The Welsh lady who snookered males for 64 years

“I’ve simply misplaced to a granny along with her arm in a plaster.”

Promising London novice Roger Brown arrived on the 1976 Pontins Snooker Championship stuffed with hope for a robust match.

However he was despatched packing within the first spherical by the aforementioned granny, Agnes Davies, a forgotten snooker legend from Saron, close to Ammanford in Carmarthenshire.

In a 64-year profession spanning from 1937 to 2001, Davies amassed greater than 20 rating titles in opposition to males, ladies and in combined doubles.

Born Agnes Morris in 1920, she is now being remembered with a purple plaque, commemorating outstanding ladies in Wales, on a single-table snooker corridor her father opened in a corrugated iron lean-to subsequent to their household residence.

Davies’ father opened a ramshackle snooker corridor to offer earnings for his household with compensation after contracting a lung illness referred to as silicosis whereas working within the coal mines.

Her son, Eiddon Davies, mentioned: “Mam was the youngest of six, so despite the fact that she’d wished to hold on along with her education, she needed to drop out and assist run the snooker corridor and their little store.

“When there have been no prospects she handed her time by enjoying on the desk, and have become fascinated with the sport.

“She was utterly self-taught and by the mid ’30s she may beat anybody in Saron.”

Inspired by fellow villagers, she gained the 1937 Welsh ladies’s championship at her first try, earlier than repeating the feat in 1938 and 1939.

In the identical yr of 1939, she additionally gained the British novice title – a de facto world championship on the time – and turning skilled in 1940, Agnes narrowly misplaced within the equal world closing.

Giving start to Eiddon in 1941, she thought she had hung up her cue however returned for extra success on the baize.

She gained the ladies’s world skilled title in 1949 at a glittering ceremony at London’s Leicester Sq., during which all the ladies competed in floor-length robes.

The trophy was introduced to her by actress Valerie Hobson, who would go on to develop into the spouse of MP John Profumo, who later turned embroiled in scandal.

Snooker hit the doldrums quickly after, however was revived within the Sixties by BBC Two commissioner David Attenborough, who used the game as a approach to promote the appearance of color TV.

“Within the ’70s the invites started to roll in once more, and the likes of Guinness, Coral and Pontins started holding tournaments with prize cash and free holidays and so forth,” Eiddon mentioned.

“In ’76 Mam broke her wrist vacuuming the steps, however as we might already paid for the week at Pontins Prestatyn she determined to compete anyway.”

It was right here she beat Brown and went on to fall simply earlier than the spherical of 16, the place well-known male gamers entered the combined match.

She would go on to assert the Pontins ladies’s title in 1982 and likewise turned world champion for her third and closing event in 1978, aged 58.

Her aggressive streak was not restricted to tournaments, her son mentioned.

“Even enjoying with us you possibly can inform she was a special, steely-eyed particular person as quickly as she leaned over the desk.

“I did not beat her till she was in her 80s, when she threw a strop and blustered ‘look, you wait till you have had a coronary heart assault. I’ve received angina, arthritis, and likewise received cataracts, so let’s have a look at how you will play then’.”

She was nonetheless competing for Wales as late as 1999 within the Residence Nations Championship, telling The Guardian it had helped her recover from the demise of her husband, Dick, three years earlier.

Agnes performed her closing season in 2001, within the Gwendraeth League. She died a decade later, aged 90.

Purple Plaques Wales honours excellent Welsh ladies in an identical method to blue plaques.

Chairwoman Sue Essex mentioned: “In frequent with most of the ladies who’re represented with Purple Plaques, Agnes was champion amongst women and men – however her glittering profession is little identified.

“She beat each men and women at their very own recreation, as soon as successful a recreation along with her wrist in plaster and beating a person a number of a long time her junior.

“We take our hats off to her achievements.”