She spends hours polishing more than 200 trophies which line every available surface

She spends hours polishing more than 200 trophies which line every available surface."That's my favourite," says Susan, gesturing towards a sizeable piece of silverware that makes the FA Cup seem modest by comparison. "The Vauxhall Pro-Am at Great Yarmouth: I had to beat 900 men to win that when I was still an amateur."Pool remains a macho game. Susan Thompson's name was one of 23 put forward to the Professional Pool Players' Association three years ago Only 22 were accepted. All men."They said I wasn't good enough,'' she says, ``but I had a better record than 19 of them."The resulting court case made her briefly a cause clbre And she won "All I wanted was my rights I've always known what I wanted to be I never took my exams and my teachers said I'd regret it But I think I've proved them wrong."Well, yes and no. To make a living out of playing pool is not easy on this side of the Atlantic. Travel and accommodation expenses take substantial bites out of tournament winnings, and exhibitions are not well paid. Susan's sponsor, a Runcorn garage, recently went bankrupt and she desperately needs another.Money may be in short supply, but what she does have is local status.

As Susan walks in to the Straw Hat, cue case under her arm, a young regular called Alan leaps to his feet and staggers back in mock horror."No way," he says with a grin. "We're going to get beat, lads."And get beat they do, one after the other These are the cream of Runcorn's pool players. "They do nothing else all day," says Rollo, 28, who describes himself as a part-time scaffolder and tarmac-layer "I've been losing to her for nearly ten years. If any other bird beat you, you'd get loads from your mates..."While Rollo resumes rolling very long cigarettes, his mate Phil is playing shots of cunning subtlety that seem slightly at odds with his powerful, tattooed forearms Not subtle enough, alas, to snooker Susan. She pots the black and Phil throws a burly arm round her shoulder "You're the bollocks, you are," he says It is a compliment.After an hour, something unusual happens Susan makes a slip and pots the white after the black Alan has won a game. He celebrates as though he has just scored in front of the Anfield Kop Even the grey-faced shoppers applaud. The landlord produces a betting slip and asks for his autograph.Susan smiles as she slides her cue back in its case Every now and then she allows the lads a look in..

If he smokes or talks about football, he's out. The woman who said that in this column recently might like to add another caveat when sifting through the replies to her personal ads Was he in the Boy Scouts? If so, watch out Especially during the rutting season. The Good Lord's advice - and I speak, of course, of Baden-Powell - is contained in his book Rovering to Success, which may have been published in 1922 but goes a long way to explaining why it might be wise to avoid any man who has ever donned a woggle. The book's sub-title is A Book of Life-Sport for Young Men, and it is intended as a personal and philosophical guide through the traumas of growing up into a mature and happy man, using the precepts of Rovering and the Scout movement as its basis. Or, as the author more graphically explains it: life is like a canoe-ride, and the book offers some piloting hints in dealing with the various hazards you might encounter when paddling through your life-ways. There are five chapters, each dealing with a different "rock" on which a young lad might bash his canoe These are Horses, Wine, Women, Cuckoos and Irreligion. The horses, cuckoos and the rest will have to wait for another time, while we concentrate for now on how to negotiate those tricky rapids that occur when man meets woman.It seems that all the problems arise, really, from just one phenomenon.

This is - not to put too fine a point on it - the rutting season. Baden- Powell paints a stirring picture of the goings-on in the animal kingdom at this time of year, with the noble stags battling for possession of their hinds: "They seem to go off their heads for a time," he explains, "running hither and thither, restless and excited, for weeks unable to settle down for food or to sleep till utterly worn out." The parallels seem obvious, particularly when we are reminded that it is not only in the animal kingdom where the brightest plumage is worn in the mating season. What about those young mashers, the author reminds us, with their "pink socks, fancy ties and well-oiled hair"? You only need to visit a City wine bar in the early evening to know what he means, and to see that it's not just the hair that's well-oiled.Baden-Powell points out, though, that there is one extremely important difference between the rutting season of the stags and the rutting season of man. To the stags this period of sexual excitement happens once a year, whereas for the human male it only has to be endured once in a lifetime, when he is growing from boyhood to manhood.