But while distance might lend attractions to many scenes those who recall the late 1970s and 80s recall an era when pool competitions were frequently shown live on national TV and when characters like Joe Barbara, Dave Dolman and Keith Brewer, to name but three, were professional players of high quality.

These days the Professional Pool Players' Organisation has at least twice as many members as it had then. But it would be difficult for many players to name them. The PPPO has its own circuit tournaments with Ross McInnes, probably today the UK's top professional player,  one of the few players whose name might be readily recognised by run-of-the-mill players at a national pool event.

Even the annual BAPTO Finals are amateur only although chairman Alan Boswell, a former professional footballer, suggested some months ago that pool needed personalities among the players that at present it lacked.  The association claims the backbone of pool is to be found among the grass roots players and not at professional level. Few can argue with that contention but only recently has the association's annual finals event started to thrive again. Yet 30 years ago some of the major BAPTO members would run their own qualifying competitions to determine which teams and individuals, ladies' and men's, would represent them at the finals. Some of the qualifying finals were as well attended as some of the national finals were to be in later years. This year's BAPTO Finals will be held at Pontins, Blackpool, from November 13 to 15. Bookings are now being taken.

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