Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

125 Master on the baize Edwin started playing snooker on a small table at home when he was eight and joined the local snooker club as soon as he was old enough, at 14. There were seven tables and he played regularly, soon getting good enough to beat older, more experienced players. I played my first match against Wally Baker, who was then secretary of the Chesterfield and District League. I played at the village snooker hall until I was 18 and then was made a member of the Grassmoor Working Men’s Club in 1952 and I have been there ever since. We have been in division one of the Chesterfield and District League all that time, which is quite an achievement. I’ve won the individual competition twice and the pairs competition four years running, as well as winning every other competition that they put together at least once. Among many trophies, Edwin is proud of his two wins in the Grand Masters, a competition for over-55s, but he has wonderful memories of games against some of the biggest names of the sport. We used to go to Pontins on holiday when the children were young and I won tournaments there. I played John Spencer at Morecambe one year, after winning a competition there and played David Taylor, ‘The Silver Fox’, at Brixham, after winning that one. These wins were nice, because you then got free accommodation at the national finals, which were held in September at Great Yarmouth. It was good to get a few days away at someone else’s expense! I played against Ray Reardon when he was an amateur. He turned out for Cheadle and then I played him when he turned professional in an exhibition match at Spondon, for Bob Taylor’s benefit. Ray Edmonds, who used to commentate on the snooker, was someone I played a few times, as he turned out for Skegness, while I also played against Nigel Bond a few times. What about professional cricketers? Were there any good players among them? Alan Revill was perhaps the best of the Derbyshire players in my time, but he wasn’t good enough to have played at league level. A few of the rest played, but weren’t especially good at it. I remember playing Mike Page one time and he couldn’t figure out how I kept leaving myself on the black, after a red! Two of the better ones were Brian Close and Fred Trueman at Yorkshire. One year we were playing them at Chesterfield and the landlord of the Boythorpe Hotel, round the corner from Queens Park, asked me if I could get Fred to go along and draw the raffle they were having for the old folks. Fred agreed to go round on the Monday night and I said I would meet him there around ten to nine. I got held up in traffic and it was around quarter past nine when I got there. There was no sign of Fred, so I went