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The Brain Injury Foundation, which supports brain injury survivors and their carers, was invited by the Northern Ireland Special Pool Association to enter their annual Tournament which is held every year in the Lodge Hotel Coleraine. The tournament runs over three days and attracts several hundred competitors from all over Northern Ireland who take part in competitions suited to their abilities. There are groups for people with intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities and so on. There is no defined category for brain injury but the organisers are anxious to open the tournament to brain injury survivors and so Frank Dolaghan and Anthony Murphy of BIF’s committee met Trevor Harte and Pauline Lynch, Chair and Secretary of the NI Special Pool Association, in Belfast to discuss how this might happen and they invited BIF to be the first team of brain injury survivors to take part.
Trevor and Pauline then came to Camlough to meet some of our players and discuss the format and rules and we were able to enter a team in the All Abilities section.
The Tournament took place 23 November and our team of 7 players, managed by Frank Dolaghan, travelled up to Coleraine, courtesy of Newry and Mourne Community Transport, the night before to participate. The team included Paul Rowland, Shane Sands and Tony Dolaghan from Newry, Patrick Hughes from Bessbrook, Pearse Rafferty and Daniel McKeown from Armagh and Arnold Carville from Tandragee.
Excitement was very high and increased greatly when the team saw for the first time the 18 pool tables laid out in the hotel ballroom for the competition. Going up overnight also gave us a chance to get in some practice on the new tables which were deemed by our players to be much faster than our own table.
The main competition was a singles knockout and losers from the first and second rounds were then entered into a parallel Plate competition so the two competitions went on in tandem.
Most of the BIF team of 7 got through the first round but the second and third rounds saw all but one of our team knocked out. Tony Dolaghan went through to the semi-final where sadly he lost over 5 frames to the reigning champion, a physically disabled player from Ballyclare, Rab Sinclair. We later discovered he has won the championship 14 times so there was no shame in Tony being eliminated.
Several of our team progressed through the Plate competition and we were delighted that our committee member, Arnold Carville from Clare near Tandragee came out an easy winner.
The BIF team really enjoyed this first competitive venture and are eagerly looking forward to next year. The attitude now is “We know what we are up against so practice, practice.” The team practice every Wednesday night in our pub with no beer where they also play friendly matches against some local pool teams from the Newry league.
Frank Dolaghan said “We were thoroughly impressed by the Tournament. The Lodge Hotel is an ideal venue for people with disabilities and the staff and food were super. The tournament was extremely professionally organised by a small team of volunteers led by Trevor and Pauline and they and their colleagues made BIF warmly welcome. Pool is an integral part of our activities in BIF as it makes a huge contribution to reducing loneliness and building self-confidence among our survivors. Both the Special Pool Association and BIF are now going to plan how more brain injury survivors can get involved in the Tournament and in the Northern Ireland league.”
BIF would be delighted to play any local teams in a friendly any Wednesday evening over the coming months and would also be interested in discussing sponsorship opportunities with local organisations. Frank Dolaghan can be contacted on 07740823713.
