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Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you can

Postby LDS

Hi all,

Yes, I'm new and, yes, I'm going to be talking about my youtube video, but, no, this is not a promotional post, in fact I could well be deleting my video if I get the help required to complete it. So I don't really want my BETA version of the video to go viral.

I've spent the last month and a half researching and compiling a history of the World Snooker Championship, and converting this into what is hopefully an entertaining video.

However, even after all this time I have been unable to fully complete the video as I simply cannot find all the images the video requires.

For example: Walter Donaldson - I cannot find any video anywhere of him shooting a few balls into pockets, not even a trick shot video or newsreel type stuff. So his section, unfortunately, just has floating question marks.

Example 2: Jason Ferguson played in three events in the 1990s, and yet I cannot find any videos or photos of Jason Ferguson from that era aside from the only one that exists on the internet being from the dreaded Getty images which just shows an indistinguishable mass of hair leaning over a cue, it's almost as bad as just having the guy be a question mark.

Example 3: Stephen O'Connor played in 1993's World Championship and I cannot find any images of this guy anywhere at all. Zero zip nada zilch. While I could understand this for the guys from the 1920s or 1930s, I'm kinda flabbergasted that even players from the 90s have vanished from the internet.

And there's quite a lot of this problem throughout the video, particularly at the later stages when I start going through the lesser known legends.

To provide a full list of what is required would be quite exhaustive, and I'm happy to do that, but to save time and also to make this post at least somewhat readable in length, can I just find out if anyone is either interested or capable in helping me out here?

The video is called:

"The Top 269 World Snooker Championship Legends 1927-2020 Ranked"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoHRh68cUaE

And I'd also be interested in hearing if it's entertaining in any way, as while educational information is always good, I don't think there's any point me finishing the project if the video simply isn't entertaining.

Be warned, it's nearly 2 hours long, so if you like the sound of helping out, please be sure to prepare yourself with lots of cookies and spare time.

Eternally grateful & I'll comprise a full list things that are missing if anyone seems interested, but it should be obvious from the video as to who's missing and who has a crap photo and all that, but I am happy to put it in word-list form if anyone's actually interested.

There's no great hurry here, but I'm hoping to get it completed this year rather than next decade ;)

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby Iranu

You know, you should email the Snooker Scene podcast or tweet David Hendon and see if they can help!

They’ve mentioned on the podcast someone they know who has loads of videos of old and obscure players/matches. I can’t remember the guy’s name but they’ll know who you’re talking about and I think they’d be happy to help.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

Omg, that would be excellent, yes indeed. I've tried searching for just such people but as yet have come up blank. Mr. Hendon and that podcast sound ideal. I'm not on Twitter though, and when I just searched for "the snooker scene podcast" it didn't present any email address, just a request to Twitter Mr. Hendon.

I'd really rather not join Twitter, I'd be useless at it anyway as I'm incapable of doing anything in single line quips. Do you have a link to a page with his email addy? (and a suggestion of a way to phrase the title so it wont go str8 to his spam folder).

& brb for 10mins or so, apparently the Beeb are going to do a thing on Sean Connery (RIP) any minute now.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

@IRANU

Just a quick update for your future benefit: The Snooker Scene blog is no longer active and Mr. Hendon and his posse have all moved to a website called Inside Snooker, I tried his email from Snooker Scene and it got returned as an unrecognised addy, but I did sent a message via Inside Snooker, which hopefully will get seen by someone :D

But thanks again for sending me in the right direction to look as I really had no idea.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby Iranu

Sorry about the late reply LDS, I missed your posts somehow!

Inside Snooker hasn’t been updated for three years so I doubt the emails are still monitored.

However, the email for the SS podcast is snookerscenepodcast@mail.com if that’s not the one you tried before.

As for an email header, I don’t know but they often talk about obscure stuff on there so maybe something like “obscure snooker video request”. They also read out emails on there every episode so you might get yours read out.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby Dan-cat

Iranu wrote:Sorry about the late reply LDS, I missed your posts somehow!

Inside Snooker hasn’t been updated for three years so I doubt the emails are still monitored.

However, the email for the SS podcast is snookerscenepodcast@mail.com if that’s not the one you tried before.

As for an email header, I don’t know but they often talk about obscure stuff on there so maybe something like “obscure snooker video request”. They also read out emails on there every episode so you might get yours read out.


Great shout Iranu.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

No, I haven't tried that one yet.

TBH I've been getting nowhere fast over the past 10 days, it seems like I've emailed so many people and not a single reply from any of them, I was beginning to get paranoid google was blocking my incoming messages because I'm the centre of the universe or flirted with their CEO'S wife once in 1992 or something.

I even spoke to one guy over the phone but he has yet to even make me a courtesy reply email to say if he got the email and that was like 2 days ago.

There's someone on another snooker forum, the one I think just called The Snooker Forum, that looks ideal and the kind of person that has what I require, but that forum seems to be bugged to high heaven, I haven't been able to create an account there for nigh on two months. I finally created an account there a few days ago & when I log in it just says "you are not authorised to view this page" to the entire forum, so I messaged the admins with my email addy & ...zero reply.

Hendon's email came back unrecognised as I said, but the one to Clive Everton's aol addy didn't, but I've heard nothing from that, so that's probably inactive as well.

The only luck I've had for 10 whole days is from literally crawling through ebay for old magazines and photos that people are or were flogging in the past few months. Got a handful of improved pics, but barely denting the 50 odd pics that are needed.

I'll try the email you mentioned next, but I'm close to giving up, truth be told.

I had a look at your own Snooker History section of this very website, but no-one there seems to be posting pics. Either in the past pre-copywrite paranoia nor recently & no-one here seems to be an old snooker magazine collector?

Or, if they are, it seems they CBA to help sadly :(

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby chengdufan

Made it about half way through the vid this morning before my boy insisted we start watching lion videos. He's only 2 so I let it go.

I'm trying to think of something constructive to say, but have nothing. It's a great vid, pure and simple. I particularly enjoyed seeing Cliff Thorburn's afro. Hadn't seen that before!

I'm afraid I can't help with the missing pics and clips, but you could try pm'ing the following islanders:
Muller
Empire state human
Badtemperedcyril

They may be able to help.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby chengdufan

Meant to add, I'm on annual leave the coming week, so will find time to finish watching.
Thank you for the time you have put into creating it, and for sharing it with us here. It's a hell of a contribution.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

Thanks for that, yes I've tried my best to avoid the more commonly famous pictures and tried to stick to pictures that more aptly represent the text rather than just reel off the usual iconic stuff.

Don't forget, don't get too attached to this particular upload, whether I complete my odyssey to get all the images required or not, I'll still be deleting this vid and re-uploading an actual final version at some point in the relatively near future.

The title will remain the same though, so no-one will see any change to their search results, just a different video at some point. I've had some good news today, so hopefully the final upload will be with much improved pics & not toooo long away. Fingers crossed!

I hope you like the second half as much as the first :)

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby badtemperedcyril

LDS - this is a great video. The 1953 World Championship final between Fred and Donaldson at Leicester Square Hall had the television cameras in on the Friday evening session, however, I've never actually seen any footage. The cameras were also at Blackpool for the Friday evening session in 1955 between Fred and Pulman - this is in circulation. I very much doubt that any moving footage of Donaldson exists.

I did have video's featuring Ferguson playing Hendry in the WC and O'Connor playing for Northern Ireland in the Nations Cup but not sure if I still do. I gave a lot of it away. :( I will have a look.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

Yes, it is looking bleak for the Donaldson footage sadly. The pics aren't great for him either, but they'll do for the purpose I guess.

I'm ok with the footage I have for both fred and Pulman, but I'd like to see that old footage at some point.

Yes, just one good freeze frame of both Ferguson and O'Connor would be all I need. You could find a good spot & screenshot it & post it here & I could screenshot it & job done. Don't break your back sorting out your attic though, just would be awesome!

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

The two Donaldson pics are great, I might well use those two, the first one more definitely.

The Ferguson one is good and better than the one in the current beta vid, though I did find a good one on ebay that I've already replaced him with which I think is marginally better:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxhist=0

I dunno, what do you think?

Steven O'Connor is ace that it's actually a pic of him, so beggers can't be choosers, but it's not ideal still as it's not very snookery, it's in that bracket of photo I call a Photofit. Like I said though, better than nothing if nothing is what I get :D

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby Empire State Human

The Stephen O'Connor pic is the only one I could find of him in Snooker Scene. I decided to leave his name tag in when I cropped it to prove it was really him!

Another version of the Donaldson pic, without any writing on it. The other one is from the 1947 final, so it's a significant photograph, but the other one is clearer.

Image
Image

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

The first pic is already in the video, it's a newspaper variant version of:

Image

(or just a similar pose at a different event)

I'll stick with the first image of the other one as the background writing is preferable to those two white Ls above his head in the second one.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

Empire State Human wrote:in Snooker Scene


I notice you've only posted pics of people mentioned in the thread, so I might as well actually list all those where the pics need improving.

I hadn't prepared a written list until a day or two ago as I didn't know if the vid was even watchable at that point. Let alone whether anyone would be interested in helping.

Due to some positivity I have been motivated to draw up a long written list, so if you are finding the process fun and as much entertainment as I'm getting from the process, then here's the full list of peeps to look out for in the Snooker Mag page turning marathon:

If you skip to the final half hour of the video you'll notice I am missing photos for the following people:

Pre-war:

Albert Cope
Nat Butler
Tom Carpenter
Clare O'Donnell
Joe Brady
Kelsall Prince
Bill Withers
Bert Terry
Fred Smith

post-war:

Conrad Stanbury
Harry Stokes
Jim Lees

60s/70s:

Bernard Bennett
Geoff Thompson
Maurice Parkin
Freddie Van Rensburg
Phil Tarrant
Rex King
Ron Mares

90s:

David Mclellan
Gary Ponting
John Read
Nick Terry
Paul Canvey
Spencer Dunn
Stephen O'Connor


And this is the list of people for who I have a picture, but it is either too obscured to be useful or is of them at the wrong age or otherwise practically useless & so I would dearly like a 'better shot' of them:

pre-war:

Fred Lawrence

Post-war

Herbert Holt

1970s:

Marcus Owen

1980s:

Dave Martin
Steve Duggan
Joe O'Boye
John Bear
Mark Fisher
Paul Misfud
Les Dodd

1990s/early 2000s:

Les Dodd (either era would be ok)
Robin Hull
Patrick Wallace
Rod Lawler
Nick Walker
Alfie Burden
Craig Edwards
Graham Horne
Leo Fernandez
Mario Morra
Mike Dunn
Steven Murphy
Surinder Gill
Tai Pitchit

(plus any you might have of anyone that you think would be a better fit than the pic shown for the text should you have the patience to trawl the whole vid).

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

Dan-cat wrote:You seen this thread LDS? viewtopic.php?f=56&t=9938


Yes, it's a fun thread. I've seen most of those cheek pinchingly adorable piccys before over the years and know most of them, but I'm afraid zero of them are useful for the vid as they are not age-relevant to any of the player's appearances in the WSC.

Saying that, I have been forced to use one pic of a juvenile for one guy because that is literally the only pic of them I have found, that of Marcus Owen, which even still I'm not positive is the same Marcus Owen who popped up in one 1974 WSC. The pic certainly isn't really useful either way, but it's all I got.

Those pics would be useful for a 'then and now' type vid or a biographical of a single player type vid or etc. There's been quite a lot of youth tournament uploads on youtube this year & they're all a fun watch, but don't expect too much actually great snooker <laugh>

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

That is superb BTC, instantly added & scratch that one off the list. :bowdown:

I watched no end of B&W Billiards videos for this project, about 6 hours worth, so missing that one is amazing. TBH, the video only references Thelma Carpenter, which is why it didn't turn up in search and if I had have seen I'd never have known that the random Tom was in fact Tom Carpenter. So that's brilliant that you can nail that one down so confidently.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby badtemperedcyril

Marcus Owen is one of the all time great English Amateur players. He won the English title four times between 1958 and 1973 but aside from giving Ray Reardon a very good game in the quarter final of the 1974 WC, achieved nothing note as a professional. SS will surely have a picture of him winning the 73 English Amateur.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

Same with Misfud, got a great one from that vid. I have no idea why that one didn't turn up in search results, the lady who uploaded it clearly wrote the guy's name in the description.

I'm happy to wait as long as it takes, but when I get to a point I'm satisfied with I'll let you know that the searching can cease.

Also, let me know if you want any credit in the vid or any other kind of boon in return.

Re: Open Beta for top 269 WCS legends video: pls help if you

Postby LDS

badtemperedcyril wrote:Also I need to fathom out how to upload them!!


There are lots of ways to go about this.

The one I'd use is to simply take a photo of the pic with my Mobile, then upload that to my computer and then upload it to imgur. Once on imgur you click "Direct Link" and it copy's the link to your clipboard which can then be inserted into Snooker Island's image button:

Image