How I Came to Love Snooker

by Roland Cox

(This is an article taken from the forum which I thought deserved a spot on the blog..)

Hi everyone.

With Sonny’s statement here, it made me think back to when i came to love snooker.

It happened in May 1999 it was the final of the 1999 world snooker championship, and i loved it. I was 13 at the time and parents being parents said “come on its bed time” I was gutted & i was just getting into it, i can remember my mum coming in my room to wake me up to tell me “stephen hendry has won, come on I’ll let you watch it” which led me to think hang on why didn’t you just let me stay up i’ve only been in bed an hour, and secondly a bit dissapointed that hendry had won cos i was really impressed with Mark Williams. I can remember laughing when David Vine interviewed Mark Williams and Mark Williams saying something about “I will have to send back the ferrari back I’ve orded.”

That was it no more snooker on tv till autumn. Well at the time i was a paperboy and I can rember going to the shop the next morning and my friend was in there collecting his round, i said to him did you watch the snooker which he replied “yes, i wish i could have a ferrari” I laughed and said “do you like Mark Williams then?” he said “yes and i like Ronnie O’Sullivan” I can remember thinking i haven’t got clue who this O’Sullivan bloke is so i will stick with Williams. all that summer me and Anthony Robinson played at our local snooker center called Spot On. i went out and brought a plain cue, then he went and brought a Jimmy White bce cue. So then I wanted a bce cue so i went to local sports shop for a bce cue, to find the only bce cues they had were Ronnie O’Sullivan bce cues, so i brought that any way. We continued to play snooker in the six weeks holidays whenever we could 9 times out of 10 i would beat him, i can remember him being a sore loser and just walking off leaving me to collect the balls and play.

Well the summer was over and the new snooker season started, my family didn’t have sports channels so could only view BBC snooker but i wasn’t disappointed i loved seeing Mark Williams win matches that season he was runner up to Higgins in Grand Prix but won the UK and World and i also remember Ken Doherty missing black for 147 in the Masters. I was happy that Mark Williams won the World Championship to go one better than the year before. That was it another season gone and i had Mark Williams and Ken Doherty as my top favourite players. How that was about to change.

The next season came and the first tourney was on ITV instead of BBC and it was the Champions Cup and in the final was my fav player Mark Williams and this Ronnie O’Sullivan… well well well a BIG turning point Ronnie won the match and i can remember him crying about this win is for his dad etc. I was both touched and impressed by this fellar that i wanted to know more. Around that time my dad had the internet installed… sorry dad but your not having a go on it. I can remember making my own little folders with stats photos etc most from off WWWSnooker and google.

Somehow and i cant remember why but i dropped Mark Williams for Ronnie and i was Ronnie mad, dont forget i had already got a Ronnie cue. At school i would be turning up at morning registation walking in the room shouting “Come on Ronnie, Ronnie’s won this, Ronnie’s done that” I can remember taping some footage of ronnie’s 1997 147 onto a vhs and taking it into school, i made my mates watch it in the science store room, of course they didn’t even understand what a 147 was never mind 5mins 20secs.

I have continued to follow snooker since then, but as i have said before i became fanatical about Ronnie to the point that i hated his opponents. And as everyone knows since 2000 onwards Ronnies major rivals were Mark Williams and Higgins so i hated them.

But i have grown up now 11 years later i enjoy snooker in a different view now, i’ve grown up and out of Ronnie and i now view Mark Williams and Higgins like i used to. I like most players O’Sullivan, Williams, Higgins, Robertson, Ding, Murphy. The only players i cant seem to like are Ebdon and Selby. I’m working on Selby but Ebdon’s a defo no no.

So that’s how i came to love snooker. I would be happy to read other people’s stories.

by rocket_ron

Discuss this article..

Tags: ,