By Elliott West
Introduction
With the conclusion of Q School 2, some of the familiar faces who fell off the tour at the end of the last snooker season, have thankfully returned to the snooker fold. Q School can be a brutal qualification process and as we have seen, players can be in touching distance of qualification and fall at the last hurdle, Tony Knowles being an obvious recent example. Losing your tour card, not only shuts you off from the main tour but many of the players that are good friends and almost family. Without the buzz of live, competitive snooker, many have to turn their hand to other occupations, which can be extremely difficult and painful to have to do, especially when you have playing snooker since childhood.
Welcome Home
Alfie Burden returns to the tour after a brief absence. Dropping off the tour last season prompted Alfie to announce his retirement but a call from Jason Francis persuaded him to open his cue case again for the World Seniors qualifiers. Although he didn’t qualify, Burden got that buzz back to practice and we know, hard work pays off. Alfie got through Q School quite easily and was only really tested with one 4-3 win. He is a player who certainly deserves to win some titles before he retires for good and now is not the time for sure. He now makes this possible after a 4-1 victory over Michael Collumb.
Barry Pinches also returns to the fold. The ardent Norwich City fan, who prides himself in displaying his football colours on his waistcoat, had been a professional snooker player since 1989 and has made 150 centuries. Barry is no stranger to Q School and had to go through the same process in 2018 to get his card back. A likeable character whose absence would make the tour a duller place gets another chance to prove his worth for the next two years, thanks to a 4-3 win over Sanderson Lam. The Canary returns!
We also see the return of Michael Judge. Judge who lost his place on the tour ten years ago and who has subsequently been playing very well in World Seniors events, even picking up some silverware on the way. The 45-year-old Irishman who only dropped four frames across the entire Q School process won four matches with whitewashes and the former world number 24, sealed the deal with a 4-0 whitewash of Kuldesh Johal.
The other player who successfully made it through Q School in this round is Craig Steadman. Craig, who got as high as 66 in the rankings and reached the semi-finals of the 2021 Shoot-Out, at only 38 years old, is far too young to drop off the tour and with a nickname like ‘Rock-Steady’, deserved winning his deciding frame with Hammad Miah.
Summary
It is always great to see players regain their tour card and these four most recent players all deserve another crack at glory. However, with the qualification age still in the late thirties, it is disappointing not to see more new and raw talent getting their hold on one of these cards. Perhaps the tension and the enormity of the occasion got to them but there is still hope that eventually, these players will start to materialise on the tour via the Q School qualifiers.
