The 1936 Daily Mail Gold Cup was a professional snooker tournament sponsored by the '' Daily Mail''. Despite giving a handicap to all the other players, the cup was won by

Joe Davis Joseph Davis (15 April 190110 July 1978) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s, and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game is ...

who won all his five matches. The Australian

Horace Lindrum Horace Lindrum (born Horace Norman William Morrell, 15 January 1912 – 20 June 1974) was an Australian professional snooker and billiards player. A dominant snooker player in Australia, he lived in Britain for long periods and played in the maj ...

finished in second place in the final table. It was the third Daily Mail Gold Cup tournament, although the first two had been

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions ...

events. The Daily Mail Gold Cup ran from 1935 to 1940.

Format

The third event was a round-robin snooker tournament and was played from 28 September to 19 December 1936. Most of the matches were played at

Thurston's Hall Thurston's Hall was a major billiards and snooker venue between 1901 and 1955 in Leicester Square, London. The hall was in the premises of Thurston & Co. Ltd which relocated to Leicester Square in 1901. The building was bombed in 1940 and reopen ...

in London. There were 6 competitors and a total of 15 matches. Each match was of 71 frames, lasting six days (Monday to Saturday) and consisted of two sessions of six frames each day (five on the final evening). The 6 competitors were

, Sidney Smith, Willie Smith, Tom Newman and

Melbourne Inman Melbourne Inman (15 July 1878 – 11 August 1951) was the World Billiards Champion in 1908, 1909, 1912, 1913, 1914 and 1919. Biography He was born on 15 July 1878 in Twickenham, Middlesex, England, to Robert Withy Inman (1844–1919) and Annie ...

. The event had two handicapping aspects. Each player had a handicap which was given in each frame. The handicaps were: Joe Davis - 0, Horace Lindrum - 7, Sidney Smith - 14, Willie Smith - 18, Tom Newman - 24, Melbourne Inman - 35. In addition there was a sealed handicap for each match. This was an additional adjustment to be made after each match (a number of frames) which was kept secret until the end of the tournament. It seems that the handicapper decided to make no adjustments since the final table simply reflects the actual results.

Results

The cup was won by

who won all his five matches.

, an aging billiards player, struggled, despite receiving the most generous handicap. The other four players were very close in the final table. Willie Smith won a prize for the most frames won in a match, 48 in his match against

. During the tournament Sidney Smith scored a record 133 break, becoming the first player to make a total clearance in snooker competition. It happened in his match against Tom Newman on 11 December. Smith was conceding 10 points to Newman in this match and went further behind when he went in-off a red. Smith then made the total clearance which included the 15 reds with six blacks, six pinks, two blues, a green and then all the colours. The clearance was in frame 58 of the match, the fourth of the evening session. Smith won the prize for the highest break of the tournament. Table The positions were determined firstly by the number of matches won (MW) and, in the event of a tie, the number of frames won (FW).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daily Mail Gold Cup

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...

1936 in snooker 1936 in English sport 1936 sports events in London