Matt Lester


Doncaster Destroyer

DOB: 19/9/1988, Doncaster, South Yorkshire England

When did you start playing: I started playing Snooker in 2001, American pool since 2006.

Cues Used: Wayne Holmes custom-made playing cue & Mcdermott Stinger break/jump cue

Favourite pool players: Darren Appleton, Ralf Souquet, Efren Reyes Ronnie Alcano, Mika Immonen

Favourite TV Shows: Only Fools and Horses, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Men Behaving Badly, Porridge, Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps

Favourite Movies: The Hustler, The Color of Money, The Bank Job, Inside I'm Dancing

Favourite Music: Reggae, Rock, Ska,Punk

Favourite Drinks: Water, Coffee, Lager, Bitter

Heroes: Jimmy White, Alex Higgins, Ian Dury, David Beckham, Mohammed Ali

Like about 9-ball pool: Fast and Furious

Dislike about 9-ball pool:  You don't have to be the best player to win a match.

Ambition: To become UK number 1, European Champion and World Champion

Motivation: Competing at the highest level with the best players, setting myself realistic but challenging targets, Winning!

Career Achievments:

2002 "Player of the Championship" at the Yorkshire & Humberside snooker Championship.

2004 Quarter Finalist at the National Championship "plate" (snooker).

2005 Finalist in the Yorkshire & Humberside snooker Championship.

2008 Beat Jimmy White in a snooker exhibition in front of an audience of over 300 people at the Dome in Doncaster.

2008 Represented Great Britain in the 9-ball pool World Championship for wheelchair players at the Sands Regency Casino Hotel in Reno, Nevada USA. (streamed live on www.azbilliards.com)

2009 Ended the season ranked #11 in the UK

Player Bio:
I was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire in England on 19 September 1988. I've been playing snooker and pool from a very young age, I started playing by using my mum's knitting needles as a cue and marbles as balls. Mum got me a table top snooker table for my 4th birthday, and I used to pretend to be Jimmy White on that, (except from he's left handed and I can't use my left hand)!. My dad used to take me to Sheffield every year to watch the World Championship at Sheffield, but by then I had already fallen in love with the game.

 Sometime in 2001 I saw wheelchair snooker on tv and I saw people playing one-handed there, so I thought I could finally play the game I love competitively. My uncle Stuart is an engineer and he made me some rests which I could place on the table to act as a bridge for the cue, as due to my disability I am unable to stretch my left arm. So I entered the 2002 Yorkshire & Humberside wheelchair snooker championship. I got beat in the first round, by the defending champion which wasn't bad. I was chosen as Player of the Championship and it was then that I knew that I wanted to be a snooker player.

However whilst playing in the wheelchair snooker tournaments I had heard that most players were changing there game to American 9-ball pool. I had seen 9-ball on tv quite a lot and I had played it on the computer so I was familiar with the game and I wanted to take it up then, but I was told to concentrate on school and stick to snooker.

 Mum and Dad separated in the summer of 2006 and I was reading on the internet one evening that the British Professional Pool Players Association had joined forces with the English Wheelchair Pool Players Association to make what is now the British Wheelchair Pool Players Association. I hadn't played in a snooker tournament for over a year and I was missing the game and the competitive buzz I got from competing. So after discussing it with Mum, I decided to enter one BWPPA event and take it from there. I played in my first BWPPA event in April 2007 and I haven't looked back since.