Isle of Man snooker club celebrates centenary year

St Olave’s Snooker Club, based at the far end of Hanley Villas in Ramsey, has been celebrating its centenary this year.

Back in 1926 the club was known as St Olave’s Institute and has used various venues in the town over the years.

The current building has been showing its age of late and in a speech to launch the official re-opening following refurbishment, chairman Ollie Byrne said that over the last two years the club had raised £50,000 to deliver a complete transformation, primarily thanks to funding via the Manx Lottery Trust and Hansard.

Interior walls were replaced, a new ceiling and flooring, new men's and women's toilets, plus wheelchair access, with the club wishing to encourage more members from the wider community to benefit from the snooker club.

Ollie thanked everyone who made this possible, in particular Richard Green and Alan Donnelly for attending on many occasions, painting and cleaning, plus John Bolton for donating the carpet and Mike Doherty in helping with the grant application.

Special thanks and a gift was presented to club treasurer Paul Smyth for putting in a huge amount of time into the renovation project, plus the day-to-day running of the club over many years.

Smyth then continued by saying how throughout this season, club members had been competing for the Riversdale Cup, the history of which goes right back to 1926 when the Misses Rudd of Riversdale, Ramsey donated the trophy, albeit originally for billiards.

The 2026 winner was Graham Cussell and the runner-up was Donnelly who received £100 and £50 respectively. He also mentioned that a time capsule, containing snooker memorabilia, had been incorporated into the structure of the building.

The highlight of the evening was the naming of the club’s snooker room, now to be known as the Willie Kennish Lounge. Speeches were then made regarding Willie, who passed away in 2016, firstly from retired Isle of Man Billiards and Snooker Association chairman Ken Kinrade.

He listed many of Willie’s achievements that placed him ‘at the very top of Manx snooker’, he won island championship in consecutive years and but for taking a break from the game he’d have won many more.

Over three seasons he went 80 matches undefeated and represented the island at world amateur level, performing very well.

With Willie’s family and friends in attendance, his younger brother John then spoke of how Willie started playing in his early teens and remembered watching him play a few ‘exhibition’ frames with his friend, another legend of Isle of Man snooker, Mike Colquitt, when the club moved to its current premises in 1987.

Although Willie played league snooker for other clubs over the years, St Olave’s was always his home. He made the game look easy and must have made countless centuries on each of the three tables in the room.

John finished what was an excellent and heartfelt speech by saying how ‘humble and quiet’ Willie was and would no doubt be embarrassed in having the room named after him.

But John thought it was very fitting and thanked Paul, Ollie and the club for honouring Willie in this way and Paul for organising the opening ceremony.

For membership enquiries at St Olave’s Snooker Club, contact Smyth on 256436.

MIKE CROOK