ACCRINGTON potter Chris Norbury was left reflecting on a ‘nightmare’ weekend after admitting you ‘couldn’t script’ his Polish adventure.

The 28-year-old left Manchester for a Euro Tour event in Gdansk last Friday but ended up enduring a 48 hours that will long in the memory - for all the wrong reasons.

After arriving safely in Copenhagen, the connecting flight to Gdansk was cancelled, leaving Norbury and his dad, Stan, waiting four hours for the next flight.

His cue, which also contained his contact lenses and toiletries in the bag, then failed to turn up in Poland, before the taxi the pair took to the hotel broke down.

After being forced to borrow James Cahill’s cue and play without his contact lenses, Norbury could only manage a high break of 16 in losing 4-0 to Chris Melling.

His cue finally arrived as he was waiting in departures to return home, before a member of cabin crew then spilt a full glass of water over Stan on the flight back.

Thankfully, Norbury managed to see the funny side, and admitted tour professionals such as Shaun Murphy had been quick to poke fun at his expense.

“We land at Gdansk, and there’s no cue,” he said.

“I went to lost goods to report it, they’ve said they don’t know where it is.

“There was a flight that night getting in to Gdansk about midnight, so they said if you wait up until about 1am we’ll let you know if it’s going to arrive.

“We then got a taxi to the hotel and on the way the taxi broke down.

“We pulled over and the driver is under the bonnet for 10 or 15 minutes trying to fix it and eventually gets it going.

“We got to the hotel but in my cue bag was my toiletries and my contact lenses as well as my cue.

“So I couldn’t have a wash, I was struggling seeing, it was comical.”

Norbury’s cue didn’t arrive on the midnight flight, or on the 9am flight on Saturday morning, and with his match with Melling starting at 10am, he had to head to the arena.

“I borrowed James Cahill’s cue and managed to get some toiletries so I could have a wash,” he said.

“I’ve gone to play Chris Melling with someone else’s cue, but because I was late arriving I’ve not had a shot with it, I didn’t know what it was throwing like, obviously it’s going to throw differently to mine.

“I’ve gone to break off and I’ve aimed like I normally do to hit the bottom red, and I’ve ended up hitting the third red down.

“I was like ‘wow, where the hell do I aim this cue then?’.

“I couldn’t play with side or anything.

“I thought ‘this is going to be hard work’ and I just couldn’t pot a ball.

“Then to sum it up after the first frame the bottom two corner pockets both broke, you couldn’t script it.

“We had a 15-minute delay while they fixed the table.”

Having been knocked out on Saturday morning, Norbury spent the rest of the weekend trying to be reunited with his cue, with little success.

“It comes to going on the Sunday and I’ve still got no cue, they still didn’t know where it was,” he said.

“We were flying at 6.30pm so at 4pm we had to get a taxi back to the airport.

“I had just walked through the door of departures when I get a phone call to say the cue has arrived.

“I had to go out of departures, walk about a mile to arrivals, pick my cue up, walk all the way back to departures then go straight to the desk and put my cue on to go home.”

While borrowing a cue presented Norbury with one problem, his lack of contact lenses made life no easier.

“It was scary,” he said.

“I’ve been struggling with my eyes for a bit and it must have been five weeks I was in the process of getting these contact lenses, I was back and forth to the opticians.

“I was used to them, then I got there and I didn’t have them in I was really struggling to see the balls.

“When I’ve gone to break off first I was struggling to see the other end of the table, I couldn’t believe it.”
Norbury is now back on safe ground in East Lancashire as he prepares for World Championship qualifying.

“I play in the World Championships next in about five weeks’ time,” he said.

“That’s the big one, I think I’ve got to win three matches to get to the Crucible.

“It’s only in Sheffield so there will be no flights involved.”