Mystique of Snooker

The only times I have ever played snooker (except, may I say with a revoltingly smug look on my face, in the Officers’ Mess) I have been in a dingy, smoky, beery, below-stairs den of what seems to be vice. I have been surrounded, at ten o’clock in the morning, by little groups of men muttering to each other or, even worse, having loud conversations in which every other word is a swear word. Places where you don’t leave your jacket on the back of a chair- not that there is a chair very often, but there is, sometimes, something that started out as a four legged stool. Places where if one of the chaps playing on the next table offers you something in a small white envelope you demur with a sickly smile and get out of there fast.

Right! So that’s snooker.

So why, then, when I watch professional snooker from Sheffield, or anywhere else, do I see a collection of well-dressed, well spoken players who are more meticulous about obeying the rules of the game then in any other sport played today, with the possible, but only possible, exception of golf. And anyway golf was invented by a load of old Bank Managers wasn’t it? So you expect them to behave, and charge you for it.

No the chap I’m talking about who quietly stands back from the table, brushes some chalk off the front of his waist-coat with his little finger, and tells the Referee that his sleeve touched a ball and he must, therefore, be penalised first strutted his stuff (or poked his stick) in one of those questionable, dark, satanic rooms. How and where and when did he change?

And it isn’t just their honesty which impresses me. Later on, when they retire, we have them commentating and talking about the game with knowledge, humour and fluency. They make the vast majority of ex-footballers, and even ex-rugby players, many of whom have, of course, been to the very best schools, look very ordinary by comparison.

I’m going to go back to one of those places and have another look!

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