He said: "Our remit was to examine each component of the table to see if quality could be improved but costs reduced." He thought that when prospective customers saw the new range of tables bearing what is probably the most prestigious name in pool they would be satisfied by the quality and pleased with the prices. Considerable improvements have been made to the design of the new tables especially at the table top level where both the frame and the cushions have received special attention to provide a playing surface that should satisfy even the most discerning league pool player. The top rails of the Superleague Imperial and Superleague Winchester tables have been covered with a branded laminate and the post forming has been contracted to a specialist laminate company.

Lewis said: "The improvements to the top frame quality are quite stunning and we are delighted with the initial finished products." Currently these will be the Superleague Imperial, Winchester and Magnum tables. The new electronic tables are scheduled to appear in the new year as is a range of six feet and seven feet domestic tables.

The module for the electronic tables is in the ball drawer unit and it will be made available to retrofit existing Superleague tables with little or no modification. Furthermore a huge stock of pool table spares will be available and it will supplement the current stock of spares for former Superleague and Premier tables.

It is always difficult to assess the impact of a new table on the pool market especially when, as now, the industry is not at its most prolific. But Eric Lewis, a man not given to "over-egging the cake" as they say, seems quietly confident that the new Superleague range could well be a winner. It has taken nearly two years for Lewis to annouince his satisfaction, years during which the stocks of midnight oil in his vicinity must have been depleted. He is confident his company has produced a quality table at a competitive price. Which is what it set out to do in the first place.

Excel bucks the trend

It seems strange to write about Excel Leisure bucking the trend because the company has, in Stan Mckenna, one of the most respected people in the pool table business. But McKenna used the expession himself when he told me that his cpmpany seemed to have been "bucking the trend" durimg the past few months. "We have been quite busy," he said, "and I hope this will continue through to the Christmas period when we normally sell quite a number of our non-coin tables as well as other products through the retail sector".

Excel Leisure, like other businesses, wonders what effect the credit crunch might have on the retail trade. Most of the tables sold during recent months have been replacement tables, he said, but pool was still a traffic builder despite the number of pub closures. Pool would still, he contended, remain a staple product in the pub market. Garlando football tables, the Italian tables  which are distributed in the UK by Excel Leisure, were also selling in satisfactory numbers, he said.

He disagreed politely with Sam Leisure's Liam Barrett over the latter's suggestion made recently that table manufacturers might need to look to American tables for future  sales as the pub market declined. Although Excel Leisure made an American table, the Liberty, sales of it were minimal compared with the UK game tables. "UK 8-ball pool continues to dominate the market," he said. The public did not take readily to the American tables unless yhey were in a very big venue which probably had a American theme.

Having heard Liam Barrett on the topic of UK 8-ball and American pool I think there is only a small margin of difference between his opinion and that of McKenna, Barrett sees pub closures running to as many as five per day to be a real threat to the UK game. On the other hand he thinks young people, in particular, might be looking for something new and American pool in modern well-decorated and maimtained pool halls, clubs or even large pubs might be a source of sales to replace, at least in part, the loss of sales in UK tables.

In October Simply Pool's Bob Underhill spoke of his company's full order books and a slowly blossoming export trade. This month Stan McKenna has spoken of a brisk trade in replacement tables. Of course McKenna might have the advantage over others of having supplied brewery owned pubs over the years with the highly popular HGM Superleague tables which dominated the pub market for many years until Rileys bought the company and, in the belief that the Riley name was better known in table games than that of Superleague, made their pool tables under the Riley name which for years had graced full size snooker tables.

The Riley table is no more. A new Superleague pool table from a different manufacturer enters the fray next month.

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