YOU know any sport has problems when it starts giving nicknames to players that bear no relation to their personalities whatsoever. Take snooker, for instance, whose reigning world champion, Mark Selby, has been bestowed with the sobriquet “The Jester from Leicester”. Quite apart from the fact he appears a genial character, there’s absolutely no evidence that the English potting machine has cracked a joke in his life and he certainly doesn’t threaten Frankie Boyle in the stand-up stakes. You might as well call him “The Selby Date”. But then again, the game’s authorities probably shied away from that choice, lest it offered a reminder that audiences are shrinking in the land of the green baize.
It’s a sad state of affairs for those of us who grew up during a period when “Pot Black” offered “Whispering” Ted Lowe the chance to inform viewers: “And, for those of you watching in black and white, the blue is behind the green”. At that stage, snooker still had an edge to it and was populated by a cast list straight from a Damon Runyon novella. There was Alex Higgins, of course, a man who puffed away desperately on every cigarette he smoked, not only as if there was no tomorrow but also as if there were barely anything left of today. There was Cliff Thorburn, who looked as if he had just walked out of a steamboat in the Mississippi, Terry Griffiths, another of the great gaspers, and the sinister visage of Ray Reardon, who would have been ideal for a “Dracula” remake if anybody had checked whether he had a shadow.
This fearsome band of characters was eventually overhauled by Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry and I’m afraid the sport has never been quite the same since. All of which explains why there will be anxious glances by snooker entrepreneur Barry Hearn at the viewing figures for the World Championships which starts in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre tomorrow. It’s not merely that many have fallen out of love with this event, which used to exert a similar pull to Wimbledon in the public’s imagination, but also that it is difficult to imagine the unconverted being won over by Selby and other players in his mould, irrespective of their talent and technical ability.
Hearn can’t be faulted for trying to orchestrate a transformation. He has already achieved that in darts and those who imagined that life on the oche would never be as entertaining after the departure of Eric Bristow and the late Jocky Wilson have been emphatically proved wrong. I sat enthralled throughout the recent PDC World Championships — the incredible drama and stirring acts of derring-do which propelled Scotland’s Gary Anderson to the main prize over Phil Taylor came straight from an action comic. The crowds could barely contain their excitement and you could have cut the tension with a knife as the contest ebbed and flowed, but it was genuinely thrilling proof that darts has reinvented itself magnificently since the glory days of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Snooker, though, faces a bigger challenge. Hearn has attempted a myriad of innovations, from shorter matches to putting players on the clock and taking tournaments across the globe, with some of the same ineffectual consequences as F1’s Bernie Ecclestone. Yet audiences are still diminishing, and, three decades after Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor fought out the greatest-ever global final with 18 million people glued to their TV screens, there is a sense of unease and apprehension about the direction in which the game is headed. Many will still tune in to witness Ronnie O’Sullivan parade his full repertoire of tics, terrific pots and temperamental outbursts, while there is no denying the brio of rising star Judd Trump and potential of Crucible newcomers Anthony McGill and Stuart Carrington.
But, when one scans the schedule for the first round at the 2015 event, there are also plenty of match-ups which induce little but shrugged shoulders. Mark Allen v Ryan Day, anybody? Ding Junhui v Mark Davis? Mark Williams v Matthew Stevens? Even the name of Stuart Bingham’s opponent, Robbie Williams, only serves to reinforce the point that the current baize brigade are largely comprised of youngsters who have known nothing else in their lives except practising relentlessly for hours on end in semi-lit clubs. And, in common with career politicians, that might make them adroit at spinning convoluted answers and trotting out sound-bites, but it doesn’t exactly set pulses racing.
In short, Hearn and the broadcasters badly need O’Sullivan to stay in the tournament for as long as possible and preferably go the full distance. The “Rocket” has spluttered out in the first round on three previous occasions, but has also reached the final for the last three years, and, at his best, he is capable of igniting any situation and producing stellar performances. “The one tie that hits me is Ronnie against the debutant. A pressure match for both players, because one has everything to lose and one has everything to gain,” said Hearn, who will surely be muttering a few silent prayers on behalf of Chigwell’s greatest export.
It seems a long time since I was introduced to the teenage O’Sullivan in the faded majesty of Blackpool’s Norbreck Castle, where he was involved in qualifying for as many events as he could. Even at that juncture, there was no arguing with the youngster’s speed around the table, his sensational potting skills, and his almost manic break-building dexterity.
That was over 20 years ago, and it doesn’t matter how often he has said the sport bores him rigid in the intervening period; the bottom line is that O’Sullivan has lustre and pizzazz in abundance. He is one of the few British sportsmen who can silence a packed pub, or, with with the sheer brilliance of his snooker pyrotechnics, persuade neutrals not to switch over to Murder, She Wrote.
Snooker needs him. Hearn needs him. But Ronnie won’t carry on for ever and you wonder whether the new generation will serve up any equivalent of Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth. Or whether snooker will quietly go to pot.
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