Wild fires maximum

SNOOKER:

OLDHAM snooker star Michael Wild is celebrating his first maximum break in competitive action.

Although the Moorside-based potting machine has clocked up six 147s in practice, he had never done so in a match.

All that changed when the 31 year old took on Gorton’s Jamie McArdle in the recent Saturday

pro-am at Rileys Snooker Centre, Belle Vue.

In the third frame of their semi-final, which he won 4-2, Wild cruised to an unfinished break of 88 with 11 reds and 11 blacks.

“I started to feel it a bit at that point,” said Wild. “I had nearly made a maximum in practice against Jamie the week before only to miss the yellow. But this time I managed to do it. The club had gone silent, lots of people were watching and I was feeling the pressure.”

Michael - who earned the spectator collection of £1.47 for his efforts - went on to share the spoils in the competition with Craig Steadman, which went a little way to easing the pain of a near miss in this year’s qualifying school for snooker’s main tour.

Needing to finish in the top eight amateurs in World Snooker’s Q School, Michael suffered the agony of finishing ninth.