Yate teenager aiming to be country's fastest pool player

When he steps up to the pool table, Craig Chiddy's opponents generally take a step back. They know the match isn't likely to last very long.

The Yate teenager has just been crowned the fastest under-18 pool player in the country.

He can clear the table in the time it would take the rest of us to chalk up.

As he steps in from the rain and begins to assemble his cue at his local pool club, Riley's in East Walk, Yate, he seems like an ordinary 17-year-old, lacking in energy, and grumbling about having to get out of bed before midday.

But when he aims his cue towards the waiting pool balls, his whole body seems to change pace.

Suddenly he is a flurry of activity. Before you really know what has happened, he's skipped around the pool table a few times, and cleared every last ball, finishing neatly with the black.

He looks at his watch and frowns at the fact that it has taken him 50 seconds – he won the title with a time of 30.5 seconds but says he needs to warm up to that.

Craig says the title came after a few weeks of intense practice.

"I've been playing pool for just four years," he says. "I used to be more into football, but I came along to the pool club with a friend who played, and I was immediately hooked.

"I've put hundreds of hours of practice in since then but, to be honest, I was pretty good straightaway. I think I just had a natural talent for it."

Craig, who is a sports studies student at Filton College, says he heard about the competition and thought he should give it a try.

He says: "It was run by Riley's snooker clubs across the country. There were around 4,000 people taking part. I'd never done anything like this before, because I'd always just played the normal two-player game of pool. But I realised that I had the speed to give it a good go.

"The competition ran over a number of weeks and I kept getting my time down. It was very exciting and for the majority of the time I was at the top of the leader board for the whole country."

Craig, who also plays pool for the Bristol County Pool Club, peaked with a clearance time of 30.5 seconds during the very last leg of the competition.

He says: "Everything just fell perfectly for me on that attempt.

"The break was just right, and the balls ended up in helpful positions."

But cruelly, on the same evening, 21-year-old John Burt of Watford, managed a time of 29.09 – a time that snatched victory and the prize of a holiday in Las Vegas from Craig's clutches.

"I was gutted," Craig says. "After weeks being at the top of the leader board, he came along from nowhere and beat my time by less than a second.

"But I was still the fastest among the under-18s, so that was something of which to be proud. I think if I put in plenty of practice over the next 12 months, I could come back next year with an even better time – I'm convinced that if everything fell well for me, I could clear a table in 27 seconds."

Craig's current record of 30.5 seconds is still a considerable achievement. When world-famous snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan gave it a try, he only managed a time of one minute and six seconds.

Mark Bouchier, manager of Riley's, says everyone at the club is proud of Craig's achievement.

Mark says: "He did brilliantly throughout the competition. Some of it is clearly the luck of the break, but then you need to have the speed and skill to convert that into a quick table clearance. Craig has a real talent."