Snooker Loopy

Sheffield is no stranger to hosting snooker events and this city has hosted the World Championship since 1977. On the 9th April, 2021, the city will welcome back two of the absolute legends of the sport Jimmy White and John Virgo. The event to be hosted at the OEC, will be a mix of conversation and savouring the atmosphere with a three course meal. These leading lights will be accompanied by Sky Sport’s Jade Slusarczyk and compered by a rising star, Colin Phillips. This is definitely a once in a life time experience for any snooker enthusiast who wishes to spend some time in the presence of the “Whirlwind”. Not only will they get to see first hand, Jimmy White but also hear about the experiences of this London born snooker player who accumulated ten professional titles in his long and established career. This is a moment of magic that should not be missed and will be a delight for the audience on the night. John Virgo or more fondly known as “JV” has had a wonderful career as a com...

Snooker has been living in the wilderness since the start of the Corona virus pandemic. However after  a lengthy darkness, the sun is at last rising on televised snooker. With the government announcement that non contact sport can resume, The World Snooker Tour has made a bold step by dipping its toe in the water and holding The Championship League. Moving the venue to Milton Keynes, this tournament is a perfect way to kickstart the sport and bring some form of normality back to the green baize. This is a strange situation for snooker fans who haven’t heard the clink of snooker balls stop since the war years and the Gibraltar Open has shown that snooker can be successful even if an audience isn’t present behind closed doors. Stringent measures have of course had to be put in place to even get snooker out of a locked cupboard and this includes a self isolating bubble for players, mass testing for all involved and have to stay for the course of the event and in one hotel. Even the ...

“The melting pot of ideas” Introduction Nestled in the middle of the bustling city of Sheffield, lies the Crucible Theatre. A building that has become a bastion of Yorkshire culture, the building has inhabited the main square since 1971. Often referred to as “The Crucible “, the building has hosted many plays and musicals and some sports including snooker’s World Championship since Mike Watterson’s wife went to a play at the theatre and told her husband that it would be a great place to hold future tournaments and the rest is history! Situated just off Norfolk Street, the building is instantly recognisable with its rectangular structure, bright facade and bold signage. When you arrive at The Crucible, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and leaves you with a lasting memory. The Early Years The Crucible Theatre was built by M J Gleeson, a building company that specialises in urban regeneration. Constructed to replace the Playhouse Repertory Theatre in neighbouri...

Cliff Thorburn is one of the most recognised faces in snooker, a man who started as a hustler in Canadian pool halls, Cliff made the courageous decision to find fame and fortune in the United Kingdom. Travelling with Kirk Stevens and Bill Werbeniuk, the “Grinder” as he affectionately became known, went on to win the 1980 World Championship, beating Alex Higgins, 18-16 and achieved a memorable 147 and the Crucible in 1983. He also won the Masters three times.This Canadian trailblazer has over time been able to adapt to the changing game and has gone to be part of the Legends and now World Seniors snooker tour. Memorably, Thorburn was the last person to play Alex Higgins before his untimely demise. Recently Cliff has branched out onto social media, creating his own Facebook page. Thorburn was born in the same year as my Mother, 1948 and so this must have been daunting for a 72 year old but I have been very impressed with how he has adapted to using the phenomenon of social interaction ...

Snooker has had to go into sporting hibernation during this pandemic but thankfully the BBC has filled the seventeen day, World Championship void with airings of previous finals. As an avid fan, this is great way of being able to relive these sporting moments, much of which I spent behind a cushion or the sofa when my nerves couldn’t take the pressure. One such example was the 1992 World Championship final between Stephen Hendry and Jimmy White. Having watched all the clashes between these players, I had to cast aside my Jimmy White t shirt and pretend this was being played from scratch and what a belter of a match it was. However and it is a big however, usually in a classic match, there is always what is called a “turning point”  and in this epic it came in frame 24 when Hendry 14-9 up and had to pot the brown off the side cushion across the nap. This was probably one of the greatest shots seen on live snooker but for some reason the BBC cut it out of their highlights of the ma...

The Snooker Shootout has become a regular event on the snooker tour calendar with past winners including Nigel Bond, Michael Georgiou and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. The Watford based tournament is fast and frenetic as all 128 players are pitched against each other in a hybrid form of snooker and pool that attracts a noisy audience and produces an unexpected winner at the end of the few days played. The creation of this tournament has attracted praise and criticism, especially with the recent addition of it being classed as a ranking event with valuable points attached to the winner. Born out of the Pot Black and Power Snooker formats, the Shootout has managed to survive and has prevented the other two from making a comeback. As excitement builds for this competition next week, I would like to argue the case for this fixture and why it should remain part of the calendar. Having been a snooker fan for over thirty years, I have seen many changes in snooker with players and tournaments crash a...

In a recent interview with Phil Seymour for BetVictor, Judd Trump expressed his concern for the future of the UK youth game, saying that few players were breaking through into the professional tour, describing them as “struggling”. He went on to say that he thought that China was championing the market with many of the Chinese field expected to make up “ half the top sixteen in the next five to ten years”. Trump went on to say that he believes he could be playing for the next fifteen to twenty years and already has Ronnie’s 1,000 centuries’ record in his sights, confident that he can possibly make 1,500 career centuries. Perhaps a bold statement but one that looks viable with his current form, having already won last year’s World Championship and looking dominant in the current German Masters. Once considered to be a player who led a lavish lifestyle, posting tweets from Dubai or driving fast cars, the player has scaled down his “downtime”, concentrating on match preparation but st...

The Crucible has been a long standing venue for snooker's World Championship tournament. Since 1977, the thrills and spills of the sport have been played out in this Sheffield theatre and it has become a treasure that is savoured by all that survey. However in recent weeks, The World Snooker Tour, as the body is now called, has revamped its Masters event at the Alexandra Palace, proving those who wish to pay a bit extra the chance to experience the VIP treatment with private viewing boxes installed, a Century Club and a soft seating area at the back of the arena. The question has been posed of whether to roll this out this out to other tournaments and especially the World Championship. When this question was posed on Twitter regarding revamping the Crucible event, there was swift retort from Barry Hearn, Chairman of the World Snooker Tour, saying: "Crucible stays as it is. Too special to change" With only 980 seats, the Crucible provides an intimate atmosphere wi...

Mention the name Ron Gross in the snooker circle and nothing comes back but warm memories and praise for this great man. A former amateur and professional player, Ron Gross lived through the golden era of snooker, spanning from the post war years to the development of the World Championship. Ron was a three time amateur champion, winning the title in 1957,1960, 1962 and was a late addition to the professional tour, turning professional in 1972. He even beat the late, great Joe Davis in an exhibition match. He had a mixed fortune at the World Championship with his best performance being in 1973 when he made the last 24. Ron was lucky enough to play in a era when the likes of Patsy Houlihan, Patsy Fagan and lesser known players  like Wally West who also owned the Top Spot Snooker Hall. This was an era where you could literally get drunk on the atmosphere that snooker created. Players flocked to Ron’s club in Neasden to play and this was a club that was a hub for money games. Open t...

For anyone who is involved in snooker, you would have seen Gary Wilkinson in the tournament foyer issuing passes and tickets to people attending. However before joining the World Snooker Tour team, Gary was part of the man tour as a player from 1987-2006. I remember Gary from when I first started watching snooker and was impressed by his calibre as a player. He competed in a era when Alex Higgins and Steve Davis were fading lights in the sport and Stephen Hendry had made a meteoric rise to the top of the game. Wilkinson first came to the forefront of snooker when he beat Alex Higgins in the non-ranking WBSA Invitational event in 1988, 5-4. However Gary played at a time when single person dominance was still apparent and this was a major stumbling block for many of those who competed at the time for the winning glory. Wilkinson sadly came up against that barrage of competition and never reached his full potential. Gary managed to get through to two major finals, losing in the Brit...

An announcement was made by Barry Hearn just before Christmas that World Snooker had signed a ten year deal for a tournament in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, beginning this October. With a total prize fund of £2.5 million pounds, one lucky winner gets set to scoop £500,000 in prize money. These are exciting times as snooker blows the sand off the tables of this region. Anyone who knows the history of snooker in this neck of the woods knows that mixed success exists here, the Dubai Classic ran successfully for many years and the Bahrain Open bombed after one tournament due to a poor response. The aim of targeting this area of the world is two fold. First to showcase snooker and secondly to energise a new market, bringing potential Arabic players out of the woodwork to play on the main stage. Hearn hopes that this approach will continue to expand his snooker mission of  the globalisation of the sport. Barry Hearn has sold this tournament to players by saying that you can either take part...

Stephen Lee was probably one of the most recognised players in snooker until recently and impressed his audience with a game that was accompanied with a Rolls Royce cue action that only is equalled by Shaun Murphy currently. A player who turned professional in 1992, he rose up the ranking list and  climbed to a high of number five. His game dipped before he returned to form in the 2011/12 season and compiled 184 centuries in his career. I was inspired to write this piece after learning that an online petition has been mounted to campaign for his return to the sport with 783 signatures. Lee was banned from snooker after the governing found him guilty of match fixing, deliberately losing matches for financial gain. A series of matches were cited including matches against Ken Doherty and Marco Fu in the Malta Cup in 2008, losing the first frame against Stephen Hendry and Mark King at the 2008 UK Championship and losing matches with a pre-determined score against Neil Robertson at the ...

Carrying on my Welsh theme from yesterday I would like to turn attention from a well known player to one that let’s say the older fan would have heard of. I have been following snooker since 1987 and have seen many players come and go but one that I admit I had forgotten is the Welsh player, Tony Chappel. Tony from Pontarddulais in Swansea graced the professional stage for seventeen year between 1984-2001 and had a highest ranking of 32 in the 1990-1992 season. He made 41 career centuries, earned £255,728 in prize money and achieved a high break of 143 in the 1998 Benson and Hedges Championship. He was always one of the few players to make a 147 clearance in a Pro AM event. I decided to write about Chappel because he was one of those players that surprised on the baize. You always hear about shock wins in snooker and he was responsible for quite a few of the upsets. Researching this piece, I found out that this Welsh player beat quite a few of the top players of the time, including S...

“I have never felt such a desire to make a success of my snooker career. I now feel so driven by the dark times I have been through and I can’t wait to be back doing what I do best - playing professional snooker “. Last year I did a piece for the SnookerFans website on the player Jamie Jones and how one of my favourite players had been suspended from the sport for failing to report a match fixing report. This for me is a heartfelt story and had left the highly talented Welsh player out of the game for a year. Jamie commented after the ordeal that this had been “the worst year of his life” and left him having to   earn a living working as a grass cutter for his local council just to pay the bills. Jones feeling low and for a while, not being able to leave the house, has had to get used to not using his cue to seek glory and has been somewhat forgotten for the massive inroads he made into snooker when he was a top professional player. That is not to say I agree with any form of ir...

Sometimes as a snooker blogger you come across a player that you haven’t heard of and I must confess that this was the case with the former, professional player, David Greaves. Yesterday I was scrolling through social media and saw a black and white photograph of John Spencer with another player and so was intrigued to see who this mystery man was. Part of being a writer, is the research and I always enjoy the detective aspect of blogging, delving into the archives and constructing a piece from a series of facts. David Greaves was a professional snooker player from 1972 until 1993, playing in the golden era of snooker. With a highest ranking of 31, between 1980-1982 and a high break of 93, this Lancashire lad grew up mixing with players and dreamt of one day, following in his heroes’ footsteps and playing on the hallowed green baize. I admire David because he came from the grassroots, playing snooker after college and in April, 1977 he founded the Commonwealth Sporting Club and this ...

What started off as a good concept has frankly now become a joke in the sport. A million pounds for winning all of the Home Nations’ tournaments is a big ask on paper but magnifies when it becomes a reality. Players like Nark Selby, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Neil Robertson have laughed when asked by pundits if it was achievable and even Neil Foulds has dismissed the idea. For me, World Snooker needs to steer away from this type of razzmatazz and move back to ideas that work. Yes, players need to be rewarded for their efforts but dangling a golden carrot in their faces is not the answer. I remember in the past when a car was displayed outside the arena and the player who got a 147, win the car, now there have to be twenty 147s in a season for them to share a million pound prize pot. Snooker isn’t like darts and should be treated as a serious sport. Players practice for hours to achieve the top prizes in the season and although prize money has drastically increased and the tour has massively...

India is of course the birthplace of snooker and was first played in Jabalpur in 1875. Sir Neville Chamberlain, an army officer from Slough and in the 11th Devonshire regiment invented the game and dubbed the game snooker after taking it from the nickname of British army cadets who were called “snookers”. Since the end of British rule in India in 1948, India has continued to love the game  even though its derivative, billiards is still more popular with players such as Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta being successful in both sports for the country. It was therefore sad to hear this week that World Snooker has had to postpone this this year’s Indian Open in March due to not being able to secure a location for the event. The tournament has run successfully since 2013, first won by Ding Junhui and then Michael White in 2015 and Anthony McGill in 2016, John Higgins in 2017 and Matthew Selt in 2019. Disaster struck in 2018 when floods in Kerala cancelled the 2018 tournament. This tourn...

Prior to the Masters later this month, two of snooker’s top players travel to Hamm and Hamburg in Germany for two exhibition matches. Judd Trump will play Kyren Wilson in matches that will be an added treat for German fans lucky enough to have tickets. Germany has become a bedrock of snooker in recent but sadly doesn’t have the clubs and tournaments that German fans crave. The German Masters at the Tempodrom is probably one of the the best events on the tour and is adored by the players. The atmosphere and venue compliment each other and by the semi-finals, the auditorium is packed to the rafters. Germany only has one other tournament and that is the Paul Hunter Classic, sadly now not televised. If you could pick two players to take part in this exhibition, then both Judd and Kyren would be natural choices. Their youth and natural flair is clearly apparent on the green baize and always attract a large audience when either play. Great amateur players who have fine tuned their game for...

As we approach the end of 2019, our attention now focuses on the start of 2020 and with the start of the new year comes the second half of the snooker season. We kick off with esteemed invitational event, the Masters, where only the top sixteen players of the main tour get a crack at the title. This tournament is steeped in tradition with the first event being won by John Spencer way back in 1975 when he beat Ray Reardon 9-8 at the West Centre Hotel. Since those early days, we have seen many players win at the New London Theatre, Wembley and now at its established home, Alexandra Palace with Paul Hunter winning the title three times. For years, the sport was tied to cigarette companies with Benson and Hedges sponsoring this tournament for many years and everyone who follows the sport will remember a player lightning up before they took their shot. The sport has of course moved on and some of those who won this great title are no longer with us However their memories live on in film a...

I have been watching snooker for over thirty years and have seen many players come and go but in recent times one of the most exciting players that I have been lucky enough to meet and watch is Kurt Maflin. Maflin is London born but now considers Norway his home and lives there with his wife Anita and family. Kurt is a person who took to snooker like a duck to water and has compiled more than 170 century breaks during his career and is among 25 players to have made multiple 147 breaks in professional competition. Maflin comes from the Jimmy White mould, an attacking player who is never afraid to go for that daring shot and oozes with flair and natural talent. In fact Jimmy White is a family friend and was at the wedding when he married Anita Rizzuti in 2013. Maflin is a multiple Norwegian amateur champion and has also won the World Amateur Championship. I don't often anoint a player as a future champion but I will make an exception for this player. If ever anyone wanted to be ent...