Snooker’s new image

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 42

Snooker’s new image

Cue snapping and ball throwing may still be some way off, but snooker is not upholding the reputation it had in royal courts of the seventeenth century as “a most gentile, cleanly and ingenious pursuit.”

In recent months, snooker has become better known for its professional competitors who boast of orgies, who throw television sets through windows, who are addicted to cocaine and who threaten to “blow the lid off the game for $795,000.” Other cases of “physical and verbal abuse” of one player by a colleague and of fixed matches have also emerged to tarnish the waistcoat and bow-tie image. The game’s governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, has taken steps to clean things up by penalising players who bring the game into disrepute and has set up independent tribunals to deal with the more serious charges.

But the questionable behaviour has already spread beyond the players. The antics of some of the game’s centraT figures are now being reflected, perhaps understandably, in the spectators they attract. In a game first brought to the public by such characters as “whispering” Ted Lowe, the com-

mentator who spoke in hushed tones even in the soundproof television studio, the idea of rowdy, heckling spectators is outrageous.

But at the Benson and Hedges Masters tournament in London several players, among them Australia’s Eddie Charlton, complained of hostile, unruly crowds.

Charlton described the Wembley Entertainment Centre crowd who watched his match against Kirk Stevens as "the worst in the world.

“Wembley is such a huge auditorium that sound echoes, but it was like being at a football match,” Charlton said.

Charlton won the first round match, 5-4, and said later he handled the crowd noise better than Stevens.

“I don’t know why they do it ... but these London fans should go around the country and learn some manners.”

The crowd were just as noisy earlier in the night when Jimmy White played Tony Meo.

Said White: “There was one nutter who kept shouting ‘pressure’ every time Tony or I got down to play a shot.”

The same tournament has produced a log of complaints about the quality of the tables, ranging from the pockets being too small to Charlton’s beef that the table was out of alignment and that

the cushions were too fast. And before the tournament began, officials banned the bookmaking firm, Corals, from operating at Wembley because they believed it was a major cause of crowd disturbances. But the WPBSA claimed it had its players and most other aspects of the game under control. The association’s vice-chair-man, John Virgo, said snooker has always been “a game for gentlemen run by gentlemen.” Despite Mr Virgo’s assurances, history reveals episodes as unsavoury as those of today. In 1910, the English billiards title was won by Mr Melbourne Inman who was presented with his trophy by Lord Alverston, the judge who had sentenced the infamous murderer, Dr Hawley Crip-

pen, to death. The beaten finalist, Tom Reece, was prompted to comment: “If Lord Alverston knew as much about Inman’s activities as I do, he’d have given the cup to Crippen and sent Inman to the gallows.” On the other hand, snooker’s popularity is undeniable with television viewers such as 82-year-old Mrs Bridget Gervin, of County Tyrone, Ireland. Police had to drag Mrs Gervin from her house minutes before a 454 kg IRA time bomb demolished it. A Royal Ulster Constabulary spokesman said that Mrs Gervin wanted to stay to watch the end of the snooker ( match between White and Dennis Taylor. NZPA-AAP, LONDON