Superleague Pool Tables - European National Pool Tournament

Superleague Pool Tables - A golden Era for Pool.

Superleague Pool Tables—Years ago, when we manufactured the famous Superleague pool tables, we had great success with our sister companies in Spain (HGM s.a) and France (Superleague France), where we rented tables to bars and sold them to other coin machine operators.

So much so that we decided to organise an event called the 3 Nations Championships, pitting the best players from each country against each other. The event was held each year, with individual nations hosting it.

All matches were played on 7ft Superleague pool tables using the UK small ball specifications, which were as popular in France and Spain as in the UK.

HGM UK hosted the first pool event at the Novotel in Hammersmith, London. Our operator customers, players, and invited guests from the pool trade press from the UK, France, and Spain gathered for a two-day informal get-together that was as much a thank you to everyone for contributing to the success we were all experiencing.

After a group dinner that evening, the serious stuff started the next day, culminating in the prize-giving the following evening.

The play was competitive but played in a terrific spirit of comradeship. All the pool players wore bow ties and their country's colours, as did the referees. It was a great two days.

For the second event, it was the turn of Superleague France to host the competition, and this time, the venue was the Lido Espace, next door to the famous Lido on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

The UK party met at Manchester Airport, and we had to do some fast talking to get one of the players on the flight after he forgot his passport. Anyway, we arrived intact, and I settled all our guests in the hotel before going out for a stroll on the Champs-Elysees with nine of them.

As the host of our party, I bought everyone a beer at a bar. I ordered ten small lagers and was presented with a bill for 500 francs (pre-euro), or the equivalent of £5 per glass. This was when a whole pint in the UK was only £1. When I recounted this to my French colleagues, they laughed when I told them the bar was called Fouquet’s, which is apparently the most expensive bar in France. Needless to say, we didn’t go there again.

The next day, the pool event was due to start at 11 a.m., but we could only gain access to the venue at 8 a.m. the same morning. When we got in, we could not believe the state of the place. There had been a private party the night before, and the place was wrecked and looked like it had been ransacked.

We were told not to worry, as an army of cleaners was due to arrive. To be fair, they did, and within an hour, the place was spotless. All we had to do was offload 6 Superleague pool tables on the Champs-Elysees at rush hour!!  Anyway, it was all right on the night, and our guests who had a leisurely breakfast had no idea of our earlier traumas.

 Once again, everything went well, setting a new standard for HGM s.a. to follow in Barcelona the next year.
 
The pool event in Spain was the most relaxed and was a great success, with everyone still talking about it. The venue was a hotel in the city centre close to the central railway station and near the Camp Nou stadium, home of the Barcelona football club.
 
On the first night, all the Superleague staff, players, operators and press wandered down Las Ramblas to another famous tourist attraction, the fabulous Los Caracoles (The Snails) restaurant, which serves excellent food in a unique noisy atmosphere.
 
Once again, the pool event was a testament to our shared success, with the spoils being shared across all three nations. The biggest winner, however, was the game of pool itself, paving the way for the many international competitions that followed in the years to come.
 
As we arrived back in Manchester, we were undoubtedly tired and weary. However, our spirits were high, buoyed by the resounding success of all three events during the peak period, not just for Superleague pool tables but for the sport of pool in general.