Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

86 The All-round Sportsman page photograph in the issue of February 1923. 158 As he told his youthful readers, he then succumbed in the third round to Fry by 1,327 points (average 9.41) to 2,000 (average 14.08) with best breaks of 99, 54 and 51. Sydney Fry had won seven previous titles and was to be triumphant again in 1925. Astill competed in the tournament on other occasions also. The Cricketer in 1922 justifiably called Astill ‘well above the ordinary run of billiard players’ and ‘one of the leading amateur billiard players in the country’. 159 He had been champion of the British Army of the Rhine in 1919 and the initial winner in 1920 of the Leicester Liberal Club’s billiards handicap trophy, which was later won by his colleague Jack King on three occasions: 160 we must assume that later Astill was too heavily handicapped, too frequently absent during the winter or too gracious to continue competing. An obituary notice mentioned that he won the Professional Cricketers’ Billiards Cup ‘on more than one occasion’, while The Cricketer published a photograph of him receiving that trophy from Douglas Jardine after defeating Alfred Gover of Surrey in one of those finals by a score of 1,732 points to 1,031. He was clearly proud of his accomplishments in billiards, for he is known to have worn on the wrist when on the cricket field a silver chain with pendant from it a sterling silver horseshoe and, in its final state, five medallions. 161 Two of these, of copper and showing on one side a 158 The magazine also published a brief obituary of Astill in August 1950. 159 19 August, p 9 and 26 August, p 7 respectively. 160 Littlewood, J.H.King , p 44, where there is a photograph of the handsome cup now in the possession of King’s granddaughter Judy Cockroft. 161 The chain with medallions is in the County Club’s museum at Grace Road. A man of many talents: Astill, in the process of defeating Herbert Fowler in the Amateur Billiards Championship of England in February 1923.