![]() 1 in bar billiards, and many more trophies in the years ahead – 2025, 2029, 2033……. We wish Mark all the best for his future as the World No. A bit of Dutch courage is certainly needed for that! “Ĭoincidentally, his wins have come in four-year intervals (2013, 2017, 2021) “and the President of Jersey Bar Billiards told everyone it probably wasn’t worth turning up in 2025 as they knew who would win.” Becoming world champion is not all celebration though, as he explains, “ The worst part of being champion is the tradition that, after giving a winner’s acceptance speech, you have to get up and sing karaoke. Bar billiards is a form of billiards which was possibly initially based on the traditional game of bagatelle. Mark received an engraved decanter for his success this year – another trophy to add to the cabinet of glassware he has at home – and a very special miniature billiard table trophy that is presented to the winner, and on which his name now features three times. ![]() “In the final I beat a Guernsey-based player called Trevor Gallienne, who had won the Championship three times before.” and amazing to win for a third time” he says. T-shirts, posters, stickers, home decor, and more, designed and sold by independent artists. “ The billiard table we use at the Oracle Club is mine, and if I’d realised how long we would lockdown for I probably would have taken it home for practice, to give me something to do!” Inevitably, last year’s World Championship was cancelled but this November he joined 108 other competitors on Jersey for the 2021 tournament, and won again. High quality Bar Billiards-inspired gifts and merchandise. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020 and the UK went in to lockdown, Mark was unable to play. I also won the pairs tournament at the 2016 World Championship with the England Captain.” “That was quite a match” he says, “ and to beat one of the game’s greatest players meant a lot. In 2017 he beat Kevin Tunstall, who holds the record for the most Championship wins (6), to win his second title and achieved the highest ever break in a final, scoring 20,760 points by playing the table out. Six years later, and he was celebrating the first of three World Championship wins. One of the England players spotted my potential and encouraged me to keep competing.” Mark says, “I first played at the World Championship in 2007 and got to the semi-final in the pairs competition and the plate competition (for those who get knocked out in the first-round of the main tournament). The World Championship, which was created in 1981, is hosted on Jersey each November. Since then they’ve played at a number of pubs and clubs around Oxford and are now based at the Oracle Snooker Club in Abingdon, where they spend hours practicing and competing in local and county leagues, plus national tournaments. The pub didn’t have a billiard table but the two men pulled a team together and found a home at another local – the Tandem. ![]() Mark started play bar billiards back in 2004, encouraged by a friend at his local pub in Kennington, who taught him the game. Mark Trafford, Bar Billiards World Champion, with his trophies
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