Teenager leaves rivals stunned as team with 'little hope' amazed

A teenager helped a Merseyside team make history against the odds. Gary Robinson runs the Merseyside County pool team, which is made up of members from across the region and is based at the PSD Sports Lounge in Bootle.

Merseyside hasn’t picked up a national title since 2018 and hopes weren’t too high after the qualifying rounds. The country has an A, B and C team, as well as a masters team for players over 50 years old.

Only the B and masters team qualified for the championships held in Norfolk last month. Expectations were lowered further when several players pulled out beforehand.

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Speaking to the ECHO, Gary, 56, from Wavertree, said: “We went down but unfortunately, because it was for six days and in Norfolk, some couldn't travel. They actually have a professional bookmaker who set odds before the tournament. We were so unfancied, they didn't even give a price for the B team.

“We were going on with no form and just managed to scrape through the qualifiers. We didn't have much hope. We were not fancied in the slightest. In the B team, there were 21 year-olds who were playing county pool for the first time.

“A funny thing was our debriefs after games. We were staying in Pontins but took ourselves away from the site and found a pub. We galvanised ourselves after we’d had a few drinks. The youngsters were drinking Coke of course. It was magical. We went into each game as underdogs. We did it with no professionals. You can have two on each team but we had none.”

Gary says the teams took each round “as a bonus” but they soon found themselves against a good team in Essex in the quarter finals. After beating them, they felt the “end was in sight”. A key player for them was 15-year-old Anthony Stenhouse who out-performed many seasoned pool players as they reached the final.

Gary said: “He is the standout player. His stats were pretty good anyway but to play in the final and win three out of three was amazing. You could see grown men, professionals, people who played it all, being beaten down by a young lad.”

The Merseyside B team met Lincolnshire in the final, who had won the tournament for the last six years. Amazingly, Merseyside defeated them 19-8. The masters team also won in their competition too. This is the first a Merseyside representative team have done the double (winning two national titles). Gary couldn’t believe what was happening.

Laughing, he said: “We had six matches on the last day, each lasting two hours. We started at 8.30am and finished at 10pm. Lincolnshire were beaten 19-8 in the final and they never lose by more than 10 frames. You should have seen their faces.

“The atmosphere was tremendous. We all got a payout which was £3,000 between the team. The last time Merseyside won the national title was 2018. To send two teams and both of them to win, it’s incredible. One guy only came at short notice called Jules Wilde. I think he won 22 out of 24 games which was just outstanding.”

Meanwhile, Gary thinks Anthony has a bright future ahead of him. He said: “As a player and a person, he’s great. He also plays at Sharks Pool Hall in Wirral. We have one guy there called Tom Jones. He started off at 14 playing for the county. Now he’s in the top 10 at 22. We can see in him what Tom was. He’s bouncing, he's lively. His performances earlier in the week, his standard wasn't as great. He was a bit sulky. The change in him when he started winning frames - honestly he was the best.”

Gary is just as proud with the masters team. He said: “We’ve done something we couldn't have dreamed of. Six masters have retired after this - it’s a bit of an exodus. It could be equalled but I don't think it will. The way it fell into place, you couldn't ask for a better time to step away.”

The celebrations for both teams will continue this week. Gary said: “We haven't come down yet. We have a WhatsApp group and the messages have been constant. There’s only 12 of us but the feeling of euphoria is unbelievable. Our home base is PSD in Bootle. They have kindly agreed to do a celebration for us this coming Sunday. They've been brilliant. They've sponsored us all year and now we can bring the trophy home.”