York a top spot for the resurgent game of bar billiards ahead of British Challenger Championship

Bar billiards is played on a small table. There are no side or corner pockets but nine holes in the surface. Mushroom-shaped pegs stand before three of the holes. Knock the black one over, and you are out of the game. Sometimes the obstructive mushrooms are pins. It’s more complicated than it looks, or that’s my excuse for losing to bar billiards enthusiast Michael Shallcross at the Ackhorne pub, off Micklegate, in York.

Bar billiards, played in pubs across Yorkshire, is said to have been brought to England about 100 years ago by a man called David Gill, who had seen it played in Belgium. Michael is a more recent convert. He runs a league in York that pitches pub against pub. And next Saturday, he is organising the 2022 Bar Billiards Challenger Championship at the Crescent Club in the city, starting at midday.

Anyone can enter so long as they are not one of the top-ranked players in the country. That way, you know you won’t end up playing the bar billiards equivalent of Judd Trump.

The day-long tournament was scheduled for 2020 but was lost to the lockdowns. The last Challenger Championship took place in Nottingham in 2019 and was won by York player Colin Chambers.

Michael’s love of the game works on different levels. Partly it’s his affection for the community spirit of local pubs; partly it’s his love of beer, although too much will spoil your game.

“There’s probably about a three-pint sweet spot where you become fearless, but you’ve still got enough wherewithal,” he says.

It’s also about a favourite pub in York, the memory of a friend who died young, and another friend who made the table we play on as Shiny Happy People by REM blares from the speakers.

Many pubs in York used to have bar billiard tables, Michael says, but when he started the league in 2014 only the Golden Ball and the Phoenix had kept hold of theirs. Now seven or eight pubs have tables, the Castle Snooker Club has a new one, and students at the University of York are getting into the game.

When the Golden Ball, in Bishophill Senior, was taken over by a local co-operative, Michael became one of 180 shareholders. At the time there was talk of removing the bar billiards table. Michael campaigned for it to stay.

“The story behind it is that a close friend of mine died who I used to drink in the pub with and played bar billiards with, so the table had this emotional resonance. And I thought, we can’t get rid of this.”

Oliver Grant died in 2007, aged 26. He was studying at Edinburgh University, and was halfway through a PhD in history and politics when he was diagnosed with cancer.

Michael won the day and the table stayed. As he learned more about the history of the game, he found it fitted “what we were trying to do, which was preserve a great pub and this was part of it”.

As for the York bar billiards league, he says “we’re all good but there are no super-players”.

Michael drops a coin in the slot, and we play. It turns out I am no super-player, although Michael does kindly mention potential. The game requires the lightest of touches, with no smashing the ball. To add to the challenge, the tables come in three sizes, and all with their quirks.

“The way we’ve always played it in York, it’s very laid-back and friendly,” he says. “It’s not too competitive. It’s kind of like cricket where it’s at a slow pace but not to the detriment of action.

“It’s a relaxed way of spending a few hours in the pub. Obviously it’s a game of skill and it has different types of skill to pool, when it can be more about good shot direction and blasting the ball. With bar billiards it’s more to do with angles.”

When the coin runs out, a bar drops inside the table, ending play. The table in the Ackhorne previously belonged to the now-defunct York Brewery and was housed in the tap room. It was made by Michael’s friend Graham Durant, who is a conservation framer – someone who makes high-end frames for pictures.

Graham has been making frames for more than 40 years and owns the Picture Framing Workshop in Shipton by Beningbrough. “If people are spending thousands on a painting, they want the frame to still be there in 100 years,” he says.

Among many other galleries, he works for the Zillah Bell Gallery in Thirsk. “Zillah Bell, that’s top end, then Daisy Bell in London,” he adds.

Graham now does commissions for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, making frames for exhibitions, including those for the drawings by sculptor Yukihiro Akama, featured in The Yorkshire Post magazine in April, and for the recent David Nash exhibition.

As for the bar billiards, Graham plays at the Golden Ball, often with Michael. Are you any good? “Yes, I am all right.”

Somewhere along the way, Graham decided he wanted to build a table, first making what’s known as a Sams table, one of three sizes. “I set up all the jigs because I thought if I am building one, I might want to build a few,” he says.

He buys old pool tables for the slate tops, and has sold three tables to date, made some privately, and reconditioned others. He has just finished doing up the table at the Golden Ball.

One problem Graham faced lies in that falling mechanical bar. A challenge, but not to a man who has turned his hand to many things over the years. “No one’s making them any more, so I also had to design my own timer,” he says.

He is trying to sell his framing business – “I’m 65 and it’s time to slow down as we’ve been working seven days a week” – but wants the art of making bespoke frames to be handed to the next generation.

Back in the Ackhorne, Michael is magnanimous in victory. He says of his league: “Part of my dream is that it’s a very inclusive thing. It’s a competitive league but it’s not annoyingly competitive.”

The league lay dormant for two years and Michael was anxious when it started again. “I’d heard that darts leagues were struggling but I was really surprised that we’ve not got more teams than we had before and there’s a university team started up. I am passionate about good pubs, and it feels like you are linking it all together, keeping good venues alive.”

Michael, who has an admin job at the University of York, grew up in Haxby and studied at the University of Sheffield. He has PhD in English Literature on the work of GK Chesterton, author of the Father Brown novels and much more besides.

The co-op at the Golden Ball came about because the locals were worried about the pub. “It’s the grassroots power of the people who went in the pub. There’s a tie-up between the way this type of pub is embattled, and it felt like this game was struggling to keep any foothold at all unless someone took up the gauntlet. I am quite keen on sticking up for the underdogs.”

Registration for the tournament will cost £5 on the day. Anyone wishing to take part should email [email protected] by Thursday. Contact the same address for enquiries about joining the York league.