Player Information

Nickname/Web username: Macca, Two Cues, Kingtut
Year of birth: 1965
Year started playing pool: 1981 in a local youth club in Stirlingshire
Current team: Flukesters

Background

Iain MacMillan has been a top player in the East Kilbride league for over 15 years. In his time in the EKPL Iain is a 2 time player of the year, a 2 time league champion with the Hustlers, and a numerous cup winner. His successful career so far has been crowned with a win in the prestigious East Kilbride Singles, and in doing so, joins an elite bunch of players. With a fresh start this season moving to the Flukesters, Iain hopes to add to his already ample trophy haul.

Singles Information

Aspiration for the current season:
Attempt to win POTY for 3rd time.

Greatest pool achievement in singles:
EK Singles Champion 1999 or around that time long time ago. In those days of EK tournaments things were much different. There was always over 100 players participating meaning a couple of weeks of qualifiers before finals weekend. Tourneys were also over much shorter races. So to beat Stevie Ross in the semi 2-1 and beating Colin Philip 3-2 after being 2-0 down I think was a good achievement.

Honours in singles competition

Before EK
Forth & Endrick League Singles Champion 1988,1990,1993
This was a league in Stirlingshire where I first played league pool.

EK
EK League POTY 2004 and 2006
EK Singles 1999ish
There were a couple of other ones around that time but I can’t remember what they were called but one was in the picture shown in 2003. This was part of a Westwood Singles Series run by Davie Muir.
More recently I won the inaugural 2009 Greenhills Open beating John Purdie in the final. This was the first time I have played the round robin format for the opening stages of a tourney and was also excellently run by Marty Thom.

Team Information

Aspirations for the current season:
To try and win Flukesters their first league championship.
To try and win the B Event at Pettycur Bay in Nov where I think we have got great chance of doing something.

Greatest pool achievement with a team:
Winning league with Hustlers.
A couple of years ago Ian McLean ran a team from the Tower which played against other bars owned by the same company. We beat a couple of teams, last game being in Edinburgh which was won in a nerve shredding play off game. This took us down to Leeds to all the other qualifiers in the UK. This was a really well run event which was being filmed for Yorkshire Television and included an exhibition from Darren Appleton.

Honours in team competition

Before EK
Forth & Endrick Pool Champions 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992

EK Pool League
League Winners with the Hustlers 2007, 2008-2009
League Cup Winners 2008-2009
If my memory serves me right I’m sure The Sharks won a couple of cups.

EK Pool Federation
Won league and Cups.
This was another different format of 3 groups of 5 singles.

Cue Here Superleague challenge 2005 with Pat Holtz and Michael Caven as guest team members.

Cue

Make: Andy Gibb cue
Acquired: At Super 11’s event when I thought I lost my cue but subsequently found it, hence Two Cues.
Cost: £50
Tip size: 8.5mm
Who retips it?: I try myself but if required probably Billy, Kevin and Oby.

General Questions

Who, or what, inspired you to play?:
Watching the World Snooker Championships when I was a boy and a 4ft table I got as a Christmas present when I was about 10.

Favourite EK team you have played in?:
The first Sharks team all those years ago which had John Muir (who introduced me to EK pool) and included a young Billy Edmond when he had hair. Unfortunately we were 2nd in the league about three times.

Favourite EK team you haven’t played in?:
Probably the Hotshots as this is almost the EK B team!!

Best player you have ever played against?:
In EK, Colin Philip. Fantastic potter who can combine good safety play when required but still beatable.
Outside EK has to be Ross McInnes. Played him a couple of times a long time ago and he is simply the best ever player.
I would also like to introduce another category ‘Most Unorthodox Player’. This is meant to be complimentary. For me this has to Mr Chairman Livingstone. He is a great player anyway but for some reason I find Ian unorthodox but incredibly effective (no, not lucky Livvy) and a very hard player to play and defeat. I always think it is great game when I play Ian.

Best player you have played alongside?:
There are too many players who I could say but I would like to mention some players.
Billy Edmond’s consistency is up there with the best of them.
Stevie McCrimmond for his relentless shouting, I mean encouragement during all the B team adventures. My ears are still hurting.
Pat Holtz when he played with the EK Select in Cue Here. Almost faultless individual display and was very good for the team as well.

Favourite pro players (Pool or Snooker):

• Ray Reardon
• John Higgins
• Pat Holtz

How would you rate the current standard of pool in EK?
It has probably stayed about the same in the last few years. When Ross Steven and his friend played a few years ago there was an upsurge of the younger players but that unfortunately stopped as quickly as it started. So the top players have remained the same for a number of years.

What do you think we could do to raise the standard?
The only way of doing this is devoting time to practise and then play a better standard of player. I noticed that Jack Stewart and couple of other Club 2000 players played in an event in Bellshill recently with Jack doing quite well. That is what the younger players and any other player for that matter have to do if they want to improve as the field that day included the likes of Jason Shaw and Scott Gillespie.

Anything else you would like to say?
I’ve played pool for a long time and had many ups and downs in the last 20 odd years.
Played hundreds of tournaments but one of my best memories was when I first came up to EK about 15 years ago, a friendly event was organised between the league I’d just left in Stirlingshire and an EK select which included the likes of John and Davie Muir, Billy Edmond, Ian Livingstone and Billy Rodgers. A couple of the Stilingshire boys currently play for Bannockburn and Clackmannan at the 11s/15s. First leg in EK was won by Stirlingshire. Second leg was played at my then local boozer in Strathblane. All EK boys got a bus down so the bevvy was flowing and a great night was had with EK coming back and winning.

Back in the days before t’internet and the SPA really got going and if you were not part of the Lanarkshire Pool mafia scene the only way to enter tournaments where I lived was through snail mail. We entered the likes of the Evening Times singles and 3 man team events which was played in the long gone Fast Eddies in Glasgow and the Skol Golden Cue 3 man team event which was all based through your local boozer.
Skol Golden Cue you had to play other pubs which could be anywhere in Scotland. We beat a team in Airdrie 9-8 which turned out to be played in what is currently Cue Here. We won at home and our final match to qualify for the finals to be played in England somewhere was against a team based in Parkhead. We 3 innocent village boys turned up in this real dump of a place to find we were playing Ross McInnes, Mick McGoldrick and a n other. Needless to say we were very unlucky and only just got beat 9-1.
From that day on I knew the standard of pool in Scotland is superb.