Claude Falkiner (died 1979) was an English player of

English billiards English billiards, called simply billiards in the UK and in many former British colonies, is a cue sport that combines the aspects of carom billiards and pool. Two (one white and one yellow) and a red are used. Each player or team uses a diffe ...

. He was runner-up in the professional championship in 1920 and 1922. He also entered the

1939 World Snooker Championship The 1939 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held at Thurston's Hall in London, England from 23 January to 4 March 1939. It was the thirteenth edition of the World Snooker Championship. Joe Davis retained the championship title tha ...

Biography

Claude Falkiner was born in

Featherstone Featherstone is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, two miles south-west of Pontefract. Historic counties of England, Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 2011 ...

, Yorkshire, on 11 July 1885. His father managed a

billiard hall A billiard hall, also known as a pool hall, snooker hall, pool room or pool parlour, is a place where people get together for playing cue sports such as pool, snooker or carom billiards. Such establishments commonly serve alcohol and often ha ...

South Kirkby South Kirkby is a town in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England which is governed locally by South Kirkby and Moorthorpe Town Council. The town forms half of the civil parish of South Kirkby and Moorthorpe. The parish has a populatio ...

, and Falkiner started playing

there when he was about 12. He worked in a coal mine from the ages of 14 to 17, whilst continuing to practive the game, and made his first break over 500 in 1907. Along with Tom Newman, Falkiner was one of the first players to develop play, saying that he had learnt it from a French player whilst in France during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. In 1920, he was runner-up to Willie Smith in the professional championship. The following year, he lost to the eventual champion Newman in the semi-finals, and in 1922 was runner up to Newman, who defeated him 16,000–15,167 in the final. In 1923 he lost in the semi-finals by 8,695–16,000 to Smith, and in 1924, he decided to tour overseas rather than enter the championship, and did not enter again until 1930. He introduced

Walter Lindrum Walter Albert Lindrum, Order of the British Empire, OBE (29 August 1898 – 30 July 1960), often known as Wally Lindrum, was an Australian professional player of English billiards who held the World Professional Billiards Championship from 1933 ...

to nursery cannons whilst playing him in Australia in 1924, a method which Lindrum, according to snooker historian

Clive Everton Clive Harold Everton (7 September 1937 – 27 September 2024) was an English sports commentator, journalist, author and professional snooker and English billiards player. He founded '' Snooker Scene'' magazine, which was first published (as ...

, would go on to use with "devastating effect." At the 1930 professional championship, Falkiner lost to defending champion

Joe Davis Joseph Davis (15 April 190110 July 1978) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s, and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game is ...

. He participated in the

1935/1936 Daily Mail Gold Cup The 1935/1936 Daily Mail Gold Cup was a professional billiards tournament sponsored by the ''Daily Mail''. With 5 wins Melbourne Inman won the Gold Cup, winning five of his six matches, ahead of Sidney Smith who had four wins. It was the second D ...

, finishing last after failing to win any of his six matches. After missing the professional championship for eight years, Falkiner entered again. He also took part in the

. In the Snooker Championship, his first competitive

cue sports Cue sports are a wide variety of Game of skill, games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a Baize, cloth-covered billiards table, table bounded by elastic bumpers known a ...

match in several years, he faced

Walter Donaldson Walter Donaldson may refer to: * Walter Donaldson (snooker player), (1907–1973) Scottish snooker player * Walter Donaldson (songwriter), (1893–1947) American songwriter {{human name disambiguation, Donaldson, Walter ...

. Falkiner took three of the five frames in the first session, the pair 5–5 after the first day. Donaldson won four of the five frames in both of the sessions on the second day to lead 13–7. On the final day Donaldson took a 16–8 winning lead and ended 21–10 ahead. The correspondent for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', whilst describing Donaldson as "a player of considerable skill", felt that Falkiner's lack of recent match experience contributed to his defeat. In the billiards championship, he lost in his first match, 6,545–11,157 to Sidney Smith. He died in Bournemouth in 1979, aged 95.

Reference section

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falkiner, Claude English players of English billiards 1885 births 1979 deaths Sportspeople from Featherstone