The
last tournament of 2012 is European Tour event 5 at Ravenscraig in Scotland.
In
the wake of the UK Championship it’s a little after the Lord Mayor’s Show. That
said, has anyone ever sat through the Lord Mayor’s Show? What does it entail
exactly?
There
have been some notable withdrawals. Mark Selby, already qualified for the PTC
grand finals and presumably exhausted from his York exploits, is a stay-away.
So too are Neil Robertson, Matthew Stevens and Ali Carter.
Some,
including Judd Trump, didn’t enter in the first place.
There’s
been a lot of snooker played this year and some players want a break of the
leisure variety with half the season still to come.
But
someone will get a 10,000 euro Christmas bonus plus a chance to take part in
the grand finals, where the top prize this season is £100,000.
The
Scots are well represented with John Higgins, Stephen Maguire and Graeme Dott
all title contenders, although Dott is deeply unhappy with his form right now.
There
is just one more PTC to come, in Germany next month, after which the top 25 on
the order of merit will join the top seven in the Asian PTC standings for the
grand finals.
Matt
at Pro Snookerblog has provided a typically masterful overview of who is where.
British
Eurosport will be showing every match live, with Eurosport on the continent
showing live and recorded action.
23 comments:
The Lord Mayor's show is held in the City of London around the start of November(?)- they close all the roads for a fairly pathetic parade of floats. It co-incides with the naming of the new Lord Mayor of London (it is always televised by the BBC but nobody watches it). It is the epitome of bad tradition - I would far rather watch even the amateur rounds of a PTC.
Barry Davies has often commentated on the Lord Mayor's Show for the BBC, and gives it quite a bit of space in his autobiography.
TWELVE hours of unbroken coverage from Ravenscraig on Eurosport today.
Surely that's a record.
Watched today from 10am until 5pm - big thanks to Eurosport.
Slightly off topic..
Could a kick be caused by a player picking the balls out of the pockets at the end of a frame. Appreciate this assists the referee and gets the next frame underway quicker but surely the sweat / grease that is imparted on the ball will make it easier to attract chalk / dirt etc and may subsequently lead to a kick.
Maybe leave the handling of all balls to the referee and his cotton gloves ?
Dave where is the marketing of these PTCs? It's the only tournament in Scotland and there must have been 10 people in the crowd. Snooker is extremely popular in central Scotland but needless to say there is nothing advertised anywhere about this tournament.
Williams v Duffy
Have a look at frame 6.
When 40-0 up, Williams misses a black. There follows as couple of delicate safety shots. There is no way that Williams made contact with any red at his first attempt. No way. Ref didn't think so either. Williams reassured the ref that he did. Have a look if you have it recorded.
Is there a massive balcony in the hall where all the fans are sitting - only the crowd for the Maguire match is incredibly small.
I would like to understand how Bazza can always shift hundreds of tickets for his Premier League events (even this year) but promotion for this event doesn't seem to extend beyond a couple of paragraphs of text on the World Snooker website
As is the case in Chinese events, all the spectators are up at the back of the arena.
Sadly this Scottish torunament is a gloomfest and reminds me of the film Trainspotting.
Lager lager etc.
Agree fully with last poster greater effort must be made because the World Open in Glasgow two years ago was extremely well attended. The venue is not easily accessible unless you have a car
But comercially, can there be a point in this? Well, if it costs pennies to stage and attracks a few million viewers across Eurosport nations, we might see more of these crowdless tournaments in the future.
But poor Maguire and his "home crowd" of 10 people and on a saturday evening, too. Haven't seen such pitfully small crowds since the Bahrain Masters.
I think we may have reached the point of having too many tournaments now. That would have been an absolutely absurd idea only a few years ago.
I think even 10 was an exaggeration. I count to 3 on the overhead camera in the Allen-Joyce match tonight, on primetime. It's a farce.
Who would watch this and say "let's sponsor this snooker thing"? Why stage an "event" without doing any PR or market research first? That seems more like the days of Rodney Walker.
"That seems more like the days of Rodney Walker"
Have a pop at sir rodders all you like, at least we had the Grand Prix and a proper uk champs!! Why should there be decent crowds when even the top players don't want to play these ptc's? Barry Hearn came in with all guns blazing, sadly for snooker fans it looks like he's holding a spud gun!
Rodney Walker was a complete catastrophe for the game, and one who almost ran the pro game to closure.
Barry Hearn is a talented entrepreneur who is, naturally, looking to fill his own pockets first. He has done so much good for the game in the last seasons, the turn-around is almost too good to believe. Btw, the Grand Prix and UK champ was changed/canceled because of BBC, wouldn't have mattered who was WSA head at that time. I do think that Barry Hearn is one of few who might make BBC change their mind in a couple of years, if the game continues to grow in this positive rate until then.
But talented as he is, he must be contemplating the future for these events. Either you spend a little money for PR and market research, or you risk staging events that ends up like this, which does look terrible on TV.
It's a PTC for God's sake. No one cares. Why would you pay good money just prior to Christmas to watch yet another tedious "nothing" event.
joke tournament. I stay 4 miles from the venue and ive been into my snooker for 25 years. didn't bother going. no advertisement either
its a few miles from Glasgow. took me two hours to get a parking space in Glasgow earlier. wrong time of year for a small ptc tournament
"He has done so much good for the game in the last seasons"
Filling the seasons with a load a boring ptc's YAY!!
"Btw, the Grand Prix and UK champ was changed/canceled because of BBC"
So if Barry is this 'talented entrepreneur' as you say could he not sell to a rival broadcaster?
"if the game continues to grow in this positive rate until then"
Really? Snooker's on its deathbed!!
If you don't think Barry Hearn is a talented entrepreneur, then you either think that he has inherited his millions or you are trolling.
If you think snooker is on it's deathbed, then you either think the world exists solely of the UK or you are trolling.
Eithter way, I don't know why you write things that are so obviously untrue?
When Sir Rodney took over there was still a Scottish open - but it only lasted one more year after cig sponsors were banned and sky dropped it. And he didn't do much of a job with events in Scotland - crowds for the Grand Prix at the AECC were pretty thin. Even when Hearn came in his last roll of the dice with the BBC (the World Open in Glasgow) didn't sell that well - from the TV pictures the auditorium seemed like the audience seats on 'Kilroy' - i.e. Bazza knew he would sell gish all tickets and tried his best to make the venue look full by having small, close banks of seats.
Basically, on most evidence Scotland doesn't have the appetite / market for a full ranking event. I reckon a set up like the German Masters (4 or 5 day tournament maximum)in Glasgow might have a chance of drawing crowds - but TBH without ITV or Sky covering it the numbers just don't stack up. Really hope this isn't the end of tournament snooker in Scotland though.
I stay 4 miles from the venue and ive been into my snooker for 25 years. didn't bother going.
A shame really, because it was probably the last shot Scotland had of getting the proper Scottish Open back on the calendar. A sell-out event may have encouraged a Scottish broadcaster to come on board along similar lines to the Welsh Open. If I had a PTC on my doorstep I'd go and support it, but I guess some people are too short-sighted to do that.
yeah 955, thanks for the insult.
ive went to almost every Scottish even in all that tme, and been to literally dozens more outwith my home country.
just because it was near me and I didn't bother going doesn't mean I didn't want it to succeed.
I couldn't be bothered going to one which was of substandard in
area
facilities
top pros entering
advertising its even on!
so yeah, one event out of a couple of decades worth is very short sighted.
I bid you a shite day, seeing as youre such a charming person.
Contrary to what is being said in these comments here, there is a huge appetite for snooker in Scotland - The Q Club in Glasgow is packed out most nights you have to wait for tables mostly, the World Open in September 2010 had some of the best crowds for a ranking event in years, so it's not the lack of interest or appetite - Central Scotland is probably one of the hottest spots for snooker popularity in the UK.
The problem is the lack of effort or care from World Snooker to get a decent tournament on here, too much focus on China, there's companies in central Scotland that would sponsor such an event if an effort was made - but because there's no expertise from this geography within World Snooker, little effort is made. Such a shame that an area of proud heritage for snooker is hung out to dry like this and forgotten about.
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