“You couldn’t have a nicer environment for the children and the academy here.”
Salford snooker club, North West Snooker Academy has found a new and improved home following their eviction from Swinton Poolhall.
Earlier this year, the country’s first England-accredited snooker academy were moved on from their Swinton home following a 15-year stay at the venue.
I sat down with ex-England and Wales international Reg Davies, who is driving the scheme. Thanks to his connections, the academy has been able to relocate to Patricroft Conservative Club.
The new location, described as “quieter and more focused” by parents of youth players, has been heralded as a “fantastic” place for the participants to develop as both players and as people.
When I asked Reg Davies if he could be classed as snooker royalty he began to laugh, yet there is no doubt that the professional coach has made a long-lasting impression in the snooker ecosystem.
Davies’ work has been recognised across the snooker world, in 2019 he received an award from World Snooker which credited his “special contribution” to the sport.
The former National Coach of Malaysia worked to develop a curriculum for snooker, he produced a guide for classifying beginner, intermediate and advanced players which allowed the sport to be brought into Asian schools.
Davies said: “As far as I’m concerned my life now is just devoted to developing children, they learn manners and hospitability at the academy.”
After his academy was removed from Swinton, Davies could have hardly dreamt of a better transfer to Patricroft.
“The management and everybody have leaned over backwards to bring us here, it’s just been ideal.”
In 2012, Davies was asked to represent the Salford area as an ambassador for the Olympic Games. It seems fitting that he has been rewarded for his hard work in the community with a successful switch to Patricroft.
With little prior knowledge, you’d be easily forgiven for thinking that the coaches leading a Saturday morning snooker session out of a Conservative club in Patricroft would not be of an international calibre. Yet alongside Davies, former world finalist Nigel Bond has been brought in to individually coach the players.
Each of the North west Snooker Academy players had been allocated a 15-minute slot to practice with the ex-professional once ranked fifth in the world.
Brought in to be a patron of the academy by Davies, Bond highlighted that he’d had “a few visits to the old place (Swinton), it’s always great to see how the juniors are getting on.”
The former UK Open champion had been impressed with the new location, he noted that “It’s a great little setup, probably better than the one before.”
Bond highlighted that “everybody’s got their own different coaching style, the best coaches listen and have patience to (develop) a person’s individual style and get the best out of them.”
Since his retirement from the tour Bond has taken to coaching professionally, any time spent with this level of coach is gold dust for the developing players.
On the whole, Bond believes that “Snooker is in a lot better position now than it has been in the past for children getting into the sport.
“There’s a lot more academies that have sprung up and there’s more opportunities than ever for juniors to compete in competitive tournaments. Also, there are the English Amateur tour events for the pros of tomorrow. Previously there have not been enough opportunities for players to compete. There are definitely a lot more of these opportunities now.”
With such high-quality coaching and an improvement in the conditions available to these young players, there is no doubt that they are well-placed to progress in the snooker world.
When I asked Davies about his proudest moment, he recalled walking out in Kuala Lumpur as the Malaysia coach prior to the Asian Games.
Hopefully through the effects of his legacy more people from Salford and the North-West will get a taste of international snooker involvement.
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