Directors

Neil Cummins

One of my earliest cuesport memories was beating a mate of my dad’s at a local club. I think they called him Stef – it was the Radford Club, somewhere near Foxwood Gardens in Plymstock, Plymouth – It would be nice to know if this club is still there so mail us if you know of it? My god, that must have been over 20 years ago now…

If memory serves me, I got my first snooker table at the age of six. It was a 6’ x 3’ BCE table that barely fit in the spare room. The walls were covered in rubber marks from the bottom of my first cue, a lindop pool cue with an 11mm screw on tip. Anyone heard of one of these? Relocation brought an end to my indoor snooker career. To my dismay, it was out of the bedroom and into a garage. This was where the two-piece cue came in handy (or at least half of it) and I reckon I might have been one of the best half-cue snooker players in the country for my age – it was a fairly small garage. I used to love the summer, not because I could go out and play football with my mates, but because it meant that I could get home from school and put the snooker table up in the garden. Mind you, I had a job levelling it up on the crazy paving.

And so I joined my first pool team at 15 – could only play half of the games as most landlords wouldn’t let me in. I bet many of you experienced the same thing. At 16 I became the county pool and snooker champion in the same year. I was fortunate to play at the World Pool Championships a year later and this was my first taste of top class pool.

It was always snooker that I was most passionate about though – it’s just one of those games isn’t it. I received a sports bursary throughout university to fund entry into competitions around the country. I probably would have quit playing altogether had I not received this support as a students priorities lay somewhat nearer to the snooker club bar rather than it’s tables. I went on to win the British Universities Championship in the 2001-2002 season coached at the time by the former World Billiards Champion, Peter Gilchrist.

I achieved a Masters Degree in Sports and Coaching Science in 2003 and it is this background that I feel has a place within snooker today. Gone are the days of lager swilling, overweight players (no names mentioned and so no harm intended!). It’s refreshing to hear top players discussing their mental state, their fitness levels, their weight, their concentration and how these important factors influence their performance. We will be launching a series of Sports Science articles soon and we are pleased to bring you the views of our resident snooker coach Mick Caddy, who is well aware of the scientific principles of performance and how to get the best out of his players.

With regards my current activity I play in a local singles league and compete regularly in pro-am snooker events and on the Cuestars tour. My greatest achievement in the last few years was hitting back-to-back centuries in a best of five frames league match. I doubt I’ll ever manage that again! I’ve still got a few centuries left in me yet though…

Recently, I have worked with the BBC to train actors for snooker and pool playing scenes. The highlight of this work was teaching an actor how to do trick-shots for a BBC 1 comedy show due to be launched in late 2006. The show will be called 'Omid' and features Omid Djalili, a very funny man whom I sure many of you will have heard of.

On the pool side of things, I compete on the International Pool Association Tour, the largest and most recognised pool tour in the UK . Anyone interested in finding out about any of these events should contact us so that we can put you in touch with the promoters. There are some excellent events and tours that are currently short on numbers, due simply to the fact that they don't get the advertising they deserve

And on to Maximumbreak…. together, we’re developing a resource for enthusiasts, not just in the UK but around the world. We are aiming to reach the far out places and to promote the game internationally. We are not happy with the level of development on a UK level especially and feel that with our hard work and determination, we can bring enthusiasts, and with it their
ideas, together to promote the game of snooker to higher levels. We have developed a place where you can visit and air your views with those away from your local club so jump onboard before you miss the boat.

Director, Lecturer and Sports Scientist

David Weller

My name is David Weller. I am an avid snooker fanatic and like to play as much as I can in my spare time. I have been playing snooker on and off for about 20 years and started learning the game in a large snooker hall in Accrington Lancashire and spent most of my spare time there due to a road traffic accident in 1983. Since then, I progressed onto the highest amatuer level almost making it into the professioinal ranks, but then i devoted most of my time to my family and new born child back in 1991, since then i have stayed hooked by this wonderful game after coming back from an 8 year retirement.

Back in April 2000 i suddenly became very ill with a bone disease called Ostyomylitis, and was placed on the operations waiting list till April 2002 which is when i had my operation that then left me house bound due to having a major operation to remove 5 inches of my left femur and having an Illizarov frame fitted. I had this framework on my leg for almost 3 years, until my specialist doctor felt sorry for me and then decided to remove it from my leg. What a big mistake this was, i told my doctor that my leg was bending and it didn't feel right, but he said he knew best and told me to continue on as normal as could be. I got up out of my chair and my leg snapped, i was then rushed back into hospital and waited till 2am in the morning for them to pull the ends of the break away from each other, which was a total of 8 hours in a massive amount of pain. Finaly they came to my rescue and then placed me on a ward in the hospital for an operation the next day when they screwed in a steel plate the full lenght of my left femur, held in place with 11 3 inch long screws.

All of this has left me with a locked knee which now stops me from getting down into my normal stance at the snooker table. I havent played now for 6 years, but as soon as i am able to stand without the aid of crutches i will be back working hard to get back the game i so love.

Duringall of this i then signed up for a computer course to learn how to use the pc in a office enviroment, just incase i ended up losing my left leg and would need to persue a different carreer. The course cost me a lot of money and feeling rather ripped off by the end of it.

It was then that I had a thought about learning HTML and web site creation, leading me in to creating a site with useful content and a topic that I am familiar with and could share valuable information to others. The first thing that came to my mind was to create a site for my local snooker league which held all of the weekly results, but after the first season the site only had a few visitors each week and the league members couldn't see the potential in offering them this free service.

This then made me think about creating a site full of helpful tutorials that could help others to improve their game, so this is how Maximumbreak came to be. I realized at that time that I wanted to promote this game to the world and what better way to do this than to teach people how to play the game.

Hope you enjoy all the hard work we have put into maximumbreak for all these years.

Project Manager , Publisher and Site Author