• Home
• Professional
• Cuefacts
• Magazine
• About
• Pontins

Options

• Home

• Latest News

• ONEFORSEVEN

• Professional

• Players

• Rankings

• Cuefacts

• Pontins

• Ladies

• Pro-Ams

• International

• GSM - Online Magazine

• About Global Snooker

The Home Internationals History

The Home Internationals first came into being in 1969. England and Wales played a Challenge Match for the Prince of Wales Shield as part of the celebrations to mark the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in summer 1969.

For the record Wales won that match 10-8 and, as they say, the rest is history!

Over the years more countries joined the series. In the early years home and away matches were played but gradually all the matches were pulled together under one roof as the Home Internationals.

Juniors and Ladies were added and more recently another junior category, The Masters, and for the first time in 2009, Junior and Senior Billiards as well.

Many of today's household names started their international careers in the Home Internationals. Indeed from the early 1970s on, it was the only outlet for International selection apart from the IBSF World events.

Players such as Terry Griffiths, Chris Small, Alan McManus, Mark Williams, Patrick Wallace, Eugene Hughes, Stephen Hendry, John Parrott, Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty and many more competed for their countries during their amateur careers.

2009, the fortieth anniversary of the event, will also be the first time all eight member countries have submitted teams into the Men's event.

For the past ten years guest teams have made up any gaps and an International Cup was also contested, with countries such as France, Iceland, Malta, Qatar, Poland, Holland, Finland, Belgium and even a Pontin's guest team, all participating at one time or another.