Dawlish & District Snooker League held their presentation evening at Shaldon Conservative Club, on Saturday, September 7.

The presentation of trophies for the 2023 - 2024 winter season was preceded by the final of the team knockout cup competition, which this year was between the resident teams from the Shaldon club, i.e. Shaldon Cons ‘A’ and ‘B’.

In the league, Shaldon ‘A’ had finished bottom in a win-less campaign, but they more than made up for it in this final with an excellent 5-0 win to secure the KO Cup.

Jason Dowling started the rout with a fine win against Pete Antonczak from the ‘B’ team. James Langdell made it 2-0 and then Clive Mackriell secured the cup to make it 3 - 0 for the ‘A’ team, by beating Mark Campbell by 77-69 in a tightly fought game. The captains agreed that the remaining two frames should be played, despite the fact that the ‘A’ team had already won the match.

However, the ‘B’ team could not make any impact on the night and Martin Doyle and David Heath won both their frames to make the final score 5-0 to the ‘A’ team. Possibly the ‘B’ team didn’t get much luck - but that’s how snooker goes!

After the match, league Devon County rep Crespin Halloran presented the trophies for the team and individual competitions for the season. As usual, players from all teams were represented. Andy Hill, of Dawlish RBL ‘C’ kept up his record in the ‘Break League’ competition. He has won that particular cup every year since 1992. He also collected the ‘Highest Break’ trophy for the season with a break of 58.

The league winners, for the second year in succession, were Teignmouth Social Club ‘B’. Undefeated all season, they won the league by seven points from second-placed Dawlish RBL ‘C’. The winner of the singles competition was Lee James from Dawlish RBL ‘C’ who beat Martin Doyle 3 -2 in a tense final.

Shaldon Cons ‘B’ provided the winners of the pairs competition with Mark Prowse & Mark Campbell. The other pairs competition, in memory of Ray Davey, was won by Dave & Sammi Northcott from Dawlish RBL.

Finally, Dominic Pritchard picked up a trophy for Teignmouth Social Club ‘A’ by defeating Tony Leight from Dawlish RBL ‘B’ in the final of the veterans (over 60’s) competition.

The compere thanked the Shaldon stewards for all their help in organising the evening. He also thanked the league secretary, Sammi Northcott, for providing the food and the magnificent raffle, which had over 25 draw prizes. The players and spectators then enjoyed the buffet and the evening ended with the raffle draw.