Soirée: The 4th Bill Werbeniuk Pool Shoot-Out

Soirée: The 4th Bill Werbeniuk Pool Shoot-Out

The 4th Bradford Ukrainian Youth Association/Club Bill Werbeniuk Pool Shoot-Out.

Martin Favell is the current Champion, can he be the first man to defend his crown?

The tournament be held on Friday 10th March and is free to all. There is no need to book, just turn up on the night and try your chances against the best in Bradford!

The competition is named after Canadian Snooker and Pool legend "Big Bill Werbeniuk".

William Werbeniuk was born on 14 January 1947 in Winnipeg. His grandfather was born in Ukraine. He began playing snooker as a child in his father's pool hall, Pop's Billiards, and spent his formative years, often with his fellow countryman Cliff Thorburn, travelling across North America playing pool for money.

His playing record included an 8–9 quarter-final loss to John Pulman in the 1975 Canadian Open and last 8 places in the 1978 and 1979 World Championships to Ray Reardon and John Virgo respectively. He did reach the semi-finals of the UK Championships (when it open to UK based residents) but lost to the reigning World champion Terry Griffiths 3–9. He suffered a third World quarter-final loss to Reardon in 1981 by 10–13 but reached his first major final in 1983 before being beaten by Steve Davis 5–9. Werbeniuk again reached the quarter-finals of the World Championships, in the same year, losing to Alex Higgins 11–13 and reached his second major final in the summer, losing to compatriot Cliff Thorburn 3–7 in the Winfield Masters in Australia.

Werbeniuk was noted for the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed before and during matches – between 30 and 50 pints of lager per day. He said that he generally drank around six pints of lager before a match and then one pint for each frame. He said he did this to counteract a familial benign essential tremor.[this quote needs a citation] Later in his career he also took propranolol, a beta blocker to cope with the effects of his alcohol consumption on his heart.

Some of Werbeniuk's most famous feats of drinking include: 76 cans of lager during a game with John Spencer in Australia in the 1970s; 43 pints of lager in a snooker match/drinking contest against Scotsman Eddie Sinclair in which, after Sinclair had passed out following his 42nd pint, Werbeniuk was reported to say "I'm away to the bar now for a proper drink"; 28 pints of lager and 16 whiskies over the course of 11 frames during a match against Nigel Bond, in January 1990 – after which Werbeniuk then consumed an entire bottle of Scotch to "drown his sorrows" after losing the match.