Superleague Pool Tables - A golden Era for Pool.

Superleague Pool Tables - Years ago when we were the manufacturers of the famous Superleague pool tables we were having great success with our sister companies in Spain ( HGM s.a ) and in France ( Superleague France ) where we were renting tables to bars and selling to other  coin machine operators.

So much so that we decided to organise an event called the 3 Nations Championships pitting the best players from each country against each other. The event was held each year with individual nations hosting the event.

All matches were played on 7ft Superleague pool tables using the UK small ball specifications which were as popular in France and Spain as in the UK.

HGM UK hosted the first pool event at the Novotel in Hammersmith , London and our operator customers, players and invited guests from the pool trade press  from the UK, France and Spain gathered for a 2 day informal  get together that was as much a thank you to everyone for contributing to the success we were all experiencing.

After a group dinner that evening the serious stuff started the next day culminating with the prize giving the following evening.

The play was competitive but played in a terrific spirit of comradeship. All the pool players wore bow ties and the colours of their country as did the referees.  A great two days

For the second event it was the turn of Superleague France to host the competition and this time the venue was the Lido Espace, next door to the famous Lido on the Champs- Elysees in Paris.

The UK party met at Manchester Airport and we had to do some fast talking to get one of the players on the flight after he forgot his passport. Anyway we arrived intact and I settled all our guests in the hotel before going out for a stroll on the Champs -Elysees with nine of them.

As the host of our party I took it upon myself to buy everyone a beer at a bar. I ordered 10 small lagers and was presented with a bill for 500 francs (pre euro) or the equivalent of £5 per glass. This was at a time when a full pint in the UK was only a £1. When I recounted this to my French colleagues they laughed when I told them the bar was called Fouquet’s which is apparently the most expensive bar in France. Needless to say we didn’t go there again.

The next day the pool event was due to start at 11am but we could not gain access to the venue until 8am the same morning. When we got in we could not believe the state of the place. There had been a private party the night before and the place was wrecked and looked like it had been ransacked.

We were told not to worry as an army of cleaners was due to arrive and to be fair they did and within an hour the place was spotless. All we had to do was off load 6 Superleague pool tables on the Champs-Elysees at rush hour!!  Anyway it was all right on the night and our guests who had a leisurely breakfast had no idea of our earlier traumas.

Once again all went well and set a new standard for HGM s.a to follow in Barcelona the next year.

The pool event in Spain was the most relaxed and was a great success with everyone who went still talking about it to this day. The venue was a hotel in the city centre close to the main railway station and not too far away from the Camp Nou stadium home of the Barcelona football club.

On the first night all the Superleague staff, players, operators and press wandered down Las Ramblas to another famous tourist attraction the fabulous Los Caracoles (The Snails) restaurant which serves great food in a unique noisy atmosphere.

Once again the pool event was a close encounter with the spoils being shared across all three nations but the biggest winner was the game of pool itself and it led the way to many of the international competitions that followed in the years following.

We arrived back in Manchester tired and weary but buoyed by the success of all three events during the peak period not only for Superleague pool tables but for pool in general.

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