Cuestars open up Under-21 Premier Series

Chandler's Ford Snooker Club owner Jim Everett

Cuestars, which has run handicapped competitions since 1995 in an area from Cardiff to High Wycombe and down to the South coast, restricted last season’s scratch series to recognised Section clubs.

Hunter admitted: “It was wrong to exclude players from outside of the Junior Section setup…as it did de-value the competition.”

Players like Southampton singles champion Alex Dunkley were forced to travel hundreds of miles to Leicester, Coalville and Rushden for top-quality competition.

“I’ll definitely be making an effort to play in this and I expect a lot of other decent players will as well,” said Dunkley. “It’ll be nice not to have to travel and stay overnight in the Midlands to play in scratch competitions.”

The series, which will use a round-robin format leading to a knockout, kicks off at Swindon in October. Hunter, 41, from Andover, is looking forward to seeing Chandler’s Ford players compete.

“It’s important that the top junior players have well run scratch events on their doorstep. I acknowledge that Jim [Everett] runs a very successful set up on Saturdays and this is confirmed by the high standard of players produced by the club. Jim's strength is that he’s very pro-active and runs lots of in-house competitions. If I had my own club I would do the same sort of things.”

 Picture: Kevin Legg