National triumph for pot-heads

After a good run of recent wins Imperial College Union’s Snooker team set off for the BUSA Nationals in Warwick with high hopes. In the first day’s singles tournament Alex, Jon and Vay all reached the last sixteen, but back problems forced Alex to pull out and posed a worry for the team event.. Vay narrowly lost his match, but Jon kept Imperial’s flag flying with two more wins before losing in the semi-final to the eventual champion from UEA. In the B-team singles competition, Phil and Asif both progressed to the last sixteen, at which point Phil beat Asif, and with two further wins reached the final. Some fine all-round play from Phil Davies overwhelmed his Warwick opponent to be crowned National Champion.

In the B-team event, wins over Bristol (7 - 3) and Southampton (6 - 4) were not quite enough after a loss against Queen’s Belfast (2 - 8) to allow IC to progress to the last four, cutting short a promising campaign for the team of Phil Davies, Russel Towers, Tim Dann, Kevin Camadoo and Asif Kassam. For the A-team the loss of Alex for the first day’s competition was overcome as they cruised through their first group stage; winning against Trinity College Carmarthen (8 - 0), Hull (7 - 1) and Southampton (7 - 1). In the next phase they again found the going easy with wins over Hull (7-1, again) and highly fancied UEA (6 - 2). By the next day Alex had recovered sufficiently to win a vital match to beat hosts Warwick 6 - 3 in the quarter-final. Next, Queen’s provided a sterner test, but 2 - 0 wins by Simon and Vay and a final frame win by Alex put Imperial into their first ever final. Here, against Bristol they began well with a win by Vay over their No.1 and a 2 - 0 win by Simon. This left Imperial almost home and needing one more match for victory. This turned into a race between Spike and Jon to be first to win their match, with Jon eventually pipping Spike to clinch the title for Imperial. Thus, Imperial’s A-team of Simon Baugh, Alex Robinson, Jon Fulcher, Vay Ly and Spike Milligan were crowned National Team Champions for the first time. The A-team win, combined with Phil’s B-team singles triumph made Imperial the most successful University team at the Championships