Cueing up to listen to first lady of snooker

"Good God," observed a watching expat, "it's the end of the British Empire."

She was the first to referee a men's international, the oldest woman world champion at any sport and - far from the hit and misogynist world of the green baize - recently became one of the first woman admitted to the ancient Fellmongers' Guild in her native Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Vera Selby's 74 now, as smart as a carrot - though what's so noticeably natty about a carrot has never properly been explained - and on Friday night became the first ever woman guest speaker at Tow Law Football Club.

"You can't call her an after dinner speaker," said Charlie Donaghy, the MC, "because you're not getting any dinner."

Tow Law may be the last place on earth which needs a breath of fresh air - they don't have that wind farm above the A68 in order to rear flatulent cows - but the lass was a great, glorious gust of it, blown buoyantly from Gosforth in a suitably sporty Hyundai and with a bit of difficulty parking.

"Bloody women drivers," said a feller on automatic pilot.

Her blonde hair and trouser suit were immaculate, her ear rings and pendant meticlously matching, accessories before the act. She addressed a hall as she might a ball, coolly and with great aplomb.

The talk was called A Woman in a Man's World. She never swore, never ventured into risque business, only once essayed an innocuous pun on the word "screw" though without (as it were) losing her thread.

Dammit, she even read the Tow Law lads her poetry, in which "just" rhymed with "bust" - foul shot for bodily contact with the ball.

She was much like Anne Robinson but without the bitter lemon smile, and if the Weakest Linkage is 59 (as we are told) than Vera looked not a day older.

She was born in Richmond where her father managed Freeman, Hardy and Willis - now the Oxfam shop - attends a school reunion there this weekend, became a senior art, textile and dress designer lecturer at the former Newcastle Poly, took early retirement at 53 but still speaks an awful lot of dress sense.

The evening previously she'd been talking textiles in Cramlington, the following morning she'd be at the Embroiderers' Guild in Darlington.

In stitches? "Well, they seem to quite enjoy it."

She'd been introduced to billiards as a six-year-old, when her Uncle Jack had a table in the cellar of his home in Newcastle and she'd sit, enthralled, on the steps.

Vera was 36, however, before being spotted pottering about on Tyneside by former British amateur billiards and snooker champion Alf Nolan, from Newton Aycliffe.

"She was raw but you could see the potential," Nolan once recalled. If Ms Robinson is the Queen of Mean, Vera Selby became Queen of Green.

Though Alf's coaching style might be termed unflattering - "The standard must have been pretty low" he remarked after she won her first British woman's billiards championship - it worked, nonetheless.

She won the world women's snooker title in 1976 and 1981, was five times British champion and won the British women's billiards title nine times, a feat which still earns her a Guinness Book entry.

"They include my birth date," she said. "It's why I can't lie about my age."

She also became a television commentator. "It's like letting a mother superior onto a professional football pitch," a BBC executive reportedly observed.

On the way to the top of the table, of course, there were plenty of others ways in which she discovered that baize will be boys. "I've brought a female, they have smaller brains than we have" announced Alf Nolan before their first exhibition match at Dudley Miners' Welfare in Northumberland.

Though captain of Gateshead BRSA men's team she was banned from several clubs in the league, reached the semi-final of the North-East championship but was refused admission to it - "It was Shiney Row Club, they had to send for a committee man" - and even when over the masculine barrier still found a necessary limit to the hospitality.

"I should also be in the Guinness Book for the woman who's been in the most men's toilets" said Vera - and there was a poem about that, too.

They took it to the secretary

His voice could not be clearer,

No women are allowed in here

We only let in Vera.

Her talk began with a little potted history. The term "snooker" came from Indian army abuse for an officer cadet, the beheaded body of Mary Queen of Scots was wrapped in her billiards table cloth, a snooker table weights a ton and a quarter, 18,000 female elephants used to be slaughtered annually to make ivory billiard balls, an American called Tom Rees once played the same billiards cannon for three weeks, scoring 35 short of half a million.

"They changed the rules after that," said Vera.

Her first table cost £25 - "snooker had a rather seedy image before Pot Black, they were smashing them up" - the cue with which she won her second world title cost a mere fiver.

"My own cue had been stolen just beforehand so I got one from Riley's. A ten day championship and I never lost a frame."

The talk lasted nearly an hour, the questions almost as long. The greatest player she'd seen was Alex Higgins ("unfortunately he wrecked himself"), her highest break was 84 ("nothing really"), she didn't think pool would overtake snooker ("I very much hope not") and believed her Peter Pan youthfulness must be something to do with the genes.

She remains chairman of the North East Billiards and Snooker Association, a professional referee and a dedicated referee instructor. She works out regularly in the gym, plays in two leagues, travels each week to Stanley to play snooker against a chap with one leg, recently returned from refereeing an international in Latvia and has no plans to use a rest.

Selby date? An awfully long time yet.

Up at Tow Law this coming Friday, a Weardale Select plays a Tow Law Select for a cup in memory of John Noddings, who collapsed and died during the same fixture a year ago.

Policeman and Football League referee Nigel Miller, who fought valiantly to save John last time, will again be in charge.

All proceeds, including raffle and tombola, will go to the British heart Foundation. Kick off's at 6 45pm.

Back up the A66 the following day to Crook, where former internationals like Gary Gillespie and David Speedie played early season football in memory of Alison Langley, helping raise £2000 for cancer research.

Alison was the wife of former Crook Town player/manager Les Langley. Les, in charge when the ever combative Speedie, now 42, played three games for Crook, played on the opposite side on Saturday.

"He clattered me after about 20 seconds," said Les, 37.

As we remarked last week, two of the former Darlington, Chelsea and Coventry player's Crook appearances ended arbitrarily, sent for an early bath. The diminutive Scot enters a plea in mitigation, however.

"The second time was at Bedlington when the referee said I threatened to put the entire subs' bench through the back of the dug-out.

"Maybe I did, but I only meant one at a time."

Violence in the Wensleydale Evening Cricket League, too, where Spennithorne batsman Wayne Farrow smashed 40 off an over against Crakehall - despite not facing the first ball.

They play eight ball overs, it should be explained, but it's still pretty mighty smiting.

Steve French nudged the first ball from Crakehall's Steve Reed for a single. Wayne carted the next half dozen for six and was a bit miffed about the seventh.

"It went straight into the hedge but they wouldn't give me it," he says. "I'm not normally a big hitter, but I don't like to hang about."

Spennithorne stalwart George Tunstall was suitably impressed. Is it, he wonders, the highest number of runs ever scored off an eight ball over?

The first footballer to win FA Cup, European Cup and World Cup winners' medals (Backtrack, July 2) was Bobby Charlton.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today invites the identity of the only European Footballer of the Year to have played in the Scottish League.

The column again crosses the border on Friday.

Published: ??/??/2004