AS WINDOW cleaner Paul Solloway basked in the attention on the roof garden at Chandler’s Ford Snooker Club on Sunday night, good friend Dave Mumford was south of Newbury and 20 minutes away from the club with his own story to tell.

And the first carload of juniors arrived back from Northamptonshire holding the top three positions in the Rushden SC under-21 series.

Dave and Happy-Snapper Kevin Legg were heading home after watching ten-year-old Shane Castle’s England debut in Leeds.

Proudly brandishing a certificate signed by EASB tournament committee chairman John Hartley and Scottish Snooker chairman Stevie Baillie, Dave told how he had been asked to make the numbers up in the Random Doubles, the finale to the Auld Enemy clash.

He was paired with England under-19 champion Adam Duffy and won.

Dave watched Solly collect the £1,000 jackpot in the year-long 105-tournament Roll-Up.

Shane had not been slow in coming forward in Leeds. According to the EASB, he marched into the Northern Snooker Centre on the Thursday evening and immediately booked local professional Peter Lines’ match table for practice.

And the budding Ronnie O’Sullivan had a few choice words for Duffy, who had recently been awarded the Paul Hunter Scholarship by the World Snooker Association.

Dave told us: “It’s priceless. Adam Duffy’s going to be on our telly in two years time and Shane’s pulling his leg about twitching with the rest.”

Stevie Baillie said: “Shane was easily the most impressive junior player on display for England.”

After a quick interview and before heading home to sleep for England, Dave put his mouth close to the tape machine: “I won the doubles; I was different class,” he laughed.

TEN-year-old Shane Castle made a winning start on his international debut today in Leeds. But the Auld Enemy clash must have come as a welcome respite for under-fire Scottish chairman Stevie Baillie.

The power battle north of the border has seen a war of words over the last few months on two separate websites.

Strong-willed, determined, stubborn and sometimes vicious are words that could be used to describe the main players in this struggle. But what characters. And what a sense of humour lies just under their thick skins.

Just months before Scottish Snooker Ltd, the national governing body, hosted the prestigious European Under-19 Championships in Glasgow, their colourful chairman stepped into the playing arena at the IBSF World Championships in Thailand for a Masters match against a well-known Aussie slowcoach armed with a pillow and a book.

And he used both items during the match to the fury of his opponent.

And he didn’t mind the story and picture appearing in CueSport magazine.

Priceless.

On the other side, a dad of a top junior was involved in a ‘full and frank discussion’ at the SSL AGM and discussed the issue on the opposing website.

“Over the years,” he said. “Loads of guys have been GOING to knock me out. Despite pushing 50, I still have my own teeth.

”The next guy to actually do it, will be the second. Going back 20 odd years, I remember it well, The Morvern Bar in Springburn, big specky guy, BANG.”

Although we are all supposed to step back and shake our heads in a disapproving way, you can’t help but smile and wonder how powerful Scottish snooker would be (and what a fun time all involved would undoubtedly have) if these concerned could find a way of sitting at the same table.

The dad continued: “I’m proud of the fact that over the years, I have never felt the urge to settle an argument using force. I suppose that will exclude me from joining the board, under this regime anyway.”

LOL, as they say.

THE 58-year-old manager of the England boat fishing squad recalled the day he was caught with his pants down.

With a new beach caster given to him by his uncle and a reel bought out of his paper-round money, a young Ray Ashby and a group of friends walked along Hurst Shingle Spit to fish near the entrance to Keyhaven Harbour.

They left their rods on rests to dig bait. A small flotilla of boats passed and when Ray returned to check his rod he was horrified to find it missing.

A small channel led to the edge of the water. One of the boats had caught the line and dragged the whole lot into the sea.

It was May and chilly. Ray stripped to his underpants and waded in. On the third dive he struck lucky.

By now a small crowd had gathered. Ray triumphantly walked from the water brandishing his rod and shouted: “Ian, I’ve got my rod.”

His friend replied: “But you haven’t got your underpants.”

Ray, who is a member of Hamble Sea Angling Club, added: “They reckon the fishing off that area was never good for about six months afterwards.”

FIRST lines are so important to a writer. Grab the reader’s attention early on and you’ve got them hooked.

So this week I take my hat off to Dave Hendon, the assistant editor of Snooker Scene magazine and Eurosport commentator.

Dave writes an almost daily piece at snookerscene.blogspot.com.

His boss, legendary snooker commentator Clive Everton, is also famous for his running battles in his magazine and through the courts with the game’s governing body - the WPBSA.

Snooker Scene’s coverage of the women’s game is second only to CueSport’s, in my humble opinion.

Last Monday, Dave opened a piece about the game’s young stars with:

“Like the black pudding industry, any sport – snooker included – relies on a steady supply of fresh blood.”

Priceless.

CHINA astonished the world today with a choreographed opening ceremony that made one’s mind boggle at the hours of preparation that must have gone into achieving perfection with a cast of thousands.

Today’s date is 08/08/08.

And this is our 100th blog entry.

To celebrate, we thought we’d fall back on the perennial favourite - a true-or-false news quiz.

1, A three-in-a-bed sex scandal rocked Pontin’s holiday camp in North Wales at last year’s junior festival as two members of a Hampshire snooker club were found in bed with a young ‘lady’.

2, A well-known EASB referee dropped three pounds into the bucket at the automatic tool booth on the M6 – and missed.

3, The region’s top women player made an appearance on page three of the Echo.

4, A part-time club barman and white-van driver took a quick snap of Mike Finn and before you can say ‘cheese’ he was photographing the women’s world champion for a national magazine.

5, A youngish barmaid was forced to stay in the club all day as police shot dead a bank robber yards from the front door.

6, A left-hander from Otterbourne travelled north on the M6 towards Prestatyn and stopped for dinner at Keele Services north of Birmingham – but on the southbound side.

7, A stalwart from north of the border replied on a forum to the chairman of Scottish Snooker: “A fat joke? Tut tut. The last bastion of the comprehensively defeated. If the roles were reversed, I would not stoop to commenting on any of your personality defects. However, I suppose a diet would be cheaper than therapy!”

8, A local romeo had the girls at Prestatyn falling at his feet with the immortal chat-up line: “My chalet’s 284.”

9, Two local players popped out for a quick curry and ended up 250 miles away watching a ten-year-old win a national title.

10, A nine-year-old lad from Marchwood scored a century break in a tournament in the Midlands.

Yes, of course, they are all true. It’s a funny old game.

SEEING the picture of the Sholing Reserves football team, and a rather dashing young goalkeeper, in Keith Hamilton’s Hampshire Heritage section in Wednesday’s Echo reminded me of the day many years ago that we discovered a football ground in the allotments.

As youngsters we played football near the allotments in Bitterne. One day a couple of mates said they had found a football ground complete with goals, nets, corner flags and a stand.

Now statements like this are usually taken with a pinch of salt. But we set off across the Bursledon Road and though the land of makeshift huts, runner beans and miserable old men telling us we shouldn’t be there until we did indeed reach an unbelievable sight.

Next to ripening tomatoes and piles of horse manure we found a chain-link fence, with a hole in it, and through it we could see a football ground complete with goals, nets, corner flags and a stand.

Wow. In we went and started kicking a ball about. Needless to say a rather excitable official soon emerged from the Sholing Sports clubhouse and we made a swift exit from the now redeveloped Birch Lawn ground.