Cue sports have enjoyed a long life – stretching back to their inception in the 15th century.

The original umbrella term for the sports was billiards, but with the rise of English Billiards as a specific game cue sports became a less confusing term.

Shakespeare often mentioned billiards in his works and the sport has been enjoyed by many historic figures including Mozart, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Dickins.

An executioner of Mary Queen of Scots was said to have garbed her headless corpse in the cloth from her beloved billiard table in 1586

These pictures show a variety of different cue sport teams posing for pictures through the years.