In Manhattan, new emporiums where the public can play pool and billiards are opening faster than the city's massage parlors closed. These establishments are equipped with pocketless tables on which the congnoscenti play three-cushion billiards, and 6-by-12-foot snooker tables that look as big as polo fields next to standard American 4-by-8-foot pool tables.
One New Yorker recently found a pool hall so crowded with young and old of both sexes that he had to wait an hour for a table. ''What were these people doing before the new pool halls opened up?'' he asked. ''They were playing in Hong Kong,'' the cashier said. Indeed, many of the players were Asians.
That explained the snooker tables. Snooker, an English game, followed the Union Jack to Far East colonies. But Asians in New York are also playing nine ball, straight pool and one-pocket -games as American as computer chips once were.If pool proves as seductive of Asians as it was for the youth of River City in Meredith Wilson's ''The Music Man,'' they may abandon their offices and classrooms.
The sport of snooker has been continually honoured by Queen Elizabeth II throughout the decades with a galaxy of green baize stars rewarded for their service and commitment to the sport and charity work away from the table. “To be awarded an MBE is an incredibly proud moment for me and my family,” said 2019 world champion Judd Trump after being included in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours List.
Brothers Joe and Fred Davis, with 23 world snooker titles between them, and celebrated World Billiards champion Walter Lindrum all received OBEs from Queen Elizabeth II.
The totemic snooker voices of Ted Lowe and Clive Everton also earned MBEs for their rousing contribution to the commentary box during snooker's halcyon televised era of the 1980s.Former World Snooker chairman and sports promoter Barry Hearn, the manager of Steve Davis during his rise to six world titles between 1981 and 1989, received an OBE in 2021.
"I'm incredibly proud to have been awarded an OBE," he said. "It has been a great joy to be involved in such a wide range of sports for over 40 years, and to be recognised for that work is an honour."I've been lucky enough to work with some of the greatest players ever to play in their sport from Steve Davis to Phil Taylor to Chris Eubank, and I've got so many wonderful memories."
