Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

85 Chapter Eight The All-round Sportsman “He also had the reputation of being a brilliant all-round player of any game you cared to mention, whether it was tennis, billiards, ping-pong or tiddly-winks!” 156 It was probably in the early and middle 1920s that Astill was at his most effective as an all-round sportsman. This was certainly true of cricket and billiards, the second a game at which, had he been able to devote to it the requisite practice, he would have gained an international name for himself in the opinion of world champion Joe Davis, four times world billiards champion and fifteen times world snooker champion. 157 It should be noted that billiards was a far more popular pastime in the 1920s than it is today, and that the citizens of Leicester were in no way behind those of other centres in their interest in it, as is evident from the regular articles published in the Leicester Mercury by the definitive writer on the game Riso Levi, the author of such books as Billiards in the Twentieth Century and Billiards: the Strokes of the Game . Astill mentioned his own success in billiards in his autobiographical piece for The Boys’ Realm of Sport and Adventure : That [business] keeps me busy enough in the winter months, that and my billiards. I dare say you’ve heard about the billiards? If not, perhaps it may interest you just to know that I was amateur champion of Leicestershire 1921-22, and also that two years ago I got into the last sixteen for the Amateur Billiards Championship of England. Unfortunately, I did not get any farther than ‘the last sixteen’ for in that round I came up against S.H.Fry, the present holder, and Mr. Fry was a bit too good for me. To this we can add that before that national tournament opened at the Burwat Hall in Soho Square his portrait had appeared on the front cover of The Billiard Player for December 1922 with the caption ‘Mr W.E.Astill. Billiard Amateur and Cricket Prof.’ He received a walkover in the first round when W.E.Roberge withdrew, and was then expected to meet E.Forshall of Wembley in what George Reid in the same issue of the magazine had anticipated would be a ‘real good heat’ since ‘on form there is nothing much between them, although I have a sneaking regard for the Leicester cricketer’s chance’. In the event Forshall lost to Herbert Fowler of London, a regular competitor in the tournament, whom Astill beat comfortably by 2,000 points (average 9.17) to 1,442 (average 6.61) with major breaks of 56 and 52. The match, with Astill at the table, was depicted in a half- 156 David Kemp in a personal letter about Astill at Tonbridge School in 1946. 157 As told to Philip Snow by Joe Davis’ brother Fred.