Player Information

Nickname/Web username: Mr Entertainer
Year of birth: 1978
Year started playing pool: 1999
Current team: The Hustlers

Background

John Purdie has been a top player in EK pool almost ever since joining the league in 1999, and has represented East Kilbride at almost every Super League event via the A team for the last 10 years. In his time in the EKPL he has won every major trophy and counts two league championships, two league cups and a Robert Black cup win amongst his honours.
He is still driven to add to his trophy haul by an elusive major singles tournament win, a stat which he hopes to put right in 2010…

Singles Information

Aspiration for the current season:
I hope this season to eventually lose the tag of being the “Jimmy White” of the East Kilbride pool losing in all 5 of my major finals, I would like to get to the standard of pool that I was playing about 3 years ago, hopefully have a good run in the EK Singles.

Greatest pool achievement in singles:
My best achievment in pool in East Kilbride was getting to the last 4 of the EK Single’s when finally losing out to the eventual winner Kevin Irving and performing in more of the latter stages in tourney’s.

Honours in singles competition

Now yer having a laugh…..Nowt!!! Ive been runner up in 4 masters tourneys over the years losing to Colin Philip twice, Billy Edmond and John Muir and lost in the final of the Greenhills Open to Ian McMillan last year. I’ve won other non ranking tourneys that were run in Mr Q’s by Davie Muir and a few that was run by Stevie Kelly in the Pro Lane Bowling, one that Stevie was glad that I won too….lol

Team Information

Aspirations for the current season:
Aspirations for this season is to try and win as many trophies as I can with the Hustlers. I think when you play for one of the big 3 you will always try to win all trophy’s that are available. Also I would like to try and get myself back inthe Super League ‘A’ team which I have played in since 2000.

Greatest pool achievement with a team:
My best achievement was winning the League in a team (Entertainers) that I co-founded with Mark O’Brien.

Honours in team competition

2 MAN TEAM: Ive played in 3 two men tourney’s and have won 2 of them, the first was round about 2004 when me and Chris Miller paired up at the last minute and won the tourney against Billy Edmond & Kevin Irving coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2, the other I paired up with Marty Thom and we won against Lee Miller & Wullie McCafferty in the Salmon Leap.

League Winners: Hustlers 2001, Entertainers 2006
League Runner’s Up: Entertainers 2006

League Cup Winners: Wizards 2004, Entertainers 2007
League Cup Runners Up: Entertainers 2005 & 06

Robert Black Winners: Entertainers 2007
Robert Black Runners Up: Wizards 2003 & 04, Entertainers 2005

Cue

Make: Blank, Un-named cue unless Oby sanded it off.
Acquired: Kevin Irving via Mark O’Brien.
Cost: £50
Tip size: 9mm
Who retips it?: Oby, Infact Oby do yo have a spare 10mins…?

General Questions

Who, or what, inspired you to play?:
Free PIE & PINT…….I’ve always liked playing snooker & pool and used to play in my uncle’s snooker club in Liverpool which John Parrott used to play from, then onto having my own snooker table in the house from the age of 8, started playing pool when I was 17 in the Whitehills farm and was persuaded to Join the Whitehills Aces by Ramsay Buchanan and Ramie Toms when I was 19.

Favourite EK team you have played in?:
Entertainers

Favourite EK team you haven’t played in?:
Top Guns

Best player you have ever played against?:
Pat Holtz or Colin Phillip (He never lets me win) mind you I wanted the Chateaux McCoist…..Mmmmmm.

Best player you have played alongside?:
There’s a few I would Say…..Colin for his out and out potting game, Mark O’Brien for his patience in the game and Billy Edmond for his overall game.

Favourite pro players (Pool or Snooker):

• Ronnie O’Sullivan
• Paul Hunter
• Earl Strickland

How would you rate the current standard of pool in EK?
The Standard of pool in East Kilbride is getting better all the time due to more people taking part in the tournaments that are on offer, ran by Lee Miller, Oby and now Stevie & Billy.

What do you think we could do to raise the standard?
Try a few differently ran tournaments which could help the lesser player of winning, Oby has had some good idea’s over the years, ie 3man, 6 man teams….the one I think which would be good would be the Handicap tournament which grades the players and gives lesser player a start (I might win then) this has been thought about, would like to see this happen.

Anything else you would like to say?
Buy One Eat One…….Just Roll Behind It………Where’s Barnsey!!!!!………EASY EASY EASY