I'm hoping someone comes with a video, also.
I was hill-hill once, the 'bubble' match for decent prize money...
..the poor guy made a ball on the break, pulled a Johnny Archer....
..picked up some lint, and fouled the cue-ball....
...every time I see the guy, I offer him a beer.
I started a thread on this before seeing this thread buried on page 3. Oops. I'll just paste my post in, in event anyone subscribed to this thread and may miss my thread. Sorry for the double posting.
I was table side for the Alex vs Peach match. Daryl had come back to tie it at the hill. What a match! Prior to him breaking he walks over to Alex and gives him a knuckle-tap and a "Good Luck". Nice sportsmanship!
He proceeds to break. The cue ball comes running back to him, heading towards the corner. @ 3 diamonds away from the corner, Daryl wrist flipped his cue and tapped the cue ball, changing its course. Alex jumps up and says something. Daryl's reaction was a bit peculiar to me, almost like he didn't know he'd done anything. He goes over to the seated spectating Phil Burford and apparently asked him what happened. I couldn't hear exactly what Phil said but it was obvious it was along the lines of "mate, you hit the cue ball".
Daryl then walks out of the room and gets Ken Schuman, who comes in. Alex starts to explain what he saw, but Daryl was off to the side with his head down. Ken says "Daryl, I need you in this discussion to verify what happened." Alex recounts the incident and Ken quickly proclaims "This is a foul, ball in hand".
Alex promptly runs out the table and wins the match.
I felt soooo bad for Daryl. I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose but instead it was an impulsive, almost instinctive reaction. I can't even imagine how long this will torment Daryl. What a horrible way to lose a match!
And FWIW, I don't think the cue ball was going to scratch. It had so much side spin and I thought it was going to hit the long rail just above the corner pocket. But having hit it a full 3 diamonds away, we will never know.
