The Excellent South West Snooker Academy

P.Mount, R.Graham, J.Ferguson and T.Griffiths (left to right)

The lovely and special snooker place from Gloucester (aka. the South West Snooker Academy) was crowned as Centre of Excellence by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, on Tuesday.

In the presence of snooker legend Terry Griffiths and Gloucester’s MP Richard Graham, the WPBSA’s Chairman Jason Ferguson was pleased to congratulate Paul Mount and his entire Pink Team for the outstanding job they’ve done for the past year and reward the SWSA by making it the first European Centre of Excellence.

WPBSA Chairman, Jason Ferguson said: “The SWSA is an outstanding facility and the investment Paul has made here, not just in financial terms, but in the commitment to snooker, far exceeds the standards that we require for a Centre of Excellence.
This facility is being used as a centre to train coaches. We're encouraging new coaches into the sport and we'll be using the coaches already here and training new ones. Having Terry Griffiths here is the icing on the cake - you couldn't have a better person on board.”

The boys visiting the snooker bar

A very well-deserved title for this terrific place where players can come and practice, get coaching lessons from the best (Terry Griffiths is actually the Director of Coaching) and even take part in a great variety of snooker competitions. 

Doesn’t really matter if we are talking about the Pink Ribbon Tournament, one of the Players Tour Championships, or even the inaugural European Junior Open Championship (that will be run with the European Billiards and Snooker Association), for the main thing here is that players from all around the world are more than welcome here.

Mr. Paul Mount added: “I think this gives us a lot of recognition around the world. We are the first WPBSA Centre of Excellence in Europe. We also host major events for World Snooker and it’s great to be having events here, but to be included in the WPBSA Vision for the future of the sport is very special for us.”

So, the future of snooker is definitely a “pink” one! Congratulations SWSA!!!