'Voice of snooker', Clive Everton speaks out at closure of legendary club
Published: 17 February 2011
by TOM FOOT
COMMENTATOR Clive Everton – known to millions as the BBC’s “voice of snooker” – has paid tribute to Camden Snooker Club after it closed for good.
Mr Everton recalled the “great blokes” John Lazarus and Tony Samis who set up the club during the sport’s 1980s TV boom. The borough’s cue aces said farewell to the club in Delancey Street during a special “End Game” party on Sunday.
Its lease has expired and will not be renewed, managers said on Sunday, and demolition work could begin before the end of the month.
It is the third snooker club to close in Camden in the past three years after Archway and Kentish Town. Now just the King’s Cross “Hurricane Room” and Kilburn “Poolcrest” remain.
Mr Everton, who left the BBC in 2009 after more than 30 years commentating on prime-time TV, said: “If the future of the game is to be secure it is vital that there are pleasant clubs for people to play in. The clubs that are surviving right now are the ones that are owner-run. The sad truth is that a lot of property owners are finding more profitable uses for their properties.”
He added: “John and Tony were good friends of mine and great blokes. They set the club up because they wanted to spend time with snooker people, it wasn’t to make huge profits.”
Club legend Alfred “John” Meadows, 81, said: “I’ve enjoyed every day here. I cleaned the tables and helped run the place.
“I really don’t know what I’m going to do now – I’ll probably just stay at home.”
Mr Meadows, a former steeplejack and bridge-builder who lives in Oakley Square, Mornington Crescent, added: “What really gets me is what’s going to happen to all the young people who come and use this place.”
With a strict silence policy and tables with daunting professional-sized pockets, Camden Snooker drew talents including nine-times world champion Stephen Hendry and BBC commentator and trick-shot master John Virgo, who ran fundraising nights at the club until last year.
“You will never get a club like this again,” said club member Lee Paul Bovis, 29. “I think there’s still scope for a proper club round here, a trouser and shirt place, maybe £30 membership, that sort of thing.”
Built in the 1880s as a public hall, the building was converted in 1903 for roller-skating and opened as Camden’s first cinema – The Dara and later The Fan – in 1908. English Heritage has deemed Camden Snooker Club to be of “historical and archaeological” interest.
The site has been at the centre of a long-running planning row that is also threatening the Crown and Goose pub next door.
Developers DE and J Levy won permission to knock down the buildings after winning a planning appeal in 2008.
Regulars at the Crown and Goose celebrated last month after Camden councillors rejected an application to build luxury flats on the site.
But the application to demolish could stand, if work begins by the end of February.
Gordon MacQueen, co-chairman of Camden Town Conservation Area Advisory Committee, said: “They have a deadline until February 28 and if they can show they have started work then their old application stands, otherwise they will have to reapply.”