ABC KINGS LYNN

The Maltings Q Club, Kings Lynn (Sunday 14th February 1999)

Paul Bennett made it three in a row when he won the Kings Lynn
ABC in a repeat of the Newmarket final.

Lee Lagan started the competition in top gear, putting in breaks of 98,
87, 67 and 59 in his first round match against Derick Townend. This
established the competition´s highest aggregate score of 513 for the
one hour games. In the same round, Darren Kell made breaks of 113,
110 and 72 to win easily against M. Phillips. James Chambers also
made a century, but his 103 was not enough, as Phil Welham countered
with breaks of 84 and 72 to win by 73 points. Despite their good starts,
both Lagan and Kell failed to survive the second round as they were
defeated by Peter Shelley and Stephen Crosland respectively.

The meeting of these latter two players in the quarter-finals resulted in
a comfortable win for Crosland who made three breaks over 50. Bill
Andress found his touch to rattle up a total of 448 in his match against
Ian Dennis. In the course of this, he fell just short of the century—
making a break of 96. Meanwhile, Paul Bennett, who was proceeding
with comfortable if unspectacular victories, registered a break of 84 in
easing past Phil Welham, while Tony Keeling completed the semifinal
line-up.

In the Semi´s, the consistency of Crosland proved too much for Bill
Andress as he had to concede defeat by a 129 point margin. This set up
a second consecutive final against Paul Bennett, who returned to top
form with a break of 134 in a 431 winning total against Tony Keeling.
If Crosland had felt aggrieved at victory being snatched from his grasp
by Bennett at the Newmarket event, he was very soon given the prospect
of another defeat as Bennett sailed into a commanding lead, running in
a break of 142, which was the highest of the competition. To his credit,
Crosland fought his way back into the match, but was unable to close
the gap sufficiently as Bennett held on to win by 56 points.

After losing out to Peter Shelley in the first round of the main
competition, Gary Rogers took the Plate in some style, making a break
of 110 in defeating Joe Bird 311-187 in the one-hour final.