Podcast with Anthony Hamilton

I think Hamilton is a great lad and fantastic player. He's also highly likeable and talks a great game. Of course the headline (as always) relates to his comments about Ronnie, but the whole podcast is well worth a listen. He talks about his own career, the problem with his eyes after surgery and his aspirations as a commentator, but only for Eurosport. I for one think he'd be a fantastic addition to the Eurosport team. As he mentions, the BBC only seems to employ ex world champs, bar Mcmanus, whether they are suitable or not and he thinks their commentators are lazy - fair point. Long but worthwhile!
https://ronnieo147.com/2021/03/11/a-gre ... -hamilton/

Is a great listen that.

i don't think he o'brien mcmanus ebdon or king even qualified to get onto the tour , they just paid i think £750 , lucky boys .

Hmmm anyone who paid (much more than 750 for all tournaments) had to deal with the swampland of Blackpool. Nothing easy about that. The new entrants before Blackpool played one match against a bottom ranked pro, (has been) to get on tour.

Well apparently £750 in 1991 is somewhere between £1440 and £1550 now according to the two sites i just visited , if they went back to an entrance fee i’d be surprised if it wouldn’t be at least £3k now , and i’d much rather be in actual pro qualifiers in blackpool with the incentive of getting to a venue than paying a grand for best of five’s now at the q school against 30 year pro’s looking to rebound .

Much of a muchness really. Back then you might have had the status of pro but had to win 7 or 8 matches to get a penny. How many of the 6 to 700 survived and didnt go home and break their cue?

The early 90’s when it went open was utter chaos. Hundreds of players of varying ability suddenly paid to be a professional and they were all thrown into this enormous snooker qualifying factory. The whole thing seemed to go on for the entire summer. It was certainly an organisational feat in itself to get so many players playing so many events, scheduling all the rounds, arranging referees and all the other logistical requirements. It was a mad idea though and what we have now is so much better, albeit they could probably introduce some sort of secondary circuit to replace Q School, which is a bit of a lottery.