Tweet
Ssb - the one and only
One name guaranteed to be on the trophy for PTC8 this week is that of Alex Higgins, after whom the tournament has been named.
The 2009 six reds World Championship staged in Killarney was the last tournament Higgins competed in before his death last year so it is fitting that this same venue is paying tribute to him (even more fittingly, his last appearance with a cue was for Snooker Legends at the Crucible).
There have been more successful and better players but none more iconic than this Northern Irishman, who played a greater role than any other individual in dragging snooker up from its lowly status as a folk sport to a prime time television entertainment.
Higgins was a one-man soap opera living a tumultuous life of excess which garnered huge media attention but his contribution on the table should not be forgotten or underestimated.
He may not have set out to change the world of snooker but he did. He brought one thing to the game above all else: the people.
And the people stood by him as his rollercoaster life unravelled in full public gaze.
These days, Higgins would probably be considered to have a mental illness and be treated appropriately. 30 years ago he was simply regarded by many in the sport as a menace.
Patience, tested severely over the years, finally ran out for the WPBSA in 1990 after the volley of abuse he directed at Dennis Taylor at the World Cup and the punch he landed on Colin Randle, press officer at the World Championship.
Higgins had got himself back into the top 16 for the 1990/91 season but was banned for the whole of it and never recovered.
Maybe he should have been given more help, although it is true to say that many who tried to help him had it thrown back in their faces.
In his interesting new book 'Who Was Hurricane Higgins?', Tony Francis reveals that the WPBSA offered him a bungalow rent free for the rest of his life - but that he turned them down.
That was Alex. He was his own man, entirely unconcerned by how others saw him. He was a renegade, a one-off, and this only strengthened his appeal.
As Francis points out, people like Higgins are exciting from a distance. To have to deal with him up close on a tournament-to-tournament basis was not a lot of fun for officials, many of whom couldn’t wait for him to lose.
Example: he once turned up for some qualifiers at the Norbreck in Blackpool and asked an official to look after something until he had finished playing. It was a gun.
There are more stories about Higgins than any other player. Many of them are extraordinary and most are true.
He could be a frightening figure but intoxicating (and sometimes intoxicated) too.
His legend will only grow with the passing of the years. For all his faults – and he had many – Alex Higgins was a gift to snooker and it is entirely right that a tournament such as this remembers him.
More...
The 2009 six reds World Championship staged in Killarney was the last tournament Higgins competed in before his death last year so it is fitting that this same venue is paying tribute to him (even more fittingly, his last appearance with a cue was for Snooker Legends at the Crucible).
There have been more successful and better players but none more iconic than this Northern Irishman, who played a greater role than any other individual in dragging snooker up from its lowly status as a folk sport to a prime time television entertainment.
Higgins was a one-man soap opera living a tumultuous life of excess which garnered huge media attention but his contribution on the table should not be forgotten or underestimated.
He may not have set out to change the world of snooker but he did. He brought one thing to the game above all else: the people.
And the people stood by him as his rollercoaster life unravelled in full public gaze.
These days, Higgins would probably be considered to have a mental illness and be treated appropriately. 30 years ago he was simply regarded by many in the sport as a menace.
Patience, tested severely over the years, finally ran out for the WPBSA in 1990 after the volley of abuse he directed at Dennis Taylor at the World Cup and the punch he landed on Colin Randle, press officer at the World Championship.
Higgins had got himself back into the top 16 for the 1990/91 season but was banned for the whole of it and never recovered.
Maybe he should have been given more help, although it is true to say that many who tried to help him had it thrown back in their faces.
In his interesting new book 'Who Was Hurricane Higgins?', Tony Francis reveals that the WPBSA offered him a bungalow rent free for the rest of his life - but that he turned them down.
That was Alex. He was his own man, entirely unconcerned by how others saw him. He was a renegade, a one-off, and this only strengthened his appeal.
As Francis points out, people like Higgins are exciting from a distance. To have to deal with him up close on a tournament-to-tournament basis was not a lot of fun for officials, many of whom couldn’t wait for him to lose.
Example: he once turned up for some qualifiers at the Norbreck in Blackpool and asked an official to look after something until he had finished playing. It was a gun.
There are more stories about Higgins than any other player. Many of them are extraordinary and most are true.
He could be a frightening figure but intoxicating (and sometimes intoxicated) too.
His legend will only grow with the passing of the years. For all his faults – and he had many – Alex Higgins was a gift to snooker and it is entirely right that a tournament such as this remembers him.
More...
Comment