death_date professional birth_date image article_title name
25 december 1998 1946 & ndash ; 1982 12 december 1923 john pulman.jpg john pulman
 john pulman
john pulman

john pulman -lrb- 12 december 1923 -- 25 december 1998 -rrb- was an english professional snooker player who dominated the game throughout the 1960s .
pulman won the 1946 english amateur title and turned professional shortly after .
in 1947 he had his first appearance at the world championship losing 14-21 to albert brown in round 1 of the qualification .
his first professional title was the empire news event in 1951 .
he first reached the final of the world matchplay in 1955 , losing to fred davis .
davis beat him again in the 1956 final , but davis did not enter in 1957 and pulman won the title , after which the event was discontinued .
in 1964 the world championship was resumed on a challenge basis .
pulman won the championship and successfully defended it in all further title challenges , the last being in 1968 when he beat the australian eddie charlton .
in 1969 the world championship became a knockout tournament -lrb- which is generally regarded as the birth of the modern snooker era -rrb- and pulman failed to successfully defend his title .
he reached the final in 1970 but lost to ray reardon .
pulman reached the semi finals of the world championship when it was first held at the crucible in sheffield in 1977 , narrowly losing to the eventual winner john spencer by 18 frames to 16 .
after a depressing run of results , pulman was adjudged bankrupt on 7 february 1979 , with debts of # 5,916 .
by this point , a recently divorced pulman was suffering from severe motivational problems and living in a hotel in bromley .
pulman retired from professional play in 1982 , by which time he had joined the bbc as a commentator .
a short time later he joined itv , where he commentated alongside dennis taylor , mark wildman , ray edmonds and jim meadowcroft .
he remained the lead commentator until the sport was dropped by the channel in 1992 .
pulman died on christmas day 1998 after falling downstairs at home .
