“PIE-COCK-O’-REEKIE!”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 128, 20 August 1927, Page 11

“PIE-COCK-O’-REEKIE!”

How N.Z. Wayback Beat Tom Reece at Billiards

HATS OFF TO THE BUTCHER!

DECOUNTING his reminiseenses as a billiard player in a London Sporting' Life,” Tom Reece tells a most entertaining story of one of his visits to New Zealand. The worldfamed exponent of the pendulum cannon describes in racy fashion how he played on “the world’s worst table” at Paekakariki (near Wellington) and was overwhelmingly defeated by the local butcher.

J have visited New Zealand three times (says Reece), playing through both islands, from Auckland to the Bluff, which latter place is the jumping off stage for the South Pole, and possesses as its almost unique attraction the last lamp post in the world. It’s a great new country, and I love it; but, being n€.*w, it has its limitations. What do they know of New Zealand who only Wellington or Auckland know? You need to go up country and visit the little outlandish towns, with names as long as their main streets, and as unpronounceable as a Polish swear word in the mouth of a Lithuanian Jew with a lisp, before you get the real savour of the sheep country. SIXTEEN HOURS’ JOURNEY I got an offer of £25 to play one little exhibition game at Paekakariki. That’s how the atlas spells it, because I’ve looked it up since, but it was pronounced Pie-cock-o’-Reekie as near as I can remember, and it was distant from Auckland 16 solid hours in the train. I arrived at Pie-cock-o’-Reekie by the morning train, but I was not due to play till three in the afternoon. After a variety of adventures in the little township, I eventually located the village tobacconist, who had guaranteed the match. lie was the sole inhabitant of the village I had encountered up to that stage. After an unexpectedly good meal at the hotel, I made my way a little before three to the billiard room,, accompanied by my guide, philosopher, and friend. the tobacconist. CUE LIKE A CORKSCREW By three o’clock my opponent had still not arrived, and the covering cloth was still on the table. I began to grow uneasy, but after another 10 minutes there was a sudden rustle of welcome among the spectators, and a few curt greetings to a giant of a man in a butcher’s apron, with a great steel hanging at his side, who strode into the room, nodded all round, and then walked straight across to a battered cue case hanging on the wall. Prom this case he proceeded, to extract a cue more like a corkscrew than anything I have ever seen used on a billiard table. At a sign from the tobacconist two of the' audience tore the dust sheet from its moorings, and revealed—THE WORST TABLE IN THE WORLD! I never saw, and I hope I never may see again, so wild a caricature of a real table. There was.hardly an inch of its surface that was not marked by a strip of green court plaster, to hide some ancient rent in the original green baize. Burns alternated with grease spots, and I concluded that it had seen much play by candle-light, and that the players had tapped their pipes out here and there when they felt inclined. And even to the naked eye the surface of that table presented a positively undulating appearance. I was still gaping at this horrid revelation when I realised that my opponent, the butcher, was ungirdling himself for the fray. He rolled his apron up

and tucked it under his braces. He unbuckled his great steel and flung it with a clatter into a far corner of the room. CHALKED TABLE-EDGE And Anally he dived into a trousers pocket and pulled out a huge lump of white chalk—l should think it was quarried from a neighbouring cliff—and proceeded to chalk his cue and his hands, and even the wooden edge of the table itself. Then he grinned at me, and the tobacconist master of the ceremonies announced triumphantly that the match would begin. I was announced to give this local champion 600 start in 1,000 up, and I am bound to own that I got the worst beating I ever had in my life. I hate to make excuses, but the fact remains that, unless you knew the lie of the land, you couldn’t even trundle a ball up the length of the table with any certainty of hitting the object ball, let alone scoring off it. I had only scored 40 when my opponent ran to game. He could score from any position, and he brought off shots which would have baffled John Roberts. He knew every court plaster mound, and every grease-marked groove, on the table, and the balls were bewitched under the tremenduos blows of his corkscrew cut. Directly he had finished he gave me a mighty handshake, put his cut back in the case again, buckled his steel to his side, nodded to the boys, and went back to the slaughtering! One by one the rest of the crowd wished me a friendly and cheerful good-bye. None of them seemed to be in the least disappointed in my exhibition. I was left alone with the tobacconist, and he immediately counted out a roll of notes, and then pushed £25 across the table to me. A WORLD-BEATER “Thank you very much, Mr. Reece,” said he. “The boys have enjoyed it a whole lot. It’s been well worth the whip round for the money. Old Bill there”—l suppose he meant my friend with the steel —‘-‘always does just the same with all the gentlemen who come up here to give exhibitions. He’s a grand player.” And I * agreed. Put “Old Bill” of Pie-cock-o’-Reekie on his own table and I don’t believe there’s a player in the world who could live with him. Thoughtfully, with my cue case in one hand, my suitcase in another, and £25 in my pocket, I walked back along the two miles of dusty Toad and waited in the empty cigar-box station until the return train should take me back to Auckland, 16 hours away from the Worst Table in the World.