PowerGlide English Under-14 Championship | On to Stage Two

In September we announced the return of the English Under-14 Championship – this season sponsored by PowerGlide Cues.

The continued aim of the EPSB’s lowest age group championship has been to offer an enjoyable, competitive opportunity to as wide a range of players as possible to support young people starting out on their snooker journeys.

The story so far…

Stage One has seen 13 EPSB-affiliated clubs across the country run a qualifying event for the Under-14 age group, taking up the support on offer to run the event in-house.  These have predominantly involved WPBSA Snooker Coaches directing club-based qualifiers with their regular junior snooker groups.

A total of 117 players have taken part, many engaging in an amateur event for the first time.

This represents a sustained participation rate for the competition, in spite of the disruption of lockdowns.  The competition has further widened involvement of clubs across the country and players from different backgrounds, ages and genders.

The Championship now moves to a north and south event to decide who goes through to the National Finals Day at the end of the season.

Stage Two

A total of 28 qualifying players will take part in Stage Two.

These will comprise of the winners and runners-up from each club event, with an additional two wild card entries from the most entered Stage One event – Waterlooville Sports Bar having significantly more participants than the other events.

The venue for Stage Two North will be Hazel Grove Snooker Club near Stockport.

The venue for Stage Two South will be Woking Snooker Centre.

Both events will take place on Saturday 5 March, starting at 10.30am.

The north and south region has been split so that the qualifying players involved in the three north-west and four midlands events will go forward to play in Stage Two North.

Those involved in the six southern events will play in Stage Two South.

Qualifying players

As stated, each club was guaranteed two qualifying players for Stage Two.  In addition, Waterlooville Sports Bar gains two wild card places, as follows:

North region:

Breakers Snooker Club, Leicester – 2

Club 147, Leicester – 2

Elite Snooker Club, Preston – 2

George Scott Snooker Club, Liverpool – 2

Hollins Grove Conservative Club – 2

Q Bar, Walsall – 2

Stratford Sports Club, Stratford-upon-Avon – 2

South region:

Chandlers Ford Snooker Club, Eastleigh – 2

Fareham Snooker Club – 2

Frames Sports Bar – 2

Portslade Leisure Centre, Brighton – 2

Salisbury Snooker Club – 2

Waterlooville Sports Bar – 4

A full list of players – and the draws – for both the north and south regions will soon be on snookerscores.net

Format

The Stage Two events will involve round-robin groups, seeded with qualifier event winners, followed by knock-out matches.  All matches will be best-of-three.

One player from each event will go through to play each other at the National Finals Day in June 2022.

A reminder that the EPSB dress code will be in place for the Stage Two events.

Next Steps

The EPSB will be in contact with the relevant clubs and selected players to ensure they have full details of the Stage Two events.