Thistle Snooker Academy

Introduction

A little Background..........

Stevie, through his many years of experience both as a player and coach can help you fulfill your potential. Coming "late" to the game aged 20, Stevie's main ambition was to one day play for his country. After many years of practice and playing on the SB&SA Scottish Rankings, and laterly on the Scottish Snooker National Rankings, Stevie has fulfilled that ambition and dream on many occassions. He has represented Scotland at World, European and Home Internationals in both the "Mens" & "Masters" competitions. He is one of Scotland's most capped International players and has qualified to play in every World and European event in the Masters section since turning 40 in October 2003.
Stevie stumbled upon Snooker following a freakish football injury. It was whilst receiving physiotherapy treatment for the injury that he was invited along for a game of Snooker by some of his team mates. Initially he declined, but accepted a lift into Glasgow by the lads as he was going to buy some records (Bruce Springsteen, Pat Bennetar, Laura Brannigan, Elkie Brooks etc!).
Whilst strolling in Glasgow's Argyle St precinct it began to rain and with no bus due for nearly an hour, Stevie headed up to Reardons Snooker Club, Glasgow to join his footballing friends.
Upon arrival, Stevie was invited to join in with the lads, enjoyed it immensely, fell in love with the game and the rest as they say "is history".

Stevie took out a membership that day and made many return journeys over the next few weeks to satisfy his desire to improve. Whilst speaking with some of the regulars, Michael Maguire, Kenny McIntosh, Jimmy McNellan, Billy Kelly to name but a few, Stevie was informed that Scottish Professional Mr Jim Donnelly was the resident Pro at the club and that he held Saturday morning group coaching classes.
Stevie immediately signed up and went along to Jim's classes - Success!
Lots of the games technique's and secrets were gleaned from Jim over the winter months and the following season Stevie broke into the Top 32 on the Scottish National rankings.
Jim and Stevie have remained firm lifelong friends.

In his thirst for further knowledge of the game, Stevie then went to see Mr Frank Callan - "The Guru" as he was known back then.
Frank was the coach of the most dominant player of that time, a certain Mr Steve Davis!
He was also coaching a young Liverpudlian named John Parrot who was highly rated in World Snooker at the time. Stevie's thoughts were that he had to get along and find out what it was that this guy Callan was teaching to the World's best players.
Stevie tracked down Frank Callan to the Concorde Hotel in Blackpool, and over the next year and a half Stevie made the journey to Blackpool every fortnight for coaching with Frank.
Frank's methods were a real eye opener, in such that it was a very simplistic but effective method of coaching the game. Using some of the knowledge geaned from Mr Callan, Stevie found himself in the Top 16 and was now seriously challenging for Pro-Am and Amateur events around the country.

Several year later Stevie then went to Mr Terry Griffiths for a few sessions, once again Terry opened up other ideas and lines of thoughts into how to play the game. Apart from the enjoyment of hanging on Terry's every word, Stevie also began to appreciate how much Terry is very different from his TV persona, in that he has a very dry, sarcastic and intelligent sense of humour that not only made the lessons very enjoyable, but also kept you very alert as you could miss the humour if you did not pay full attention to what was being said.
Different Class.

Following marriage in 1991, Stevie turned his attention from Snooker to family life, but the bug of wanting/having to play never diminished. So in order to satisfy this need and also to help nurture the game he loved dearly, Stevie built a Snooker Room extension onto his home and began playing and coaching from home. Not only was it a very relaxed and fun way of supplimenting family income, it also allowed Stevie the opportunity to coach players on a proper match condition Snooker Table, i.e. Steel Block Cushions, Match Cloth & Match Template Pockets.
It wasn't too long before word of mouth brought many Snooker enthusiasts of that time to Stevie's door, many of which have remained eager pupils - but more importantly, good friends in the World of Snooker.
A few years back, Stevie signed up for sitting his EBSA (European Billiards & Snooker Association) Coaching exam. The course had been set up in conjunction with Terry Griffiths and his son Wayne, who were adminstering the EBSA exams.
Stevie set of for Llaneli (Clanethly!) in Wales to attend the 2 Day course and exam. After the 48 hour intensive course, Stevie was the proud owner of a European Coaching certificate.
Stevie has since then went on to sit and pass the World Snooker Coaching Examination run by Mr Del Hill and Snooker Professional Mr Mike Dunn. Both Mike and Del took Stevie aside at the end of the WSA 3 day exam and congratulated him on producing "The best exam paper they have ever had returned since they had started running the WSA course".
High praise indeed, of which Stevie is very appreciative and thankful for.

When setting up the Scottish Snooker National Coaching Foundation, the Board of Scottish Snooker asked Stevie if he would take up the position of "Director of Coaching for Scotland", which he accepted. Stevie arranged a 2 day seminar and exam in August 2008 which produced 6 NGB Coaches for Scotland. There are now plans to run other NGB courses on an annual basis, which hopefully will produce more Official Scottish Coaches around the country who will go on to further "spread the gospel" and encourage more players to take up or progress further in the Scottish, European & World game.

Stevie is currently Scotlands Masters National Champion and No.1 Ranked Player
He is travelling to Hyderabad, India to represent Scotland at:
The 2009 IBSF World Snooker Championships

Anyone wishing to become a Scottish Snooker NGB coach can contact Stevie on

07814-150064

Or alternitively, use the form on the Contact page for further enquires.

Table

"Keep Yir Heid Doon and Enjoy the game! "

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