Great Scott (From This is Hampshire)

Great Scott

6:00am Saturday 13th March 2010 in

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AT the age of 72, Doug Scott insists he’s playing his best snooker for years.

Scott joined Sarisbury Green Social Club in 1969. Promoted from the B to the A team in the late 1970s, he took over as captain in the late 1980s.

In recent years, he selflessly dropped himself to give the youngsters a game.

Since handing the captain’s armband over to Neal Blake, Scott has returned to the B side.

Among his (and Blake’s) wealth of stories is the match Charlie Loader (or it might have been a team-mate) played at City Transport’s old first-floor club.

Loader (or a team-mate) tapped his cue on the floor to acknowledge a good shot (or thumped his cue on the floor in annoyance) and it disappeared through a knot-hole into the garage below.

And then there’s the tale of how Sarisbury Social A and Shirley Warren A shared the Premier title in 1981.

A week before the end of the season, the club received a letter from the league confirming they had won the title. However, on presentation night they were told it was a tie.

Warren had cancelled a match against Romsey Cons. But Romsey couldn’t muster a team for the re-arranged date. The league awarded Warren a 6-4 win. This was just enough to tie.

Sarisbury & District Working Men’s Club spent the first 18 months of its life in a tent.

But locals slipping under the canvas to steal beer forced the club to relocate to what is now Chives Sandwich Bar, further east along Bridge Road. It was then a wooden building owned by the Bevis family and used as a haberdashery and grocery shop.

Three businessmen put up £15,000 each to buy part of the Coldeast Estate knowing Hampshire County Council wanted to buy it. They then sold most of it on to the council apart from a small parcel of land at the corner of Addison Road and the A27. This was sold in 1931 to the social club for £200.

Plans for a four-table snooker room (now reduced to two), costing a further £400, were passed by one vote.

The function room doors were salvaged from a yacht being broken at Moody’s boatyard in Swanwick.

In the same year as the new clubhouse was built, Ron Ayling, president for 52 years and counting, was born two doors away.

“I can still remember moving out of there when I was two-years-old,” said the 79-year-old.

The Aylings moved to Brook Lane and now live in Warsash.

“That’s about as far as I’ve travelled,” he added.

Subscriptions were six shillings (30p), which could be paid quarterly, when Ayling joined the club in 1948. He spent two years as vice-president before being elected president.

A few years ago a £3.5m offer was made by a developer.

Ayling said: “I considered it wasn’t for the committee to decide. I said it must go to a vote of the members. Each member would get a minimum of £3,000. By a majority of two to one they turned it down.

“I’m more disappointed in the lack of support we’ve had since that vote. The cost of the bands has gone up and the drinking has gone down.

“This is the biggest loss I’ve ever known, this year. We don’t owe a penny; we used up fat – this year."

Ayling has played for the snooker team - three times.

“Twice I played for the A team and once I played for the B team,” he laughed. “And I won every game.”

To comply with music laws in the 1950s, the club’s name was changed to include ‘Social Club’.

Ayling reckons the future of social clubs will be as specialist clubs, like bowling or cribbage.

Committee member John Warder, 62, joined the club in 1969. Originally in the B team, he started a new C side in 1993 which won Division 9 in its first season.

Blake has nothing but praise for the talented youngsters that now dominate the Super League.

“They’re incredible,” he said. “It’s all down to Jim (Everett) at Chandler’s Ford. He’s got them playing competitively at a young age. Over the last ten years, the standard, because of that, has gone through the roof. And now Chandler’s Ford has got a reputation throughout the country.”

SARISBURY SOCIAL A HONOURS

Town Champions: Charlie Loader (1953, 1954, 1956); Alex Dunkley (2007). Runner-up: Derek ‘Debbie’ Bevis (1982); Mike Finn (2003); Dunkley (2008).

Pairs champions: Charlie Loader & Derek ‘Debbie’ Bevis (1974, 1976, 1980); Loader & Geoff Knapp (1986). Runners-up: Loader & Bevis (1967); Alex Dunkley & Dan Hildyard (2009).

Premier champions: 1978, 1981 (shared with Shirley Warren); runners-up: 1979, 1980, 1982, 1985. Division 1 champions: 1954, 1956, 1976; runners-up: 1957. Division 2 champions: 1972 (shared with Hedge End A); runners-up 1952, 1961. Division 3 champions: 1959; runners-up 1969. Division 4 runners-up: 1968.

Burroughes & Watts champions: 1982; runners-up: 1956, 1981.