Saturday 8th August saw the eagerly anticipated first event on the newly formed Darkside Promotions calendar.

The main event featured Mark Gray and Phil Burford on the Cuesport TV table and Craig Dixon and Jason Howard on the adjacent table, however these race-to-30 match ups did not start until around 10pm after the conclusion of the undercard matches.

On the Cuesport TV table, Andy Appleton came up against rising star Louis Clarke in a race-to-21 9 ball contest for a pot of £700. Appleton took a very early lead and until Clarke took a comfort break at 8-2 looked to be in control. Louis fought back hard and managed to get within 1 frame of Appleton only to undo all of his hard work.

Once Appleton reached the hill it looked a foregone conclusion and he eventually won the match 21-17.

On table two local lad Ben Moore did a demolition job on Luke Rollison with a 21-4 victory, Moore a newly promoted player to the GB9 Pro Cup this season looked in complete control throughout and will no doubt step up to the plate in subsequent matches.

The Main Event

After the conclusion of the Appleton v Clarke game the main event started, at around 10pm. It was always going to be a late start and with a race-to-30 racks of ten ball a late finish was also on the cards.

Phil Burford, the European Junior 9-ball Champion, took the first rack but it then went the way of the more experienced Mark Gray. Gray went into a commanding lead. During the middle of the match Mark started to look jaded and Phil somehow responded and it led to a very tense stage where Mark had led 19-13 only for Phil to comeback to 19-17.

Unfortunately for the young star it was as close as he got. As the match went into the small hours Mark Gray found another gear and finally rounded out the match 30-19 at approximately 3.10am.

On table two we saw probably the best match of the whole night, Jason Howard cam back from an 8 rack deficit to beat Craig Dixon 30-29.

The feedback from the event was very positive and the buzz will be massive in the lead up to the next event. Videos from this event will be available shortly at Cuesport TV.