Snooker: Whirlwind to Rocket

By the mid-Eighties, snooker was for me no longer just a refuge of last resort, to watch only when there was nothing else on any of the alternative three (yes, only three) TV channels. It wasn’t just the Crucible headliner; Dad and I would set Mum’s eyes rolling by watching hours of live coverage of any tournament going, be it prime-time or late evening post-Newsnight. From the Masters to the UK and Scottish Open, snooker was essential viewing, and not only in our household. Working with TV audience figures, I was acutely aware of BBC2’s dependence on the sport which kept on giving. Chas & Dave even took ‘Snooker Loopy’ to number six in the charts.

The atmosphere was irresistible: the mesmeric effect of gaudy coloured balls being manipulated across the green baize, the gentle tap of cue on ball, the exhilarating crack of a high-velocity pot, knowing applause after an immaculately executed safety shot or gasps as the black judders in the jaws, millimetres from perfection. I’d attempted to play pool and knew only too well how difficult it is to control a long tapered stick, to strike the white with just the right degree of power, in the designated square millimetre, all supported by an uncanny understanding of mechanics and angles. And these pros had to harness all of these elements under intense pressure.

Even the players famed for their speed around the table spent most of their matches deep in thought, inscrutable expressions concealing brains performing untold numbers of calculations, willing their arms and fingers to deliver what their minds had deemed necessary to win the frame. However, others were maintain the upper hand.

After Steve Davis in the Eighties, another pasty-faced automaton took control in the Nineties: Stephen Hendry. Like the red-headed Londoner, the shy Scot was hard to like but easy to admire. His popularity in m part of the country might have been wider had he not been responsible for single-handedly preventing a certain Jimmy White from winning a world title, not once but four times.

Like Alex Higgins in the Seventies, White made a deep impression on young men like me. He, too, possessed an exciting fluid style of attacking play and, with the epithet ‘Hurricane’ already adopted, he quickly became known as ‘the Whirlwind’. I once saw him standing alone on a platform at Liverpool Street station looking anything but: a whey-faced little-boy-lost clutching not a teddy bear but his cue box Was he waiting for his manager - or his mum? I didn’t stop to ask!

While Jimmy electrified audiences at tournaments for many years, he was unfortunate to reach his peak simultaneously with Hendry. Aged 21, he’d already given Davis a scare in the 1984 climax but in the Nineties, he reached five successive finals – and lost the whole bally lot. His 5-18 humiliation in 1993 was an excruciating watch but, if anything, the following year’s desperately close encounter was even harder to take.  White never made another Crucible final but he did hand Hendry a rare beating in ’98 before falling to a 22 year-old Ronnie O’Sullivan.

In the subsequent two decades snooker’s grip on the UK has loosened somewhat. My own relationship with the sport has come full circle, reverting to an occasional dip into the world championships once Angie has gone to bed. From Virgo to White, Parrott to Davis, the stars I grew up watching are more likely to be seen as engaging TV pundits or heard as commentators.

Some things don’t change. For all the growth around the world, including the lucrative Asian markets, the World title has remained in the hands of white men from the Commonwealth nations. Indeed, Neil Robertson is the only non-UK player to have won at the Crucible since Thorburn in 1980. Perhaps reassuringly, many of the big names I watched in the early Noughties are still on the scene, still competing for the major trophies. Snooker is a rare national sport where professionals continue to perform at the highest level for twenty or thirty years. Last year’s world champ Mark Williams and the man he beat, John Higgins, are both in their forties, as is the official number one, O’Sullivan.

But who of the current crop stand out for me? Well, as someone who watches live only rarely, I am in no position to assess relative qualities as cue-smiths. I can’t believe it’s a decade since Judd Trump burst onto the scene as a scruffy-haired Bristolian, threatening to take snooker by storm. As a West Country resident at the time, I did follow his progress for a while but admittedly even that interest has waned. Could 2019 be his year at the Crucible?

I know I ought to be a supporter of Ronnie. As a natural successor to Higgins and White, the natural showman and master break-builder has made himself one of the most recognisable and popular sports personalities in UK sport. And yet I can’t quite take him to my heart. Perhaps it’s my own ageing process but I lose respect for anyone who attempts to place himself above the sport itself. Of course he remains an incredible player. His astonishing first-round loss last week to an amateur, and the fact he hasn’t won the World crown since 2013, have not dented his reputation as the biggest draw in snooker. He still does things nobody else can. For example, I still marvel when he switches from right to left hand to pot a ball without any obvious loss of quality. And when coverage of his 1000^th century went viral last month, I had to smile at his cheeky grin and boyish celebrations around the table even as he continued his break. 

Snooker will survive without the Rocket, just as it did after the Hurricane and Whirlwind blew themselves out. It just needs another big personality to pull me back into the fold.