FIRST NILGIRIS SNOOKER CHAMPION "GOT IT GOWDA”

The first official sets of rules for snooker were drafted in 1882 at Ootacamund in Madras Province. When British Billiards Champion John Roberts travelled to India in 1885, he met Chamberlain and decided to introduce snooker to England when he returned home.

The Lawley Institute had none of snobbery of the Ooty Club - this day the lunch special was toasted cheese sandwich -and it was there, almost immediately, that I encountered one of the Ooty's all-time snooker greats, Andu Gowder, 18 times champion of the Nilgiri Hills region, 55 now but still a power, whose slam-bang style, demonstrated at the Lawley, had him immediately renamed Gale-Force Gowder, published in KHALEEJ TIMES LIFESTYLE newspaper (Dubai) on Thursday, May 14, 1992.

 

K.R.Andu Gowder, son of Rangai Gowder (Landlord), born in Ketti, Ketti Valley, a heavenly place In Nilgiris.

   Gowda's father

K. RANGAI GOWDER (LANDLORD) son of KALLA MASTHURI, Ketty, Ketty Village

 

 "GOWDA"

Framed Print of The home of snooker - The Ottacamund Club, Southern India

Playing snooker at the Ootacamund Club, Ootacamund (known as Snooty Ooty) in the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu, Southern India, where snooker originated on the billiard tables during the Raj. Snooker was invented in 1875 by army officer Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain Date: 1994