A Legend in his Lifetime....
ALF HOBBS, born 12th January 1914, passed away Sunday, 16th January 2005.
Alf Hobbs in 1977 when he beat Tony Aldridge 500 - 206 in the final of the Southampton Senior Billiards.
His love for the three ball game, has extended from the age of 12 through to just after his 90th birthday, covering major events in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton.
Although his first love has been billiards, Alf gained a notable success in snooker, the remarkable achievement of winning the Southampton Social Clubs Mintrum Cup (Snooker Individual) at the age of 65.
In his youth, he would play football, scoring goals in the Portsmouth North End League. His working life prior to the second World War took him to a position of supervisor in the Portsmouth Dockyard and he won their annual billiards trophy in 1937, 1938 and 1939. A solid performance when you consider the total workforce was in excess of 20,000.
In the Portsmouth Billiards League Alf took the Championship five times, scoring a hat trick of wins in ‘36, ’37 and 38. Making many breaks of 100 +, his highest being 192.
At this time, he qualified on four occasions for the English Amateur Billiards, and likewise for the English Amateur Snooker, rubbing shoulders with the best in the South of England.
Handicap Billiards was not Alf’s favourite challenge, but he did win the Portsmouth League Billiards Handicap twice. In the snooker sections of the Portsmouth League, he triumphed 3 times, won the Pairs championship twice and the Champion of Champions once.
Moving to Southampton in the 50’s, Alf made his presence felt winning the Southampton Billiards Individual on no less than 15 occasions.
In latter years, Alf went on to be Hampshire Billiard Champion at the age of 70, and in the same season won the Southampton Snooker Individual knockout run by the Billiard League. Under this banner, he was also successful in the Snooker Pairs knockouts, winning on six occasions.
More recently, Alf had suffered with his health and in 2001, fractured his wrist in a fall, but the old soldier had bounced back from those misfortunes and still performed his beloved billiards at the grand age of 90 (scoring a 54 break in his final season), for the 147 Executive Club in a team captained by local referee, Sid Hunt.