Why do they keep banging on about 1985?

Alex0paul wrote:Why do they never make this much fuss over the 94 or 02 finals?

A few reasons; snooker wasn’t as big in 94 or 02.

Hard to imagine if you weren’t alive in that era, but snooker was genuinely massive. Hooliganism + the Bradford fire, Heysel Disaster and -ultimately - Hillsborough had football at rock-bottom. Very few people were interested. It took Italia 90 and Euro 96 for football to get massively popular again.

Snooker went some way to filling in the gap. The eighties pros in the main had buckets of charisma, because they’d learned their trade on the exhibition circuits. People loved them, watched snooker and talked about it round the ‘water coolers’ in workplaces. A peak of 18.5 million watching the 85 final, and still the biggest ever post-midnight audience for a sporting event.

By 94, it didn’t catch the public interest so much - and certainly not in 02. People had stopped watching because ‘the personalities are no longer there’. The players were getting better, more professional, almost like automatons and it was turning audiences off.

Also the last-minute nature of the drama; after 35 frames, a nervy tussle on the colours going down to the final ball, and both players having multiple shots at it. 94 and 02 were devoid of that. For purists, White opening a big lead, missing a simple-ish black off the spot and Hendry faultlessly and nervelessly clearing up may have been more aesthetically pleasing, but didn’t (quite) have that edge-of-your-seat, chain-smoking, nailbiting climax.

The final frame in 02 was even more anti-climactic, with Ebdon compiling an impressive-under-the-circumstances, but ultimately fairly rudimentary 59 break to take the title.

Whatever you think of 1985, and the hype surrounding it (and it does snake hiss me off to a certain extent now) it was one of those once-in-lifetime-sporting moments that you really had to have experienced live to fully appreciate now. Snooker will only surpass that by another World Final that goes to 17-17 and down to the last, tense, black.

It’s like Arsenal winning the title in the third minute of injury time at Anfield in 1989; football will probably never have another finish *ever* to a season quite like that one. Sky tried to hype up Man. City’s last day victory over QPR as just as good. It wasn’t, it couldn’t come close - although it was arguably the next most dramatic.

So 1985 will stand head-and-shoulders above all other snooker moments (and, deservedly, remain amongst the greatest ever sporting moments) for a long while yet - possibly for all our lifetimes.

Sorry

I suppose unless we have a final go to s respotted black in the final frame it can't get closer, but even then you'd have to have additional elements such as an underdog beating a dominant player and a plucky fight back. It was the whole "against the odds" additional element.

But there have been many better finals, 2002, 2005 and 2011 for starters.

Back to the Future came out that year. A good film

While all that is true, ed, it still doesn't explain why they keep referring to it every single year and can't make any content about any other event.

Tennis doesn't keep banging on about McEnroe V Borg every year.
Darts doesn't keep banging on about Bristow v John Lowe
Golf doesn't keep banging on about Nick Faldo

If they hadn't saturated '85 so much in every other previous year, this would have actually been a good year to properly bang on about it.

Since they have already milked that vat so dry everyone is sick of it, it would have been much more interesting if they'd made this year about the 31st anniversary of Jimmy's black ball and the last gasp of a glittering career as the new breed take over (since they missed it last year).

It's like the never-ending WW2 documentaries. Other wars are available y'know.

Actually, considering the circumstances, 20 years since Murphy won would've been an excellent anniversary.

LDS wrote:Actually, considering the circumstances, 20 years since Murphy won would've been an excellent anniversary.

and see his head get even bigger?

At least they didn't show Cliff Thorburns 147 this year

Currently, on iplayer, you can watch the following snooker documentaries and features:

Gods of Snooker - about the stars of 80s snooker
When Snooker Ruled the World - about snooker in the 1980s
Alex Higgins The People's Champion - about Alex Higgins
Davis v Taylor The '85 Black Ball Final - About...
On Cue With Steve Davis 1985 World Championship Final

Jeesuz H

The only other 2 are:

The Crucible 40 Golden Snooker Years - a large part of which will be the 1980s
and
My Life - the only one that doesn't feature the 1980s, a short profile of Stan Moody

I mean, come on.

The_Abbott wrote:

LDS wrote:Actually, considering the circumstances, 20 years since Murphy won would've been an excellent anniversary.

and see his head get even bigger?

At least they didn't show Cliff Thorburns 147 this year

Yes, I'm aware. But even people like Shaun deserve their moment. I mean, he's there begging to make time for all this surplus content, it's not like anyone would have to make much of an effort to put it together.

The bbc must have hundreds and hundreds of hours of archive footage, yet they churn out the same hour hundreds of times.

Murphy's win was great, a qualifier, second youngest player, a nip and tuck final which was great quality.

I cant see why they cant put tgat crucible classics series on iplayer for a start, as well as some classic matches.

Just think how many great Masters finals there have been down tge years, all shown by the bbc.

Higgins v O'S in 2006, Hunter v O'Sullivan, Hunter v Williams, Williams v Hendry, O'S v Davis, O'S v Selby, Hendry v Hallett to name but a few.

mick745 wrote:The bbc must have hundreds and hundreds of hours of archive footage, yet they churn out the same hour hundreds of times.

Murphy's win was great, a qualifier, second youngest player, a nip and tuck final which was great quality.

I cant see why they cant put tgat crucible classics series on iplayer for a start, as well as some classic matches.

Just think how many great Masters finals there have been down tge years, all shown by the bbc.

Higgins v O'S in 2006, Hunter v O'Sullivan, Hunter v Williams, Williams v Hendry, O'S v Davis, O'S v Selby, Hendry v Hallett to name but a few.

Got to throw in McManus v Hendry

They don't mention the 1994 final as much because the underdog lost that one and I doubt if Jimmy White would want to recreate his missed black the way six time champion Steve Davis does with his.

I bet more non snooker fans would recognise Willie Thorne over Neil Robertson for example. Its like 80's Neighbours characters. Everyone remembers them just nobody after that.

I got a 'is Ronnie O'Sullivan still playing' last week.

KrazeeEyezKilla in tha hause!

SnookerFan wrote:

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:I got a 'is Ronnie O'Sullivan still playing' last week.

He is. Occasionally.

Ha!

I was chatting to a bloke at the weekend, mentioned I was watching the snooker, said to me “I used to love watching when Jimmy White was playing. I stopped when he stopped…”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him…

Next year is the 41st anniversary. The is a real milestone. Let's hope Dennis and Steve are still alive to update everyone on what happened in 1985.

I bet they bang on about Ronnie's fastest 147 in 2027 the 30th anniversary.

mick745 wrote:The bbc must have hundreds and hundreds of hours of archive footage, yet they churn out the same hour hundreds of times.

Murphy's win was great, a qualifier, second youngest player, a nip and tuck final which was great quality.

I cant see why they cant put tgat crucible classics series on iplayer for a start, as well as some classic matches.

Just think how many great Masters finals there have been down tge years, all shown by the bbc.

Higgins v O'S in 2006, Hunter v O'Sullivan, Hunter v Williams, Williams v Hendry, O'S v Davis, O'S v Selby, Hendry v Hallett to name but a few.

A lot of these finals are on youtube and the thing about the BBC is that they probably don't have as much as you'd think they would. In a lot of cases they only kept high breaks and final frames of finals. It's interesting that the WST play service has been very slow updating the archive section and so far there is nothing at all from the 80s.

I think the worst thing is there is no new take, we can predict what is going to be said, "we couldn't pot a ball", " i was going redder and redder" "twitched on the black to the green pocket" "don't over cut it" and a million others. Just got tired and cliched now.

mick745 wrote:I think the worst thing is there is no new take, we can predict what is going to be said, "we couldn't pot a ball", " i was going redder and redder" "twitched on the black to the green pocket" "don't over cut it" and a million others. Just got tired and cliched now.

In the late-night version, Dennis was “recycling bricks” and Davis wanted to “smash that bespectacled little runt into the baize”

Looking forward to the 40th Anniversary next year of Bulldog Joe from Bradford pummelling the Ginger Magician. Will Joe get his famous spats out of the closet of another airing?