a Clear Ball is a Snooker

Referee (Sydney), Wednesday 7 September 1932

By “Baulk Line”

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It will, no doubt, be news to most people to learn that snooker is an Australian game. Frank Smith sen., Informs me that In 1888, at the Victoria Club, he altered the popular game of the time, called ‘Shell-out,’ by adding two extra color balls, and named the new sport ‘Snooker.’ The old champion tells how he was forced to devise a set of rules for his new invention. In, the main, those rules stand to-day, and Frank agrees that to declare a man to be snookered when he can hit the On ball, is ‘turning the game into a bally farce.’