Portrush woman is Northern Ireland Special Pool Champion - for the 18th time!

Valerie Taggart won the Ladies Individual title at the Northern Ireland Special Pool Championships held in the Lodge Hotel last week.

The Northern Ireland Special Pool Association is a voluntary sporting organisation which was set up to provide pool competitions for players who have learning disabilities, physical disabilities and mental health difficulties.

The group said: "Special Pool continually provides opportunity to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy, flourish friendships with other pool players and their local community. Special Pool enables players to achieve and win not only in sport but in life too.”

Since the formation of the Association in 1993, numbers have grown on a yearly bases and the group now caters for approximately 300 players from all over Northern Ireland.

The ladies competition started in 1994 and Portrush woman Valerie has won the title 18 times yearly from 1994-1997, 1999, 2006-13, 2016-2019 and 2023.