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WWW Snooker InformationContents
Welcome!
About WWW SnookerDisclaimerThis page in no way represents the University of Oslo or the Departments of Informatics. WWW Snooker is also not a product or property of the WPBSA or other organizations/companies. It is a private initiative run on a strictly voluntarily basis.What's available?The stuff has been divided into five groups of material:
GuideHelping you too find your way around the site.
ReferencesHow many points for the blue? Where is the WPBSA located? Are there any cue manufacturers on the Net?
The ActionScanning the globe for the latest results and rankings.
InteractivitiesJoin in!
EtceteraThe rest ...
HistoryIn the early nineties I was constantly searching for snooker information on the Internet, but there was hardly any available. I was considering starting my own snooker site for a long time, but I didn't wake up before I found Matt Braithwaite's (now defunct) "World Snooker Archive" in November 1994. That got me going! Matt (thejaws@usa.net) went on to manage the RileyNet site, but has now moved on to other projects. In the beginning there wasn't much on the site, mostly links to the very few snooker pages out there. From December 1994 I started covering the major snooker events. I could do this because of the results I received from Jonas Ödman (d94-jod@nada.kth.se). Early on there was a set of the BCA snooker rules on the site, but I later had to remove them because I received new information on the copyright restrictions. I have never published the WPBSA rules as that is not allowed. Jari Kokko (jkokko@netscape.net) and I have been planning to contact the WPBSA for years, but we have never gotten around to do it. The Fountain, by Richard Fountain was started in August 1995. Richard is an ex snooker coach and used to be the manager of Mark King. January, 1996 saw the birth of the "High Break List for Netters", a chance for surfing snooker players to register their top tournament breaks and be able to compare with others. In March the same year I ran the first edition of the Crucible Contest. It's a competition where the goal is to predict how the World Championship will turn out. By this time I had gathered quite a few snooker links and Aug 7 I launched Snoohoo!, a compilation of the links in different categories. 30 September I made Snoohoo! fully automatic with the aid of CGI-scripts. From now on I only had to register a link once, and all related pages would be updated. At present (7 December, 1998) there are more than 1,000 links registered. August also saw the birth of the Marketplace, a place for people to buy and sell snooker-related material, e.g. cues, tables and videos. 7 December 1998 there were 219 ads registered. I had always received a lot of questions concerning the snooker rules. In October 1997 I introduced the Snooker Clinic where visitors could leave their questions for Jari Kokko (mentioned above) to answer. The answers would then be placed in an archive for all to browse. Later we extended the Clinic to also handle other snooker questions, and John Day (snooker155@hotmail.com), Martin Bell (m_bell@lineone.net) and Bernie Mickeleit (bernie.mickeleit@t-online.de) joined the team. As of now (7 December 1998) 394 questions can be found in the archives. The next major addition to the site was the Snooker Chat Room in June 1997. It's an attempt to bring together snooker lovers from all over the world to discuss their common interest. The room didn't take off until the 1998 Embassy World Championship, but it's been buzzing ever since. The last major additions to the site were the Snooker Forum in November 2001 and the much improved search facility in January 2002. In June 2003 I added a searchable and sortable ranking page. Other pages include a quiz, ranking lists, player bios, snailmail addresses (e.g. of associations, and magazines), a guest book and more In the summer of 2000 I moved the site from the University to my new workplace. Never try this yourself! There are currently more than 250 pages at WWW Snooker. In addition there are over 40 CGI-scripts. In 2005 I was lucky enough to get hold of the domain www.snooker.org. A big thank you to Nicolas de Biolley and Bart Van der Haegen! Apr 30 2005 was the official move from www.laboremus.no/snooker to snooker.org. Feb 2 2008 saw the birth of a new design on the frontpage. It was about time too! You can still find the old page. I started registering hits on the front page 27 April 1995 and the count has now (19 April 1999) reached 500,000. That's _not_ the number of visitors, but rather number of times the front page has been accessed. The record for most visitors is from the 1999 Embassy World Championship. 4 May that year there were 2,700 visitors. Update: Tue 4 May 2004 there were 7,428 visitors. I've been in touch with snooker players and snooker presidents from all over the world, and I have received questions on just about any snooker topic you can imagine! There have also been a few sponsors knocking on my door, e.g. Riley, Embassy and Willie Holt, but unfortunately I had to turn them all down because of the University's policy. No commercial activity was to exist on their servers. Maybe things will change now that I've moved the site. I was however fortunate enough to be invited to the 2000 European Championships in Stirling, Scotland, as a guest of the sponsor, TSN (now 110sport). WWW Snooker has received quite a few awards (see the trophy cabinet on front page) and has been mentioned in a number of magazines and books. I especially enjoyed the coverage in Snooker Scene and to to see two of of the pages (WWW Snooker and Snoohoo!) on the top 70 list published by Billiards Digest). Thanks to Janie Watkins (janiew@lineone.net) for that Snooker Scene article and for all the info she's provided. Finally, I have to mention all the positive feedback I have gotten from regular users. Although most of the work is pleasure in itself, it certainly helps that people cheer me on. Also I've been lucky to have received help from so many people. Thanks to all! Visitors
Counting of visitors to 10.000 was reached 18:40:38 CET, September 18th the same year. The visitor used the machine pthomas.igs.net. IGS (Information Gateway Service) is a network of internet service providers in Ontario, Canada. #50.000 came 17:01:05 CET July 16th 1996. He/she used the machine pm155-09.dialip.mich.net. #100,000 came 01:55:03 CET March 2nd 1997. He/she used the machine pm002-01.dialip.mich.net, a host at Merit Network Inc. Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. #200,000 came 06:12:57 CET November 30th 1997. The host was 204.187.93.1. #300,000 came 22:03:48 CET August 26th 1998. The host was 131.91.136.114. #400,000 came 21:47:06 CET January 20th 1999. The host was net-43-059.mweb.co.za. #500,000 came 19:53:46 CET April 19th 1999. The host was gatekeeper.eastman.com. #600,000 came 03:57:01 CET August 18th 1999. The host was 84user210.ctinets.com.
Visitors have come from all over the world. Here are the 119 countries and territories, sorted
by number of visitors ( United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Japan, Thailand, France, Brazil, Ireland, Israel, Switzerland, New Zealand, Denmark, South Africa, Poland, Spain, Singapore, Austria, Iceland, Hong Kong, India, Italia, Indonesia, Portugal, Hungary, Greece, China, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Malta, Russia, Korea, Estonia, Turkey, Mexico, Romania, Pakistan, Latvia, Egypt, Croatia, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Lithuania, Slovakia Cyprus, Argentina, Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Bermuda, Chile, Mauritius, Brunei Darussalam, Philippines, Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahrain, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Uruguay, Ukraine, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Venezuela, Bulgaria, Oman, Lebanon, Qatar, Fiji, Saudi Arabia, Bahamas, Gibraltar, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Faroe Islands, Macedonia, Namibia, Bolivia, Bosnia-Hercegovina Georgia, Liechtenstein, Macau, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Barbados, Belarus, Cayman Islands, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Yemen, Zamibia, Andorra, Albania, Armenia, Christmas Islands, Greenland, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Cambodia, Saint Lucia, Moldavia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Polynesia (French), Paraguay and San Marino. Note: I stopped keeping track many years ago.
Awards
This site is listed in the BBC Education Web Guide
About the AuthorHermund Årdalen works as a computer programmer at Laboremus Software Solutions AS in Oslo, Norway. He was born in 1972 in Fredrikstad, but moved to Oslo when he started his studies at the University of Oslo. He started playing snooker around 1990 and soon became an addict. He has entered a few tournaments, but he is still a true amateur. His highest break in competition is 71. In training he has managed to scrap together a 87. In 1993 he discovered the Internet. After he discovered the World Wide Web there was no way back. He truly believes that W3 will revolutionize world communication and global understanding.
Link to WWW SnookerIf you want to include a link to WWW Snooker, you can use this image:
Simply include the following HTML-segment in your page:
<a href="http://snooker.org/"> <img border="0" alt="WWW Snooker Logo" width="186" height="34" src="http://snooker.org/img/wwwsnooker_small.gif"></a> |
