Market finally get their hands on some silverwear

THE final of The Brendan Mc Adam cup sponsored by The Coach Inn took place on Tuesday night in front of a very good crowd at the sponsors venue.

The Castle Bar were trying for a very unique treble and standing in their way was a determined Market Bar side from Dromore.

The evening started off with the presentation of the silver wear as the main sponsors of the league McLeans Bookmakers, who were represented by Stephen Doherty, presented the Premier League Shield to O’Reilly’s captain Micheal McLean and then the First Division Shield to Castle captain Gordy Magennis.

Stephen also presented the McLean Bookmakers doubles trophy to one half of the partnership in the form of Noel Meara.

The league secretary, Seamus McGrath, then proceeded to thank all the major sponsors for the season who are: McLean Bookmakers for the leagues and doubles, The Leader for the Individuals, Denis Rice for the three-a-sides, Tom Mc Grath for his sponsorship of the First Division Cup and of course The Coach Inn for the Brendan McAdam cup.

Seamus also made a very difficult anouncement regarding the decision of current league chairman Paul Wylie to step down after 26 years of service to the Banbridge pool league. This came as a total shock to all present and the very valid point of it most definately being the pool league’s loss was voiced by every person there on the night.

Said Paul, “From a committee point of view I would like to take this chance to thank Paul for everything that he has done in his 26 years for all teams involved in the pool league also for all the knowledge he has passed on to his nervous successor, and wish him all the best for the future.”

Onto the match itself : The opening frame threw together Kieran Mallon from The Market and Greg Harper from The Castle. The nerves were very noticeable as both players showed some uncharachteristic mistakes.

Kieran made the most of Greg’s errors and planted the black in the corner pocket to give his side the early lead.

The second frame brought together Mark Howe and Richard Harper with Richard breaking he sighed in horror as the white ball dropped into the centre pocket, giving Mark the early inititive in the frame. He called yellow balls and decided to cover a couple of pockets and try and tie up Richard.

After a couple of excahanges Mark got back to the table and plated a great double to open up the frame but Richard stepped up to show his obvious class on a pool table and cleaned up his remaining four reds and the black to level the score.

Trevor Ashe was up next for The Market and he was facing Collie McSherry. Both players were realising how important this frame could be.

Trevor broke and potted one of each colour, deciding on the much fancied yellows. He failed to make an impression as Collie came to the table with fire in his arms and went for the game from the start, but his last red fell short of his target and that gave Trevor the chance to take the frame but once again the table caught the player out. A misjudgement in pace handed two shots to Collie and with ball in hand he made it 2 - 1 to The Castle ,

Frame four was beween two very good players, Gareth Graham from The Market and Cecil Corbett from The Castle.

Cecil brook and potted three balls, two yellow and one red. Cecil chose reds and slowly played his way into a winning position and with each visit making sure Gareth had little to shoot at.

Frustration got the better of him and Cecil took the frame to give the Castle a commanding lead going into the mid -session interval.

The break proved just what The Market needed as they came out with all guns blazing although Gavin Armstrong would be the first to admit he should not have won the frame as Jason Harper had four opportunities to pot the black and thats from a player who would usualy need just the one chance to win a frame.

The Market took full advantage of their luck inframe five to push for a level match in the following frame. Up stepped Tony Hutchinson to face Aiden Sweeney. Tony kept a real cool head in a scrapy frame and finished off in style to bring the match to 3-3 .

Frame seven was now a make or break frame for both sides as the winners knew they would be one frame up withtwo to play. Neil Armstrong was playing Errol Maney and was hoping to follow in his brothers footsteps for The Market. Errol found himself in a generous mood as he gave Neil two shots on four visits to the table and he was always going to take advantage of one of those visits and he did - 4-3 to The Market.

Frame eight brought Market peoprietor and long term servent to the pool league Owen Cull up against Gordy Magennis. This was a facinating match up with Gordy trying to attack and Owen doing his best to cover the pockets. Owen proved that it was going to be The Market’s night when after a few nervous exchanges Gordy left him in all sorts of trouble only for him to strike the wrong of his own balls and watch it drop into the corner pocket and drop perfectly onto his final ball, pot that and finish on a straight black which he potted to hand the cup to The Market .

At the presentation Gordy congratulated The Market and said he was glad to see them win a major trophy after coming so close in the past 10 years, Owen accepted the trophy on behalf of his team and great celebrations began.

The committee would like to thank all the venues used for competitions this seaaon and all the members who gave up their free time to make sure all events were complete.