Pink Ball’s Top 50 Iconic Snooker Players of All Time

As a special treat for you all on Crucible Eve, I will be posting this list later tonight. Stand by notoriety, excellence, colourful characters and ridiculousness.

Who will finish top?

Cliff Wilson.

Its a no-brainer

Andy Hamilton - special player he is

SnookerEd25 wrote:Cliff Wilson.

Its a no-brainer

The actual question itself is quite difficult when being unbiased.

But it is a no brainer that Pink will be BIASED and pick Jimmy as No. 1

Jimmy Michie?

Oh well, each to their own.

SnookerEd25 wrote:Cliff Wilson.

Its a no-brainer

YOU WON'T BELEIVE YOUR EYES!

I'm hoping Stephen Hendry and Judd Trump will be in the top 5

Here we go, then

50. Dominic Dale
One of the most intelligent, flamboyant and snooker-mad players of them all. Dominic Dale had to appear.

49. Tony Drago
Far more popular than his success – or lack thereof – should have allowed for, Drago has always been entertaining, and his speed alone has made him an iconic figure in the game.

48. Peter Francisco
Not as successful as Silvino, but more notorious – and with one infamous match alone, he’d done enough to go down in snooker history.

47. Liang Wenbo
Nowhere near as popular as Ding Junhui, he has still pulled in mammoth TV viewing figures. If this list were not so Britain-and-Ireland centric, he’d probably be much higher.

46. Anthony Hamilton
Hamilton has been a much-loved cult hero in snooker over the years, athough his decision to withdraw from the 2020 World Championship has been a rare brush with controversy.

45. Neal Foulds
His strong career came to something of a tragic end, and it remains unclear how much of a bearing this has had on refusal to even play shots as part of Eurosport’s coverage. Today he’s a likeable, erudite and uncompromising commentator and pundit.

44. John Virgo
Not as loveable as Willie Thorne, and not as successful as Dennis Taylor – never mind John Parrott – but John Virgo’s role with the BBC has made him one of snooker’s best-known figures.

43. Ali Carter
A good but non-descript player for many years, Ali Carter has shot up the list by becoming one of the game’s modern-day pantomime villains. His interesting take on politics has only solidified his notoriety.

42. Silvino Francisco
A notorious figure – perhaps better remembered for his shameful humiliation of Kirk Stevens after the 1985 British Open Final than he is for actually winning that prestigious tournament. His carry-on became all the harder to take when his own life revealed itself to be a shambles.

41. Alan McManus
Another very good player who rarely set the world alight, Alan McManus has soared up this list by becoming one of the game’s most-respected pundits and commentators. He has a genuine love for snooker, and for that alone many felt he probably deserved his stunning run to the World semi-final in 2016

40. John Pulman
World Champion during snooker’s challenge era, Pulman’s success should have him much higher on this list, but he was perhaps unlucky to dominate the game during its most difficult period.

39. Quinten Hann
When Clive Everton calls you a disgrace, you’re a disgrace. Quinten Hann was only a middling player in comparison to most on this list, but he ranks highly on controversy alone. A mammoth ban in relation to match-fixing in 2005 was the nadir of a colourful and often distasteful career.

38. Stephen Maguire
One of the sport’s major underachievers, he jumped into the limelight with an excellent 2004, topped off by a genuinely stunning win at the UK Championship. He has never delivered on his awesome natural ability, but he has always been very good, and he’s no mean attention-grabber off the table either.

37. Mark Allen
Another pantomime villain, Allen has become one of the top love-him-or-hate-him characters in the sport. He is always opinionated, often brash, never dull – and a very good player to boot. He is also, arguably, one of the best players never to win the World Championship, and time is ticking for the Antrim man on that front.

36. Doug Mountjoy
A much-loved player who even showed up to the Crucible one year just a few weeks before having a lung removed. Doug Mountjoy was always a very good player, but his fairytale year in 1989 solidified his career as one of the game’s most fondly remembered.

35. Stuart Bingham
Somewhat notorious in his own right, Stuart Bingham is, thankfully, best known for what he has done on the table. His remarkable turnaround from being a journeyman par-excellence to 2015 World Champion will forever secure his place in snooker history.

34. Graeme Dott
It’s a bit ironic that someone who used to get upset over not getting the attention his game deserved ranks quite highly now in terms of the game’s most iconic players. Dott has had a long and sometimes distinguished career, and while the feistiness that made him one of the game’s ‘very goods’ has diminished over the past decade, when you paired it with his underrated skills, he was a match – on his day – for anyone.

33. Matthew Stevens
Not as good as Dott but, let’s face it, he remains more iconic. He will be best-remembered, sadly, as arguably the game’s biggest underachiever, despite having a fairly fantastic record in snooker’s two biggest ranking events. When he burst onto the scene, he brought a few female admirers into the game as well – not too many players can boast that – and his chaotic personal life has only solidified his place on this list.

32. James Wattana
It’s hard to measure Wattana’s impact from this side of the world, but he was the first top Asian player, and Thailand’s presence on the tour is still unusually large for a non-English speaking country. That’s down in no small part to Wattana’s influence. He never became the great player that many expected he would be, but he did set the game’s Asian invasion in motion.

31. Joe Johnson
Comfortably the worst player to win the World Championship – but that’s not to say he didn’t deserve to win the tournament in 1986. He came into the event with a dreadful Crucible record, a lot of kids to feed, and not a lot of money with which to do that.
He left as a World Champion.
Johnson’s fairytale win would be enough to secure his place on this list, but his affable presence on Eurosport has made him even more popular.

30. Willie Thorne
Brash, talented, insecure and very hard to dislike – no matter how hard he tried to make us not like him.
Willie Thorne’s bald head and lush moustache made him stand out more from the crowd than his game ever did, but he was no bad player all the same. A chronic addiction to gambling overshadowed his career and the rest of his personal life, but whatever about that, Thorne’s contribution to snooker, on and off the table, only strengthened his position as one of game’s most iconic figures.