SNOOKER legend Steve Davis is the game’s most successful player.

The six times world champion has won more honours than anyone else in the game he dominated during the heady heights of the 1980s.

However, it was smiles on faces rather than silverware that was up for grabs on a recent trip to East Lancashire — and the ‘Nugget’ was simply blown away.

Davis has lent his support to the Paul Hunter Foundation which is being run in Lancashire by the North Lancs Training Group.

The Foundation programme in the county was launched in September and has gathered momentum to such an extent that it is working with hundreds of children on a weekly basis.

“There is nothing like this anywhere else in the country,” said Davis after taking part in a four day Functional Skills Snooker Festival at Padiham Snooker Centre. “What is going on here is quite simply unique and it is fantastic to see so many youngsters enjoying and learning from the game of snooker.”

North Lancs Training Group’s World Snooker coach, Chris Lovell, is the brainchild behind the scheme — a Davis was full of praise for the main man.

“This programme could work around the country, the only problem is you would have to clone Chris Lovell,” added Davis. “He works tremendously hard for the Foundation. For me, it is in honour to be working on such a worthwhile scheme and I find it very rewarding.”

Davis said the work that Lovell and his hard-working team — which includes Paul Rinaldi at Padiham Snooker Club — is testimony to what Paul Hunter, who died in 2006 aged just 27, would have wanted to have achieve.

“Paul would have been delighted with what is being achieved” said Davis. “The tragic thing is that all of this has only happened because of his death.”

The mission statement for the Foundation is to give disad-vantaged, able bodied and disabled youngsters an opportunity to play snooker.

And since September, Lovell and his team have done just that. Roadshows are held on a weekly basis at venues across the area to get children off street corners while the mobile Paul Hunter Foundation Academy, which travels from club to club within Lancashire, runs sessions based on fun but also coaching is given to develop technique and improve youngsters’ standard of play.

The Foundation is working with a number of agencies in the area including the police and the Hyndburn Youth Partnership.

And for Lovell, working alongside Davis fulfils a lifetime ambition.

“I watched Steve playing when I was growing up so to be working with him now is a dream come true,” said Lovell. “He is a real down to earth guy and he loves working with the children.”

The pair teamed up to work on the first Functional Skills Snooker Festival which used snooker to help with numeracy and literacy skills.

Schools from across Hyndburn, Ribble Valley and Rossendale took part in a series of fun event with prizes up for grabs.

One such winner was Bilal Yousaf (below) of Mount Carmel High Schoo, “The whole emphasis was on fun and it a great way to learn” added Lovell. “We played a number of games with prizes such as watches, ipods and televisions up for grabs.”

Lovell, who met Paul Hunter when he took part in the NLTG Charity Snooker event, said that the Foundation is already beginning to pay dividends.

“What we are doing is just the tip of the iceberg,” he added. “We’ve found that anti-social behaviour is dropping in the areas we are working in on the nights we hold the roadshows and that is exactly what we are trying to do.”