Teenage pals on cue for top pool trophy
Fourteen-year-old Lorne McConnachie attends Wellington School in Ayr and team-mate Stuart McCulloch – just shy of 13 – is a pupil at Carrick Academy. Both live in Maybole.
The third team member, Jordan Kean, is from Dumfries.
The victory is all the more impressive because Lorne has a serious visual impairment.
The young pool ace was born prematurely and had to undergo repeated laser surgery on his eyes as an infant to save some of his vision.
He now wears special contact lenses and says: "When I take them out at night, I can't actually see."
Lorne, whose mum and step-dad run the Cassillis Hotel, can't remember exactly when he picked up his first cue.
"I've always lived in a hotel, so I've always played pool!" says the young champ, whose condition has never got in the way of his passion for eight-ball pool - although he can't see if two balls are touching, so when that happens someone needs to tell him so he can play away from it.
Lorne likes golf too and has shown real ability in the sport, but it's more difficult because his distance vision is limited.
"It's hard to see where the ball has gone," he joked, "a white or yellow ball on grass can easily be mistaken for a daisy!"
Stuart described how he and Lorne met. He said: "My dad took me to the pub to watch football and I met Lorne. We started playing pool together about three years ago."
Then, about two years ago, Lorne's mum Kirsteen took him to trials at Rutherglen in Glasgow, where Lorne was chosen to go down to Bridlington to play pool for Scotland in the Under-16s.
At Bridlington's Leisure World on the 31st of March, Lorne, Stuart and Jordan competed against up-and-coming teams from Ireland, Wales, England and other parts of Scotland for trophies and cash prizes.
They trounced an Irish team 5-1, a Welsh team 5-2 and a Scottish team from Glasgow and Inverness 5-1 before beating three 15-year-old Glasgow lads 5-1 in the final round. It was Stuart's first big tournament.
"I was happy as anything when we won it," he said. "I wanted to scream – Lorne screamed for me!"
Both want to carry on playing pool and are looking forward to their next championship, although they aren't talking about going professional. Stuart says he wants to be a car mechanic some day and dreams of driving a Ferrari.
Lorne, on the other hand, is aiming to be a stockbroker. One suspects he has already invested his winnings from Bridlington.
But it's not all fun and games, as real discipline is required to play to such a high standard. As step-dad Niven Adams nods approvingly, Lorne says: "It doesn't happen overnight. You've got to put the hours in."
"I love practising," adds Stuart. "But when you play badly, you don't give up. You just keep trying and trying."
And when it comes to competing "you forget about everything else, homework, your life. You just concentrate on winning." o you really need to print this email?
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Last Updated:
17 April 2008 4:42 PM
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Source:
n/a
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Location:
Girvan, Scotland