Tom Reece

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Tom Reece
birthday August 12, 1873
place of birth Oldham , Lancashire
date of death 26th October 1953 (age 80)
Place of death Sussex
nationality EnglandEngland England
Active time approx. 1900–1930, 1946
Success in snooker
World Championship 1 × Second Round ( 1946 )
Highest break unknown
Century breaks -
Success in English Billiards
World Championship 6 times vice world champion
Highest series 499.135

Thomas "Tom" Reece (born August 12, 1873 in Oldham , Lancashire , † October 26, 1953 in Sussex ) was an English pool player , swimmer and non-fiction author. Particularly successful in English Billiards , he became vice world champion six times in this discipline . He also played the highest break in English Billiards history.

Career

Beginnings

Reece was in 1873 in northern England Oldham son of a shoemaker from Worcestershire born. So he started playing billiards for England , although the word " Wales " can also be found. As a child he was mainly interested in swimming and was a member of a local swimming club. He later said that he only discovered English Billiards for himself because he happened to pass a pool table on the way to a swimming pool. He started playing English Billiards at the age of 17. The late start of active play is atypical for English billiards players, especially successful players.

At first Reece earned extra income as a marker at billiards games, and later he worked in a paper mill . In the meantime he continued to practice his skills in English Billiards. At the age of 22 he achieved 100 points in one recording for the first time, and at the age of 27 he achieved 500 points for the first time. One of his first big games was a game to mark the return of the City of London Imperial Volunteers from the Second Boer War . He was two hours late for the game from running on the streets of London.

First successes in English billiards and sideline activities in swimming

After a few years, Reece was one of the best English billiards players. His main rival was Melbourne Inman . In the games between the two players, both opponents get high breaks several times. While the public assumed a friendly relationship between the two, in reality the opposite was the case. Shortly after the turn of the century, both played for a trophy called the Championship Cup , which Inman won. Inman was then awarded the trophy by Richard Webster, 1st Viscount Alverstone . The latter was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales at the time and had shortly before sentenced the murderer Hawley Crippen to death by hanging . Reece recommended to Lord Alverstone shortly after the award ceremony that instead of Crippen being hung Inman "if you knew as much about Inman as I do." Crippen should rather get the trophy.

In 1904 Reece set himself the goal of swimming across the English Channel . In August he traveled from Manchester to Dover , where, as a pacemaker, he supported two attempts at crossing by Annette Kellerman and Thomas William Burgess in 1904 and 1905. He later helped William Stearne and Lily Smith in the same capacity . However, there is no evidence that Reece planned his own crossing in 1904/05. In May 1907 he announced that he wanted to try the crossing himself in the summer, but gave up the project a week later. In January 1907, the English Billiards player Walter Lovejoy had introduced the cradle cannon , a new type of pushing technique that made it possible to repeat the same push over and over and thus score many points. Two of the three game balls were brought into a position in which they wedged themselves in front of a pocket, and could then be carefully touched with the third ball as often as desired in order to score points.

After Lovejoy's introduction, numerous players tried to set new records for the highest score of a break, including Reece. In the course of this competition, Reece was invited to a game against Joe Chapman in London in the summer of 1907. The aim was to set a new record again. Reece succeeded when he scored 499,135 points with one intake over five weeks from the start of the game. The record ended on July 6, 1907, the highest break in English Billiards of all time. In total, it took Reece 85 hours and 49 minutes for his break, so he scored 97 points per minute. The break was interrupted several times for small snooker games to keep the audience and Joe Chapman happy. For the Bleacher Report it is “the most boring event in sports history”. According to Reece, a Sporting Life journalist watched every minute of the break.

Nevertheless, the world association refused to officially recognize the break on the grounds that it was not permanently attested to by witnesses. This decision was intended as a precedent: a single witness should no longer be sufficient for recognition. At the end of his break, the number of possible impacts with this impact technique was limited to 25, later even completely banned. In addition to this record break, Reece also played other breaks with scores in the upper three-digit range in the following years. In August he returned to Dover and supported other swimmers as pacemakers.

Excursions to snooker and vice world champion in English billiards

For Reece, snooker was "a great game for the Navy" and "the kind of game you can play in corduroy pants and slippers". Regardless of this, he took part annually between 1908 and 1911 in The American Tournament or the Professional Tournament , which he could never win despite some good results. In 1911 he won another professional snooker tournament in Australia. Around the same time, Reece had toured Australia as well as New Zealand. Another tour took him to South Africa , where he stopped at least in Cape Town . He also played a few roles on his tours. In Australia he lost to Frederick Lindrum, the older brother of Walter Lindrum .

From 1912 Reece drew attention to himself, especially in English Billiards. From 1912 to 1914 he reached the final of the English Billiards World Championship annually , but was subject to Melbourne Inman every time . In further finals in 1921, 1924 and 1925 he had to admit defeat to Tom Newman . Reece was declared bankrupt in 1926 after losing a bet on a horse race in Manchester. Only one year later he played a break of 1151 points in English Billiards, the highest break of his career according to official rules. Also in the following years Reece remained reasonably active, whereby he was the oldest professional player of that time.

Further life

In 1928, Reece, favorite player of the British King George VI. , his autobiography Cannons and Big Guns . It also includes reprints of a series of tips for amateurs that Reece previously wrote for the sports newspaper The Sporting Life . In the 1920s he also published an introduction to snooker. As early as 1915 he wrote an introduction to English Billiards. Ten years later, Reece published yet another book on English Billiards, which dealt with detailed questions in playing technique.

Years later, he dared to make a comeback at the pool table when he signed up for the 1946 World Snooker Championship . The 72-year-old Reece, however, gave up his best-of-31-frames game against Kingsley Kennerley after ten frames . At the age of 80, Reece died on October 26, 1953 in Sussex on the coast of the English Channel . While Time specifies the small lancing as the place of death , a joint project of the Dover District Council and the Dover Museum & Bronze Age Bot Gallery names the neighboring Worthing .

Style of play

A short documentary about Reece from British Pathé states that he was actively involved in the further development of the thrust types in English Billiards and that he set several new records. He was known for his Cannons been, but also for its Masséstöße . Reece also mastered a combination of both types of thrust. This is very difficult, but according to Riso Levi , Reece has largely mastered it perfectly. His very fine match ball control was also outstanding and an important part of his playing methods for the upper area of ​​the pool table. His technical repertoire included all techniques of the time. Levi wrote in 1931 that Reece was perfect for playing in front of an audience. His game has charm and is extremely fascinating. His playing style has similarities with his personality, which is characterized by sociability and "witty remarks". Clive Everton highlighted Reece's "spirited, artistic" and controlling style of play in 1985.

successes

Exit year competition Final opponent Result
English billiards tournaments
Second 1912 English Billiards World Championship EnglandEngland Melbourne Inman 9675: 18000
Second 1913 English Billiards World Championship EnglandEngland Melbourne Inman 16627: 18000
Second 1914 English Billiards World Championship EnglandEngland Melbourne Inman 12826: 18000
Second 1919 English Billiards World Championship EnglandEngland Tom Newman 10744: 16000
Second 1924 English Billiards World Championship EnglandEngland Tom Newman 14845: 16000
Second 1925 English Billiards World Championship EnglandEngland Tom Newman 10092: 16000
Snooker tournaments
winner 1911 Australian Professional Championship EnglandEngland Frank Smith 1179: 908 1
1 By points from 21 frames.

Publications

  • Tom Reece, WG Clifford : Billiards . A. & C. Black, London 1915.
  • Tom Reece: Snooker . (Published in the 1920s, but the exact date - as well as the publisher and the place of publication - is unknown.).
  • Tom Reece: Dainty Billiards: How to Play the Close-Cannon Game . C. Arhur Pearson, London 1925.
  • Tom Reece: Cannons and Big Guns . Ed .: H. Kingsley Long. Hutchinson & Co., London 1928.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Ron Florax: Career Total Statistics For Tom Reece - Professional Results. CueTracker.net, accessed April 19, 2021 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Reece, Tom. In: Channel Swimming Dover. Dover District Council, Dover Museum & Bronze Age Bot Gallery, accessed April 21, 2021 .
  3. ^ A b Roy Case: om Reece sets highest recorded billiards record. Roy Case, June 6, 2019, accessed April 20, 2021 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e Riso Levi : Billiards in the Twentieth Century . Read Books Limited, Redditch 2013, ISBN 978-1-4474-8668-8 , pp.  29–32 (first edition: Manchester 1931).
  5. ↑ a b c David Hendon: Snooker's Biggest Bust-ups. In: snookerscene.blogspot.com. Snooker Scene , July 28, 2011, accessed April 19, 2021 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Peter Ainsworth, Jock McGregor: Tom Reece. English Amateur Billiards Association, April 14, 2013, accessed April 20, 2021 .
  7. ^ A b c Brian Oliver: 5 Most Boring Events in Sports History. Bleacher Report , May 21, 2014, accessed April 20, 2021 .
  8. ^ A b Andy Hunter, David Smith: Tom Reece Cues. Cues n Views, February 2002, accessed April 20, 2021 .
  9. ↑ Peter Ainsworth: EABA: The Amateur Billiard Player: June 1996. Amateur Billiards Association, April 12, 2013, accessed on April 20, 2021 (English, online archive version of the article "Historical Pot Pourri" by Peter Ainsworth from the "The Amateur Billiards Player" from June 1996).
  10. ^ Clive Everton : Founder of the Crucible affair. The Guardian , April 14, 2001, accessed April 20, 2021 .
  11. ↑ Ron Florax: Tom Reece - Season 1907-1908 - Professional Results. CueTracker.net, accessed April 19, 2021 . Ron Florax: Tom Reece - Season 1908-1909 - Professional Results. CueTracker.net, accessed April 19, 2021 . Ron Florax: Tom Reece - Season 1910-1911 - Professional Results. CueTracker.net, accessed April 19, 2021 .

  12. ↑ Ron Florax: Tom Reece - Season 1911-1912 - Professional Results. CueTracker.net, accessed April 19, 2021 .
  13. ↑ Ralph Sanderson: Tom Reece. SS Wimmera, accessed April 20, 2021 .
  14. ^ A b Gary Clarke: A Billiards & Snooker Compendium . Paragon Publishing, Rothersthorpe 2008, ISBN 978-1-899820-46-7 , pp. 17 .
  15. ^ Evan Jones: Lindrum, Frederick William (1888-1958). In: Australian Dictionary of Biography . Australian National University , accessed April 20, 2021 .
  16. ^ A b The Professional Champions of English Billiards. (No longer available online.) English Amateur Billiards Association, 2012, archived from the original on February 6, 2012 ; accessed on April 19, 2021 (English).
  17. ^ A b Gary Clarke: A Billiards & Snooker Compendium . Paragon Publishing, Rothersthorpe 2008, ISBN 978-1-899820-46-7 , pp. 141 .
  18. ↑ a b Milestones, Oct. 26, 1953. Time , October 26, 1953, accessed April 20, 2021 .
  19. ^ Gary Clarke: A Billiards & Snooker Compendium . Paragon Publishing, Rothersthorpe 2008, ISBN 978-1-899820-46-7 , pp. 54 .
  20. ^ Gary Clarke: A Billiards & Snooker Compendium . Paragon Publishing, Rothersthorpe 2008, ISBN 978-1-899820-46-7 , pp. 152 f .
  21. ↑ Ron Florax: Tom Reece - Season 1945-1946 - Professional Results. CueTracker.net, accessed April 19, 2021 .
  22. ↑ Camera Interviews - "Tom Reece" 1928. British Pathé , accessed April 20, 2021 .
  23. ↑ Clive Everton : Guinness Snooker - The Records . Guinness Superlatives, Enfield 1985, ISBN 0-85112-448-8 , pp.  102 .
personal data
SURNAME Reece, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reece, Thomas (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English pool player, swimmer and non-fiction author
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Oldham , Lancashire
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1953
PLACE OF DEATH Sussex