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I can’t remember the exact moment I fell in love with snooker but I do remember being about 5 years old, roaming between the tables at the Ripley Star club, the private members club in our tiny faux-French style village in North Yorkshire. My friend Anthony’s Mum was the caretaker of the club and as she hoovered we were allowed to run riot in the games room. All manner of cue sports lived here, from the vast slate slabs of seemingly endless baize of the 12 ft x 6 ft full size snooker tables, the young upstart that was the 8 ball English pool table and the strange upturned mushrooms of the bar billiards table. To me this vast room of adult pleasures was glorious. I read a study that claimed that what happens in the first five years of a child’s life is very, very important. This period is critical to the child’s development of imagination and creativity. Well snooker got stuck in there. I was really lucky, my Dad was in a band so I was surrounded by musical instruments and songs being written in our front room in our tiny tied cottage (my mum worked in the farmhouse each morning in lieu of rent.)
...and then fast forward to 1985 and the black ball finish. I was 12 and it was the latest I'd ever been allowed to stay up and the whole family was glued to watch Dennis Taylor wagging his finger
I wanted Steve to win though. Boy, did I love the Nugget. I played in the local Harrogate league when I was 18 - 21, before I left to go down south for university. I started off playing for a working men's club, which to my shame I can't remember the name of, before moving up to play for the Harrogate Leisure Center, which at the time was called Hammerain House.
I always played pool, but I let snooker fall by the wayside until two years ago, aged 41, I took it back up again properly. Why do we stop doing the things we love as we get older? Dunno. I play at least once a week at the Hurricane Club in Kings Cross, London. I'm much better tactically than I was in my early 20s, because I've watched several thousand hours of snooker since then, learning.
My high break was 50 odd when I was younger, and now in the last couple of years in 35. I need some coaching really.
...and then fast forward to 1985 and the black ball finish. I was 12 and it was the latest I'd ever been allowed to stay up and the whole family was glued to watch Dennis Taylor wagging his finger
I wanted Steve to win though. Boy, did I love the Nugget. I played in the local Harrogate league when I was 18 - 21, before I left to go down south for university. I started off playing for a working men's club, which to my shame I can't remember the name of, before moving up to play for the Harrogate Leisure Center, which at the time was called Hammerain House. I always played pool, but I let snooker fall by the wayside until two years ago, aged 41, I took it back up again properly. Why do we stop doing the things we love as we get older? Dunno. I play at least once a week at the Hurricane Club in Kings Cross, London. I'm much better tactically than I was in my early 20s, because I've watched several thousand hours of snooker since then, learning.
My high break was 50 odd when I was younger, and now in the last couple of years in 35. I need some coaching really.
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