The poor maintenance of pool tables seems to be a recurring theme in the UK at the moment. On one hand Rileys (the largest pool table operator in Europe) have gained a table sponsorship deal from Coca-Cola that will see the American pool tables covered in red cloth emblazoned with the Coca-Cola logo.
You can read the details here: Cloth Colours Get Worse!
I don’t personally like playing on red cloth and I certainly don’t like playing on cloth with big logo’s emblazoned on it either. There are however two sides to this argument. Rileys would argue that gaining a sponsor means the tables will be maintained more regularly, a bonus to any player wanting to play on the American Pool Tables. What you have to remember is that American Pool (by this I mean the 9ft tables) is still a massive minority discipline in the UK. The majority of people using the tables in Rileys do so for fun and don’t even use the tables for the right reasons.
Would this be accepted in the USA? Probably not but then there are far more players playing the game that understand the game and have been educated in their use.
The only way table conditions for the ‘professional game’ (I use the term loosely) will be improved is if they are moved away from club venues – an expensive and difficult task logistically.
The other occurence I found on CueClubInternational (formerly UK8ball and I prefer that name!) under the thread Tour Tables and Sponsorship
I can kind of sympathise with the Rileys argument but for a genuine professional tour like the IPA claims to be this is unacceptable. Tables are brought into a venue for only 6 tournaments in the year and they cannot be maintained or even recovered for each event. I will not get into the sponsorship element of the post as what is done with sponsorship funds is of course at the discretion of the organisers.
Tables for a professional event should be recovered for every tournament, this happens in Professional American Pool and in Snooker. Snooker players would be first to complain about the standard of the table conditions and rightly so.
What is wrong with pool in the UK? I ask for your thoughts!
