Perrie Mans
I was a bit of a fan of Perrie back in the day. The first snooker I watched really was Pot Black 1978 when he was the reigning champion, although I think he did not compete that year. Then he got to the WC final in 1978 and put up a good show in losing to Reardon.
I still did not know a huge amount about the game then, that would grow in the next few years but Mans seemed to be a top, top player. I did gradually become aware of his well documented weakness, poor cue ball control which limited his break building ability but he was quite some potter and a good safety player. (I saw evidence of that in the highlights of the 78 final on YT) He the (famously without a 50 break) won the Masters in 1979, beating Higgins in the final quite comfortably.
Then his form / performance seemed to nosedive. I looked up his WC record after 1978 - and it needs to be borne in mind that up to and including 1981 he had a bye into R2.
1979 R2 - 8-13 (Griffiths)
1980 R2 - 6-13 (Higgins)
1981 R2 - 5-13 (Werbeniuk)
1982 R2 - 6-13 (White)
1983 R2 - 3-13 (Stevens)
1984 QR - 0-10 (Parrott)
It could have been that his inability to score heavily meant he was simply found out as more young players came into the game but his decline seemed to pre-date that and was quite sudden.
One for Cyril??
I still did not know a huge amount about the game then, that would grow in the next few years but Mans seemed to be a top, top player. I did gradually become aware of his well documented weakness, poor cue ball control which limited his break building ability but he was quite some potter and a good safety player. (I saw evidence of that in the highlights of the 78 final on YT) He the (famously without a 50 break) won the Masters in 1979, beating Higgins in the final quite comfortably.
Then his form / performance seemed to nosedive. I looked up his WC record after 1978 - and it needs to be borne in mind that up to and including 1981 he had a bye into R2.
1979 R2 - 8-13 (Griffiths)
1980 R2 - 6-13 (Higgins)
1981 R2 - 5-13 (Werbeniuk)
1982 R2 - 6-13 (White)
1983 R2 - 3-13 (Stevens)
1984 QR - 0-10 (Parrott)
It could have been that his inability to score heavily meant he was simply found out as more young players came into the game but his decline seemed to pre-date that and was quite sudden.
One for Cyril??
- Muller
- Posts: 151
- Joined: 10 August 2020