Alex Higgins, snooker player, dies at 61 | Sport | The Guardian The Guardian Alex Higgins, snooker player, dies at 61 Two-time winner of the World Snooker Championship dies at home after long battle with throat cancer Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, who died today, aged 61. Photograph: Adrian Murrell/Getty Images Saturday 24 July 2010 15.24 EDT First published on Saturday 24 July 2010 15.24 EDT This article is 6 years old Snooker's original "People's Champion", Alex "Hurricane" Higgins, has been found dead at his Belfast home. The ace of the green baize finally succumbed to the throat cancer that he had been battling for several years. With his open-necked shirt, long hair, cigarette in one hand and a strong drink in the other, Higgins overturned snooker's public image as a game played by old men in dickie bows. It is understood that he may been dead for several days before locals found his body by breaking into his flat after he failed to answer his mobile phone.

Six-time champion Steve Davis described his former rival as one of the few geniuses around the table. "To people in the game he was a constant source of argument, he was a rebel," Davis said. "But to the wider public he was a breath of fresh air that drew them into the game. He was an inspiration to my generation." As to his own encounters with Higgins across the table, Davis said: "It was a love-hate relationship with Alex Higgins . The thrill of playing him was fantastic, but the crowd that came along were not your usual crowd. They were much more noisy and you had to play the crowd as well." Former snooker champion and commentator Dennis Taylor told the BBC: "I don't think you'll ever, ever see another player in the game of snooker like the great Alex Higgins." He had enjoyed some "terrific battles" against the Ulsterman, he said, adding: "He was a very, very exciting player to watch. He just was totally unique." Higgins claimed the world champion's crown at his first attempt, aged 22, and took it back again 10 years later from Ray Reardon at the Crucible in Sheffield.

He will be best remembered for winning his second world championship in 1982 when, in tears, he invited his wife Lynn and baby daughter Lauren to join him by the baize with the trophy. A long battle with alcohol followed but despite his numerous fights and rows with referees over the years, he continued to play the game regularly and appeared at the Irish Professional Championship in 2005 and 2006. A heavy smoker, Higgins sucked his way through as many as 80 Marlboros a day until attempting to quit in 1996. He had cancerous growths removed from his mouth in 1994 and 1996 and was told in 1998 that he had throat cancer. He also struggled with drug addictions, and recently admitted that he had considered suicide. In his last interview, Higgins confessed that he had wanted to take his own life. "But I just haven't got the courage to kill myself. I read the Bible my mother gave me when I was 15 and told myself: 'You can fight.' I have been a fighter all my life.

That's what stopped me going through with it." In recent months Higgins's health had been deteriorating sharply, and because he had no teeth left, he had been forced to eat baby food to stay alive. The 61-year-old former champion was living in poverty and his only income came from accepting paid challenges from amateur players in the pubs and clubs of Belfast. Higgins was divorced by two wives, Cara and Lynn, and was stopped from seeing his two children, Lauren and Jordan. The squalid end to his life contrasted with the heady days of the 1970s and 1980s. At the height of his fame, Higgins had a £4m fortune which he frittered away on drink, cocaine and gambling. Recently, he had tried to raise £20,000 for teeth implants. One of Higgins's last public appearances was in May at an event in Manchester. Onlookers were shocked at the sight of the Hurricane now reduced to a gaunt, six-stone shrunken figure who could only speak in whispers. Alix Higgins ( VERY AMZING A. MAXIMUM 147 BREAK ) - YouTube Alix Higgins ( VERY AMZING A.

MAXIMUM 147 BREAK ) Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Oct 3, 2010 The Hurricane entertain me as always by his attacking style and the way to display his balls LOL .. OOOPS I MEAN the snooker balls .. any way dont get mad about the last frame just watch the performance.. ENJOY.. ___________ Alexander "Alex" Gordon Higgins (18 March 1949 -- 24 July 2010),[4] also known by his nickname of Hurricane Higgins, was a Northern Irish professional snooker player who was twice World Champion and twice runner-up. Higgins earned the nickname The Hurricane because of his speed of play.[5] Higgins was also a former World Doubles champion with Jimmy White and won the World Cup three times with the All Ireland team.

He also came to be known as the People's Champion because of his popularity.[6] Higgins made 46 century breaks during his career.[1] Higgins is often credited to have brought the game of snooker to a wider audience and contributing to its peak in popularity in the eighties.[7] Higgins had a reputation as an unpredictable and difficult character.[citation needed] He was a heavy smoker,[8] struggled with drink and gambling,[7][9] and admitted to using cocaine and marijuana.[5] Diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998,[10] Higgins was found dead in his Belfast home on 24 July 2010.[11] Legacy Higgins was an inspiration to many subsequent professional snooker players including Ken Doherty, Jimmy White, and Ronnie O'Sullivan who in an interview stated "Alex was an inspiration to players like Jimmy White and thousands of snooker players all over the country, including me. The way he played at his best is the way I believe the game should be played.

It was on the edge, keeping the crowd entertained and glued to the action."[47] His very unorthodox yet effective play was perhaps best encapsulated in a celebrated break of 69, made under extreme pressure, against Jimmy White in the penultimate frame of their World Professional Snooker Championship semi-final in 1982. Higgins was 0--59 down in the frame and probably one ball away from exiting the Championship, but managed to compile an extremely challenging clearance during which he was scarcely in position until the colours. In particular, former world champion Dennis Taylor considers a three-quarter-ball pot on a blue into the green pocket especially memorable, not only for its extreme degree of difficulty but for enabling Higgins to continue the break and keep White off the table and unable to clinch victory at that moment.

In potting the blue, Higgins screwed the cue-ball on to the side cushion to bring it back towards the black/pink area with extreme left-hand sidespin, a shot Taylor believes could be played 100 times without coming close to the position Higgins reached with the cue-ball (he arguably went too far for ideal position on his next red but the match-saving break was still alive).[48][49] In Clive Everton's TV documentary The Story of Snooker (2002), Steve Davis described Higgins as the "one true genius that snooker has produced",[50] despite the autobiography of a contemporary leading professional Willie Thorne characterising Higgins as "not a great player".[51] Higgins arguably fulfilled his potential only intermittently during his career peak in the 1970s and '80s; Everton puts this down to Davis and Ray Reardon generally being too consistent for him.[52] Regardless, Higgins' exciting style and explosive persona helped make snooker a growing television sport in the 1970s and 1980s.

Higgins also made one of the first 16-red clearances (in a challenge match in 1976); it was a break of 146 (with the brown as the first "red", and sixteen colours: 1 green, 5 pinks and 10 blacks).[53] Category Alex Higgins Hurricane Snooker Documentary 2010 THE PEOPLES CHAMPION - YouTube Alex Higgins Hurricane Snooker Documentary 2010 THE PEOPLES CHAMPION Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on May 16, 2014 Alex Higgins Hurricane Documentary 2010 THE PEOPLES CHAMPION Documentary History Alex Higgins Hurricane Documentary 2010 THE PEOPLES CHAMPION Documentary History Alex Higgins Hurricane Documentary 2010 THE PEOPLES CHAMPION Documentary History "Snooker" , "Pool" , "Documentary" , "World Championship" Alexander Gordon "Alex" Higgins (18 March 1949 -- 24 July 2010)[4] was a Northern Irish professional snooker player. Nicknamed Hurricane Higgins because of his fast play,[5] he was World Champion in 1972 and 1982, and runner-up in 1976 and 1980. He won the UK Championship in 1983 and the Masters in 1978 and 1981, making him one of nine players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. He was also World Doubles champion with Jimmy White in 1984, and won the World Cup three times with the All Ireland team.

Higgins came to be known as the "People's Champion" because of his popularity,[6] and is often credited with having brought the game of snooker to a wider audience, contributing to its peak in popularity in the 1980s.[7] He had a reputation as an unpredictable and difficult character.[8] He was a heavy smoker,[9] struggled with drinking and gambling,[7][10] and admitted to using cocaine and marijuana.[5] Diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998,[11] Higgins was found dead in his Belfast home on 24 July 2010.by wikipedia Snooker,Pool (Sport),Alex Higgins (Deceased Person),Tennis,Open,Table,Alexander,Gordon,Alex,Higgins,World Championship,Hurricane Higgins,fast play,UK Championship,People's Champion,popularity,game,star,United Kingdom (Country),Sports (Industry) Category Alex Higgins | Northern Irish snooker player | Britannica.com Northern Irish snooker player Originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year. Presented as archival content.

Alternative Titles: Alexander Gordon Higgins, Hurricane Higgins Alex Higgins Belfast , Northern Ireland Alex Higgins (Alexander Gordon Higgins; “Hurricane”), (born March 18, 1949, Belfast, N.Ire.—died July 24, 2010, Belfast), Northern Irish snooker player who raised the visibility and popularity of the billiards game of snooker with his quick, impulsive style of play and his entertaining flamboyance during televised matches. His brilliant playing career was marred, however, by erratic behaviour, gambling, frequent drunkenness (even during matches), and violent outbursts (he was known to attack the referee and on at least one occasion threatened to kill another player). Higgins briefly trained as an apprentice jockey, but a youthful interest in snooker—combined with a weight problem and a lack of discipline at the track—soon prevailed. By 1968 he had secured the Northern Irish and All-Ireland amateur snooker titles. He won the world championship in 1972, at age 22, in his first year as a professional.

After having racked up several other titles, he returned to the limelight with his second world championship in 1982. Higgins, a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with throat cancer in the late 1990s, but he continued to play professional snooker well into the 21st century. Willie Hoppe (American billiards player) U.S. master of carom (balkline and three-cushion) billiards, was one of the most durable of all sports champions, winning 51 world titles between 1906 and 1952. After being taught billiards by his father, a hotelkeeper, so that he could win money from travelling salesmen, Hoppe (then 18) captured the world 18.1 balkline championship from Maurice Vignaux... Allison Fisher (English-born billiards player) English-born billiards player known as the “Duchess of Doom” for her deadly consistent shot making and no-nonsense style of play. Her achievements led many observers of cue sports to deem Fisher the best female pocket billiards player in history. Fisher was raised near London.

At age seven, she developed an interest in snooker after she saw the billiards... Stephen Hendry (Scottish snooker player) Scottish snooker player who won a record seven world titles and dominated the game throughout the 1990s. In 1984, at age 15, Hendry became the youngest Scottish amateur snooker champion in history. He turned professional the following year, and when he won the Grand Prix in 1987, he became the youngest player to win a tournament. At the end of the... You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later. Edit Mode Submit Tips For Editing We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Encyclopædia Britannica articles are written in a neutral objective tone for a general audience. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context.

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He also came to be known as the People's Champion because of his popularity.… Read More related links Photos View newly released photos of Alex Higgins. Saturday District Cup: North East Heading In The Right Direction Yorkshire Evening Post - Nov 21, 2013 ' North East Leeds made up for lost time in the league â with a 2-1 victory over Leeds Medics and Dentists in the second round of the Leeds Senior Cup. Lee Nutton hit a late winner for the victors, whose other scorer was Richard Dunbar. Colm Hicks had levelled for Medics. Alwoodley held their nerve to triumph 2-0 on penalties after their tense Leeds Senior Cup round two clash with Halton Moor ended deadlocked at 2-2. Ben Hendstock and Dino Mulavdic replied twice for Alwoodley, after they h... Snooker: Jimmy White Wants Alex Higgins Memorial Independent - Apr 22, 2012 ' Jimmy White has joined Ronnie O\'Sullivan in calling for snooker chiefs to mark the anniversaries of <mark>Alex Higgins</mark>\' two world title triumphs.

' Chinese Love Affair Still A Massive Tonic For Snooker, Says Former World ... Daily Mail Google News - Sep 03, 2011 'I remember going 25 years ago with Steve Davis, <mark>Alex Higgins</mark>, Tony Knowles and a few others. There was eight of us. The first night we played it was just me, Higgins and the referee. The place was empty. The match was televised, and the next night you' Golf Shows The Way To 'through Otherness' Slugger O'toole Google News - Aug 31, 2011 'During the &#39;troubles&#39; it was such a relief when the likes of Seamus Heaney, Van Morrison, George Best and <mark>Alex Higgins</mark> (an unlikely ambassadorial foursome!) made Northern Ireland known for other reasons than car bombs and hunger strikes and internment' Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Alex Higgins. CHILDHOOD 1949 Birth Born on March 18, 1949.

TEENAGE 1965 16 Years Old He returned to Belfast and by 1965, aged 16, he had compiled his first maximum break. 1968 19 Years Old In 1968 he won the All-Ireland and Northern Ireland Amateur Snooker Championships. TWENTIES Show Less … Alexander Gordon "Alex" Higgins (18 March 1949 â 24 July 2010) was a Northern Irish professional snooker player, who is remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the game. Read Less Nicknamed Hurricane Higgins because of his fast play, he was World Champion in 1972 and 1982, and runner-up in 1976 and 1980. Higgins turned professional at the age of 22, winning the World Championship at his first attempt in 1972, against John Spencer winning 37â32. … Read More Higgins was then the youngest ever winner of the title, a record retained until Stephen Hendry's 1990 victory at the age of 21.

Read Less At the time of his 1972 triumph at the World Championship, Higgins had no permanent home and by his own account had recently lived in a row of abandoned houses in Blackburn which were awaiting demolition. … Read More In one week he had moved into five different houses on the same street, moving down one every time his current dwelling was demolished.<br /><br /> In 1975, Higgins' son Chris Delahunty was born. Read Less 1975 26 Years Old Higgins's first marriage was to Australian Cara Hasler in April 1975 in Sydney. … Read More They had a daughter Christel and divorced. Read Less 1976 27 Years Old In April 1976, Higgins reached the final again and faced Ray Reardon. … Read More Higgins led 11â9, but Reardon made four centuries and seven breaks over 60 to pull away and win the title for the fifth time with the score of 27â16.

Read Less THIRTIES Show Less He won the UK Championship in 1983 and the Masters in 1978 and 1981, making him one of ten players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. Throughout his career, Higgins won 20 other titles, one of the most notable being the 1983 UK Championship. … Read More In the final he trailed Steve Davis 0â7 before producing a famous comeback to win 16â15. He also won the Masters twice, in 1978 and in 1981, beating Cliff Thorburn and Terry Griffiths in the finals respectively. Another notable victory was his final professional triumph in the 1989 Irish Masters at the age of 40 when he defeated a young Stephen Hendry which is the last professional tournament he won, also known as "The Hurricane's Last Hurrah" Read Less 1984 35 Years Old He was also World Doubles champion with Jimmy White in 1984, and won the World Cup three times with the All-Ireland team.

… Read More Higgins came to be known as the "People's Champion" because of his popularity, and is often credited with having brought the game of snooker to a wider audience, contributing to its peak in popularity in the 1980s. He had a reputation as an unpredictable and difficult character. He was a heavy smoker, struggled with drinking and gambling, and admitted to using cocaine and marijuana. Read Less 1986 37 Years Old Higgins drank alcohol and smoked during tournaments, as did many of his contemporaries. A volatile personality got him into frequent fights and arguments, both on and off the snooker table. One of the most serious of these clashes was when he head-butted a tournament official at the UK championship in 1986. … Read More This led to his being fined Â£12,000 and banned from five tournaments. He was convicted of assault and criminal damage, and fined Â£250 by a court.

Read Less FORTIES 1989 - 1990 2 More Events 1989 40 Years Old In the same year, Higgins began a relationship with Siobhan Kidd, which ended in 1989 after he allegedly hit her with a hairdryer. … Read More He had a long and enduring friendship with Oliver Reed and was a good friend of John Sykes, with whom he often played exhibition matches.<br /><br /> He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1981 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.<br /><br /> In 1983 Higgins helped a young boy from the Manchester area, a fan of his who had been in a coma for two months. His parents were growing desperate and wrote to Higgins. He recorded messages on tape and sent them to the boy with his best wishes. He later visited the boy in hospital and played a snooker match he promised to have with him when he recovered.

Read Less 1990 41 Years Old Another came at the 1990 World Championship; after losing his first-round match to Steve James, he punched tournament official Colin Randle in the abdomen, before the start of a press conference at which he announced his retirement. … Read More This, added to his having threatened to have fellow player and compatriot Dennis Taylor shot, led to a ban for the whole of the following season. Read Less 1991 42 Years Old During the World Trickshot Championship in 1991 Higgins demonstrated his seeming ignorance of how a Professional Snooker player should behave, when during his performance he described the black ball as "Muhammad Ali" in front of a live audience and TV cameras. … Read More This caused a visibly pained expression from Barry Hearn and an exclamation from fellow judge Steve Davis that his score was already low now before the shot was even played. Read Less 1996 47 Years Old In 1996, Higgins was convicted of assaulting a 14-year-old boy, while in 1997 then-girlfriend Holly Haise stabbed him three times during a domestic argument.

1998 49 Years Old First diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998, Higgins died of multiple causes in his Belfast home on 24 July 2010. … Read More Alex Higgins was born in Belfast and had three sisters. He started playing snooker at the age of 11, often in the Jampot club in his native Sandy Row area of south Belfast and later in the YMCA in the nearby city centre. At age 14 and weighing seven and a half stone (47.6 kg), he left for England and a career as a jockey. However, he never made the grade because, in his youth, he drank a lot of Guinness and ate a lot of chocolate, making him too heavy to ride competitively. Read Less FIFTIES 2005 56 Years Old After his retirement from the professional game, Higgins spent time playing for small sums of money in and around Northern Ireland. He made appearances in the 2005 and 2006 Irish Professional Championship, these comebacks ending in first-round defeats by Garry Hardiman and Joe Delaney respectively.

… Read More On 12 June 2007, it was reported that Higgins had assaulted a referee at a charity match in the north-east of England. Read Less Show Less Higgins returned to competitive action in September 2007 at the Irish Professional Championship in Dublin but was whitewashed 0â5 by former British Open champion Fergal O'Brien in the first round at the Spawell Club, Templelogue. … Read More Higgins continued to play fairly regularly, and enjoyed "hustling" all comers for small-time stakes in clubs in Northern Ireland and beyond; in May 2009 he entered the Northern Ireland Amateur Championship, "to give it a crack", but failed to appear for his match. Read Less He published his autobiography, From the Eye of the Hurricane: My Story, in 2007. LATE ADULTHOOD Alex Higgins, Snooker player • Biography & Facts Alex Higgins Snooker player Alexander Gordon "Alex" Higgins (18 March 1949 – 24 July 2010) was a Northern Irish professional snooker player, who is remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the game.

Nicknamed Hurricane Higgins because of his fast play, he was World Champion in 1972 and 1982, and runner-up in 1976 and 1980. He won the UK Championship in 1983 and the Masters in 1978 and 1981, making him one of ten players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. He was also World Doubles champion with Jimmy White in 1984, and won the World Cup three times with the All Ireland team.Higgins came to be known as the "People's Champion" because of his popularity, and is often credited with having brought the game of snooker to a wider audience, contributing to its peak in popularity in the 1980s. He had a reputation as an unpredictable and difficult character. He was a heavy smoker, struggled with drinking and gambling, and admitted to using cocaine and marijuana. First diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998, Higgins died of the illness in his Belfast home on 24 July 2010.

British snooker player Alex Higgins found dead at age 61 - Wikinews, the free news source British snooker player Alex Higgins found dead at age 61 From Wikinews, the free news source you can write! Image: User:Bigpad . Snooker player Alex Higgins , nicknamed "Hurricane", was found dead in his apartment in Donegall Road, Belfast , Northern Ireland on Saturday. He was aged 61 and had been suffering from throat cancer since 1997. Born in Belfast on March 18, 1949, Higgins became the champion of the World Snooker Championship at the age of 23 in 1972. He reached the same achievement again in 1982. Higgins' final title victory was in the Irish Professional Championship in 1989. During 1986, he received a fine and was banned from five tournaments after headbutting a director of a tournament. He was also banned from playing for one year in 1990 after threatening to have Dennis Taylor , another snooker player, shot. Recently, Higgins lost all his teeth as the result of having treatment for his cancer.

In May 2010, a charity dinner took place in Manchester , England that raised approximately £ 20,000 ( US$ 30,997, € 23,859, A$ 34,363, C$ 31,961) so as to allow surgery for new teeth for him to occur. However, Higgins was considered to be too unhealthy to have the surgery in Marbella , Spain . Dennis Taylor, now a snooker commentator at the BBC , stated that "[t]here was just something about the way he played the game — there was a little bit of [John] McEnroe in there.

I don't think you'll ever see a player in the game of snooker like the great Alex Higgins." Philip Studd, another commentator of snooker for the BBC, has described the late snooker player as being "snooker's original troubled genius" and that Higgins was "[c]harismatic, flash, fast, unpredictable, combustible — you just couldn't take your eyes off the 'Hurricane'." Studd continued to explain that "[w]hile he could never match the consistency of Steve Davis or Stephen Hendry , Higgins on his day was the greatest of them all. He touched the heights in 1982 when he won his second world title. He pipped Jimmy White to the final thanks to a break still widely regarded as the finest ever made. His tears of triumph after beating Ray Reardon — wife and baby in arms — remains one of snooker's most iconic moments. Without Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins snooker would never have become one of the most popular television sports in the 1980s and beyond." Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins: Two-times world snooker champion whose style of play and wild ways electrified the sport | The Independent Sunday 25 July 2010 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online He wanted to be known as Alexander the Great. Instead, he became the "Hurricane", the "People's Champion", or to many, simply the best snooker player who has ever picked up a cue. There are better claimants to the latter description: Joe Davis, Ray Reardon, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry. None, though, were as charismatic, entertaining or downright unpredictable as the boy from Belfast who wanted to become a jockey but turned into the most famous snooker professional of the modern era. The advent of colour television and the arrival of a skinny, hyperactive and mesmerising Ulsterman in the North of England in the late 1960s are regarded as the catalysts for the resurgence of a game that had stagnated during the previous decade. Higgins made people sit up and take notice, not just by his lightning-quick approach to potting balls but by the scrapes he found himself in away from the table.

He brought a new dimension to the sport, raising its profile from a few column inches on an inside newspaper page to the back (and, in many, cases front) pages as well. He became public enemy No 1 to the snooker authorities: the more they tried to ban and fine him, the greater his popularity and appeal grew with the public. But there was a dark side to Higgins that his supporters didn't often see. They believed him to be victimised and persecuted by his peers, a belief he himself perpetuated. However, as fame and fortune began to take its toll, his mood swings became harder to predict and control. He railed against "the system", his opponents, the referees, the press, the authorities. In fact anyone and everyone apart from the true cause of his decline in later life – himself. Higgins is one of an exclusive list of players whose career earnings are in excess of £1m – all the more commendable given that he largely missed out on the big-money paydays. His first world title victory in 1972 was worth £480; his second 10 years later brought him £25,000.

This year's winner's purse was £250,000. But his fortune went on the pitfalls of many a wayward genius: gambling, drugs, drink and women. While his countryman and one-time Northern Ireland team-mate Dennis Taylor secured for himself a lucrative retirement, Higgins was left almost penniless, scraping a bed and a meal from those few people left prepared to give charity in return for little thanks and much abuse. When his body was found in his flat in sheltered accommodation in Belfast, he appeared to have been dead for some time. Born in Belfast in March 1949, Alexander Gordon Higgins grew up skipping school to play snooker at the legendary Jampot Club, apparently fascinated by the "coloured balls and sticks". However, horse-racing was also a magnet to the teenage Higgins, and at 15 he left home for the first time to become an apprentice at Eddie Reavey's stable at Wantage. Two years later, the Ulster waif was too tall to fulfil his prime sporting ambition. He returned to England in 1969 and headed for Lancashire, following in Taylor's footsteps.

Their paths were to cross many times over the next 30 years, often with explosive results. Then, the compatriots were on reasonable terms and, along with Jim Meadowcroft, a former professional and now a television snooker summariser, they practised together at the Benarth club in Blackburn. In his book Higgins, Taylor And Me, Meadowcroft wrote: "Alex moved into a flat above a newsagent's, just by the snooker club which was frequented by two fellows who were in partnership in bingo halls. When they saw this kid racing round the tables for all he was worth, either Jack Leeming or Jack McLaughlin was moved to say: 'He's like a Hurricane.' Within a short space of time, they were managing him and dispensing cards advertising the service of Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins." In 1972, he hit the big-time and life was to change forever. Higgins won the world title at Selly Park Royal British Legion club in Birmingham. The crowd sat on seats placed on stacked beer crates to witness Higgins beat another 1970s star, John Spencer, 37-32 with a final burst of six unanswered frames.

The following year he lost his title, going down to "Gentleman" Fred Davis in the semi-finals. Higgins left for Australia and was soon in trouble. He called a popular local professional, Norman Squire, "an old no-hoper", and wrote his subsequent apology on toilet paper. He wrecked his hotel room and travelled on to India, where his stay lasted one day. He offended members of the Bombay Gymkhana Club with his drinking, and by removing his shirt. Within hours he was escorted to catch the first plane back home. These indiscretions, though, were minor in comparison to those that followed. From peeing in a plant pot, to brawls with fellow professionals, to assaulting a 14-year-old schoolboy, Higgins was all too often in the news. Not even marriage could tame the "wild man of snooker", as he had become known. He married the model Liz Kendall in 1975 but they were divorced five years later. "Her father was a racehorse trainer and so she had lots of money," he is supposed to have told friends. Higgins married again, to Lynn Robbins, with whom he had two children, Lauren and Jordan.

Lynn and Lauren, then just 18 months old, were ushered into the arena at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre in 1982 when a tearful Higgins defeated the veteran Welshman Ray Reardon 18-15 to win his second world crown, closing the match with a clearance of 135. A more modest effort of 59 in the penultimate frame of his semi-final against Jimmy White is often replayed as one of the finest frames of snooker ever seen. For a player blessed with natural talent, Higgins never won as many titles as he surely should have. The self-destruct mechanism in his psyche ensured that he didn't. On his first day as champion, Higgins attended a disciplinary hearing following a bust-up at the Irish Masters a month earlier. He sent members of the panel 12 bottles of champagne as a conciliatory gesture and in return was fined £1,000. In 1983, he enjoyed another of his finest hours, recovering from a 7-0 deficit to beat Steve Davis 16-15 in the final of the UK Championship. Twelve months later, his deadly enemy gained revenge in the final.

At the 1986 Mercantile Credit Classic, Higgins appeared with a black eye, which he claimed he had received from a horse called Dreadnought. In fact, his fellow professional Paul Medati had delivered the blow. The tournament director, Paul Hatherall, was on the receiving end of another assault in November 1986. Hatherall was headbutted by Higgins at the UK Championship for asking him to take a compulsory drugs test. Higgins was fined £200 by Preston magistrates and later £12,000 by a disciplinary hearing. Higgins was also suspended from five tournaments. By now his marriage was over and his career was in freefall, with only occasional highspots. One such came against all the odds in 1989, but as usual nothing was straightforward. An altercation his with new girlfriend, Siobhan Kidd, led to Higgins falling from the first floor of her Manchester flat.He broke his foot in the 30ft drop but insisted on competing at the European Open in Deauville, hopping around the table. He was still severely handicapped by his injuries when he defeated Jack McLaughlin to take the Irish Professional title.

Later, reduced to a hobble, he beat Stephen Hendry 9-8 in the Benson and Hedges Irish Masters final at Goffs, County Kildare. It was to be his last title success. The beginning of the end came in 1990 at the World Cup. After Northern Ireland had lost to Canada, a drunken Higgins threatened to have Dennis Taylor shot. At the World Championship the same year, he punched a press officer, Colin Randle, in the stomach after a defeat by Steve James, in the process ripping the head off his so-called lucky mascot, Antrim the leprechaun. He was suspended for the whole of the following season and docked his store of ranking points, dropping him from 14th to 120th in the world. His punishment forced him to qualify for the final stages of the major events where his behaviour became ever more bizarre. He broke down in tears during a career high-break of 137 against the Thai player Tai Pichit, a former Buddhist monk, claiming that referee John Williams had been "in his line of thought".

Against Tony Knowles in the world championship qualifiers, Higgins played the second half of the match while dripping blood on to the green baize. He had adjourned to a local pub between sessions, tripped over a wall and cut himself. Refusing hospital treatment, he patched himself up and went out to complete the unlikeliest of wins. In August 1997 Higgins, by now having given up his lifetime cigarette habit, played his last competitive match until his abortive comeback three years ago at the summer qualifying school in Plymouth. He lost 5-1 to Neil Mosley and hours later was discovered lying outside a nightclub, claiming he had been assaulted. No assailant was ever brought to book. A new girlfriend, Holly Hayse, was charged but never tried for wounding and grievous bodily harm as Higgins's health and mental state declined. He received hand-outs from the game's governing body but was thrown out of his hotel for abusing other guests. He lived in a caravan in Ms Hayse's front garden, apparently existing on a diet of antibiotics, pilchards and quails' eggs washed down with lager.

His trips to Northern Ireland became more frequent and it was there in October 1998 that he had surgery to remove a cancerous lymph gland in his throat. Two years earlier, he had had a growth removed from his palate. In retirement, Higgins hustled for small sums of money around Northern Ireland. He returned to competition in September 2007 at the Irish Professional Championship in Dublin, but was beaten 5-0 by Fergal O'Brien. Last year, he entered the Northern Ireland Amateur Championship but did not turn up for his match. For all his talent, Alex Higgins laid waste to his career and, ultimately, his life.

In his last interview, he said he had considered suicide but added: "I just haven't got the courage to kill myself." Alexander Gordon Higgins, snooker player: born Belfast 18 March 1949; Northern Ireland amateur champion 1968, world champion 1972 and 1982, UK champion 1978 and 1981, Benson and Hedges Masters winner 1980, Irish Professional champion 1983 and 1989, Benson and Hedges Irish Masters champion 1989; married 1975 Liz Kendall (divorced 1980), Lynn Robbins 1980 (divorced 1985; one son, one daughter); died Belfast 24 July 2010.

More about: How Alex Higgins rode the Hurricane to produce one of snooker's greatest breaks | Sport | The Guardian Guardian Sport Network How Alex Higgins rode the Hurricane to produce one of snooker's greatest breaks Alex Higgins won the World Championship twice – a week-long final in 1972 and his victory over Ray Reardon in 1982 – but his greatest frame came against his friend, Jimmy White, when the Hurricane blew the Whirlwind away Alex Higgins with his family and his World Championship trophy in 1982. Photograph: David Muscroft/Rex David Hartrick Monday 25 January 2016 07.40 EST Last modified on Monday 4 April 2016 07.17 EDT Share on Messenger Close Having watched the blue ball sink into the middle pocket as if pulled by an anchor, Alex Higgins chose to run his teeth over his bottom lip in penance. He was rooted to his chair at the Crucible Theatre and facing snooker’s simplest truth; when you’re not at the table, you’re not in control. He had already been given two chances to build something in the frame and taken neither.

The match had seesawed throughout but the odds on him being given a third chance felt so long not even he would have been tempted to take them. His seated vigil continued as his opponent in the 1982 World Championship semi-final, Jimmy White , lined up a red from the rest. For a man who often appeared to be at war with his own body, Higgins was remarkably still. He moved to pick at an imagined itch on his finger but then returned to his lonely introspection. Despite the changes he’d made, despite listening, despite the promises, despite it all, he was going to lose. Alex Higgins was going to lose. It had been at this very venue a year previous that he had begun to realise the Hurricane was in control and Alex Higgins was lagging behind. While a mere lift of the Hurricane’s hat could still raise an exhibition crowd from their seats, Alex Higgins had been knocked out of the 1981 Snooker World Championships in the second round by an unseeded Steve Davis. Davis would go on to have a banner year but courtesy of a bye for the top eight seeds, Higgins had lost his first and only match of the tournament. It was symptomatic of a relentless life.

The constant schedule of exhibitions and competitions left little time for practice but too much room for his vices. After his exit from last year’s tournament was followed by a shambolic Scottish Masters, frequent issues with snooker’s authorities and a tour organised by Barry Hearn that had lurched from one argument to the next, the Hurricane finished 1981 as popular as ever while Alex Higgins was exhausted, alcoholic and now saddled with a burgeoning drug habit. He had started 1982 as a new father, a relatively new husband and a man at war with his alter ego. His first step to putting Alex back in the driving seat had been two weeks rest in a nursing home. He then fired his management, finally finished the practice room at his new house and made it known to Barry Hearn that he wanted to join his Matchroom stable – a group of very successful players Hearn managed who immediately informed him they wouldn’t allow Higgins in. Higgins found new management but within a couple of months he was on his own, memorably using the freedom to represent himself at a disciplinary hearing to which he arrived with “a trolley full of Moet & Chandon and a jug of orange juice” for his accusers.

Despite offering them the white flag the only way he knew how, they still fined him just as heavily as always. Pinterest Alex Higgins marrying Lynn Avison in Wilslow. Photograph: PA There had still been the odd lapse, he had picked up far too many demons to simply walk to heaven without ever glancing back, but he’d managed to reconnect with the 22-year old man that won the 1972 World Championship in such revelatory style. The Hurricane had been put to one side and he had earned this semi-final place on his own. But was that enough? His daughter, Lauren, had become the main love of his life. As Higgins sat here watching White stare down his cue at the red ball ahead, his hand flickered over the dummy in his pocket, the good luck charm that represented the promise he had made to her to win this World Championship. The Hurricane broke promises to his family all the time. It looked like Alex would too. Suddenly the shadows around him filled with noise. The Crucible held less than a thousand people but as Higgins instinctively rose from his chair whispers of disappointment and excitement were everywhere. It was a familiar sound, one that Higgins had been on either side of.

He took the three steps to the table barely registering what had just happened. White had missed his red a mere eight points away from near-certain victory and a place in the World Championship final. Higgins had his improbable third chance. He was at the table. He was in control. He glanced at the scoreboard, 59-0 in White’s favour, and then surveyed the baize ahead. Two reds were difficult, one had to be moved, the black ball was marooned up the table. He needed every red, high colours and a full clearance. He wiped his hands in turn on his waistcoat and drew breath. Each shot was going to matter, position was difficult and if he didn’t win and draw level with White it was all over. He came to one inescapable conclusion before bending to line up his first shot. He needed help. He needed the Hurricane. “And so Alex breathes again, [White is] 59 points in front now … and still enough points on the table for Alex if he can just take his opportunity.” BBC commentator Jack Karnehm Higgins was born on Friday 18 March 1949.

A happy childhood was spent being doted upon by his parents and three sisters in an austere Belfast. As the only boy, Alex was adored within his family, nicknamed “Sandy” and allowed certain freedoms his sisters would never earn while still living at home. He learnt at an early age he had to find ways to contribute, and this in part led to the birth of the Hurricane. By the age of 10 he was daring to go where he shouldn’t – the notorious Jam Pot Billiard Hall. He had graduated from running his father’s bets to the corners where they would be taken to keeping score for the Jam Pot’s regulars. At a time where numeracy was a highly cherished skill, it had become common for the local children to be employed in this way. So much so teachers at Higgins’ school had taken to calling it the Glue Pot because “their pupils were never out of it”. Higgins observed, did as he was told and, due to a mixture of bravado and bluff, became popular enough to be trusted to run messages for players and do odd jobs around the hall. Pinterest A mural to Higgins in Belfast.

Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP He had also started playing almost immediately – standing on a box and with a broom handle at this point – and by the age of 12 he was hustling “giants” five or six years older than him. He became infamous as the kid holding his own with the adults before becoming famous as the kid who was beating all comers. By his mid-teens he had outgrown the Jam Pot but the notion of becoming a professional was still seen as a pipe dream, particularly as his heart was with another sport. His ambition had been to become a jockey and, through a mix of coincidence and cheek, he was given the chance to learn at the Reavey Stables in Oxfordshire. He left Belfast aged 15 on a ferry and left behind a family who had been desperate for him not to go. He then spent nearly two years with the stables, a period he described in his 2007 autobiography as “the happiest of my life”, but ultimately a lack of focus and an excess of self-belief not backed up by the required talent saw his dream end.

He returned to Belfast briefly but then moved to London for a year where he rekindled his previous life – an existence entirely planned around a snooker hall and a betting shop’s opening hours. Working at a mill to earn just enough to survive, his gambling and smoking habits required the extra funding only his cue could provide. He returned home to Belfast in 1967 and set about answering the question many had asked: could Alex Higgins, the scrawny kid who never stopped talking, become a professional snooker player? The Jam Pot was in decline so he headed to the Shaftesbury Club, where he found a better class of player. His game was such that he was urged to enter the 1968 Northern Ireland Amateur Championship, which he won comfortably. This was the turning point in Higgins’ life as he now had evidence for the two things he had long suspected. Firstly, just by playing his natural game – a mix of bravery, speed around the table and the occasional smile or wink at the audience – he could hold a crowd in the palm of his hand. Secondly, he might just be able to actually do it; he might just be able to make it as a professional.

He continued to play in tournaments with mixed success – often succumbing to the crowd’s urging to take on that shot he knew he shouldn’t – but via exhibition invitations and word of mouth he became the most talked about amateur in the UK. The problem with potential is you often have to prove it and Higgins needed a bigger stage. Regularly invited to play against pros at invitational events, he knew he could compete and, despite struggling with money and having no real discernible trade to fall back on if everything went wrong, in 1972 Higgins entered the World Championships as a professional player. “There’s no way he can clean up from here” I insisted. “He’s gone, I’m telling you. His confidence has gone” John Virgo, watching from the player’s boxes at the Crucible One red in and already he was up against it. Caught in two minds, like an amateur. His first red had been a simple cut to the bottom right pocket but he’d played to go past the pink and leave himself options.

As it was he’d under-hit the shot and left himself only a blue that was too straight and too long to be confident about taking on, or a green that meant running tight to the blue and then using at least two cushions for position. He took a pause. He went through the full repertoire of ticks to buy himself the time to weigh and measure both shots appropriately before letting the Hurricane help him pick one. His cue was chalked twice, his hair swept back three times, the table tapped and the scoreboard checked and checked again. One shot in and he had his first make or break pot. One bloody shot and already the Hurricane wanted to take over. He leaned over and lined up the green. Higgins had blunted his more flamboyant urges but the nerve to take this shot on, in this situation, was going to be a joint effort. The risk was all in the position. A hushed Crucible broke into applause as the green dropped into the pocket but he was watching the white bounce from the bottom cushion. There had been an angle to come back up the table towards his difficult red, tied to the rail below the middle pocket.

The first wave of applause died slightly in anticipation as the collective realisation that the white was in line to move the problem ball took hold. As they touched Higgins was off to line up his next red, knowing it had enough pace to have bounced away from the cushion and into play. It was a shot few would have dared to attempt. He had played it, pulled it off and was now busy trying to stifle the Hurricane’s smile. Pinterest Higgins celebrating in 1982. Photograph: David Muscroft/Rex Adrenaline had him and accordingly he took his next red too quickly and again let himself down on the position. The white had come the full length of the table and now sat and inch or so behind the yellow. Absolute silence returned to the theatre but a cacophony of noise wouldn’t have made any difference to Higgins. In one shot he had given himself a question that went beyond this frame, this semi-final or indeed, this World Championship. The way the white had fallen left him two options: safety or danger. He could simply roll in tight behind the yellow, go against instinct and cede the table to his opponent in the hope it would come back to him in a more advantageous way.

Defend what you’ve got, hope it gets better. Higgins had spent the first five months of the year taking control and despite leaving the table, this was the way 99 out of 100 professionals would go. He knew this was the safe option. The safe option. The other way was the Hurricane’s territory: attack. He could take the black on but it had to run two thirds of the table to the bottom left pocket and the white had to hold the little angle it had for the next red. It was potable but with the table as it was there was perhaps only the Hurricane and his current opponent that would have even considered taking it on in a semi-final. It was madness. It was dangerous. But the Hurricane wanted to attack. The Hurricane wanted to be heard. A few seconds ticked by but the answer was obvious. In truth he had known exactly what he had to do the moment the white finished where it did. As a seasoned gambler he knew sometimes the surest thing to do is to back yourself. Accordingly, the Hurricane lined up for the black.

“I was watching him putting these drinks down and I was thinking, well, y’know, this has got to be in my favour somewhere along the line but he … he produced” Jimmy White talking about the frame in 2010 The 1972 World Snooker Championship was a world away from the Crucible’s relative luxury. Set in the long gone British Legion in Birmingham, where the crowd sat around the table on stacked up beer crates, the best of 73 frames final was played out over a week. Higgins had beaten a couple of players he respected enormously in John Pulman and Rex Williams in the quarter and semi-finals, and in the final faced another in John Spencer. One brilliant session gave Higgins a six-frame lead and Spencer simply couldn’t close the gap. Higgins’ win sent shockwaves through the tight-knit snooker community. The game had its greats but now it had its first player with crossover appeal. For as long as anyone could remember, snooker had meant dark and smoky rooms, glacially paced frames and pressed suits. Here was a kid who flew around the table, moving from one shot to the next while never taking a hand from the baize.

Here was a player who played not just the game, but also the audience, smiling and laughing his way through frames. And here was a poster boy, handsome and a world away from the middle-aged men around him. Over the next five years his career blossomed further. By the mid-1970s he was the game’s most recognisable name, with several non-ranking titles won but no further majors. His opponents had worked out a plan to nullify him as best they could by puling him back to their level with long-drawn out frames and safety battles. His impatience and subsequent desire to please the crowd would always cost him. But it was exactly those qualities that filled exhibition halls the length and breadth of Great Britain, and he loved their adoration. Alex Higgins, snooker player, dies at 61 Read more Away from the crowd he was developing a reputation for a prickly attitude to authority. While his life was yet to truly leave the rails he had already been fined several times for minor misdemeanours and his capacity for drink was becoming legendary. He was also a heavy smoker and snooker’s relationship with several tobacco sponsors meant he would never be short of cigarettes or matches at which to smoke them.

Higgins played fast and lived faster, also adding women and gambling to his list of vices. Despite this, as snooker moved into the world of mass entertainment, he was to become its biggest star. In 1977 the World Championships moved to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield with a lucrative new sponsorship deal in place with Embassy. Its single location and three-camera set-up was perfect for TV and the game moved from the black and white backrooms to the bright lights of the BBC. Higgins’ game was built for a wider audience and, of course, he embraced them accordingly. Pinterest Higgins enjoying his other passion. Photograph: ANL/Rex/Shutterstock The Hurricane had already gone primetime, snooker was merely catching up and now he found himself welcome at every bar in Great Britain. As his star grew throughout the 1970s, things began to get away from him. He had never lived a quiet life but suddenly here he was, drunk and running through a 35-room mansion as an equally drunk Oliver Reed chased him with an axe. At an exhibition match in Ilfracombe he threw his cue “spear-like” at a spectator who riled him.

He missed tournament games to play more lucrative exhibition games and began drifting from match to match losing track of which mattered and which were for show. He was fined continuously for falling out with snooker’s authorities for everything from telling the most experienced referee in the game to “read the fucking rulebook”, to continuing to lick the white ball to clean it even though that had been banned. He refused to wear black, knowing he would be fined, until black was outlawed as snooker attempted to modernise, at which point Higgins immediately favoured the traditional suit with a black bowtie. He even managed to get himself banned from appearing on Pot Black for being caught urinating in the sink in his dressing room because the toilets were a “fair walk.” Several nights out with Oliver Reed and Alex Higgins went exactly as you would expect them too, one ending in a sword fight, another with the infamous downed half-pint of Chanel No5. Practice time went from being elusive to nearly non-existent. He drank with Keith Moon, Ian Botham, Elton John, George Best and everyone in between. By that fateful 1981 World Championships the Hurricane was front and back page news, even earning himself an appearance on This Is Your Life.

The wake-up call of realising his game now lagged behind was needed as no amount of fines, bans, hangovers or arguments had broken through the hedonistic ice he had surrounded himself in. The Hurricane was a force of nature, Alex Higgins was just a man. “Never in the history of sporting conflict has there been so much triumph and tragedy as there was in the semi-final of the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield” Alan Thompson in the Express, Saturday 15 May 1982 In lining up for that black he had not only admitted to himself that the Hurricane was back in control, but he had now told the world. He took the shot and unusually stayed down to watch it, willing it to disappear but also taking in the moment. It drifted towards the pocket, bounced from side to side and dropped to a chorus of cheers. In one shot everything had changed. He chalked his cue, walked round to the next red but looked above the scoreboard to the commentary box. Catching Spencer’s eye he grinned – he had this, no bother – a moment caught on the live BBC coverage. If the halo had ever slipped in the public’s eye here was a smile that told them not to worry.

His next difficult red was clipped effortlessly into a middle pocket, leaving himself the blue to the bottom right. Position wasn’t easy but he was beginning to feel something. Momentum is powerful but to those who can create it from nothing it becomes a drug, the one high you can’t replace once the sporting lights fade. He took his time to enjoy the feeling, checking the angle but knowing exactly what he wanted to do. He checked the score with both board and referee, and took the blue on. How Johan Cruyff nearly signed for Leicester City in 1981 Read more The blue dropped but no one was watching. Higgins had hit the white with so much side and screw he had moved it across half the table to one cushion, only for it to spin back all the way to the other side and bounce down towards the small pack of three remaining reds. Clive Everton called the shot “extraordinary” and admitted in a 2010 BBC documentary “to this day I have no idea how he got so much spin on the ball.” In the same programme his opponent, White, went for the more succinct but no less apt “it was just a crazy shot”.

Dennis Taylor admitted he’d “set it up a few times and I’ve no idea how he created so much back-spin with a flick of his wrist.” A World Championship semi-final in which he had no margin for error, and he was playing exhibition shots. From that moment on there was no way he was going to miss a thing. A red travelled the length of the table while the white lined up perfectly for the black. The commentary team were now effusive with their praise knowing this was one of snooker’s greatest ever breaks. Each shot was “tremendous” or “beautiful”, every word taking on a little more meaning as the growing realisation this was going to be played again and again hit home. That red/black combination was followed by another red taken from the rest to the same pocket that had cost White his chance. White watched on from his chair, cue to the side. The game was up. There may have been one frame to go after this but the Whirlwind was spent, blown away by a Hurricane. Pinterest Alex Higgins. Photograph: Empics/PA Another red and black were potted and Higgins was on the colours, still needing them all to take the frame but by now he was enjoying himself.

He moved seamlessly from one to the other. His journey through the reds had been marked by the way he had dug himself out of trouble he had busily made for himself. As he moved through the six colours he was millimetre perfect on each shot, every ball dropping centre pocket, white landing perfectly every time. As he lined up for the black that would give him the 69-59 frame win, there wasn’t a doubt in the room. The room erupted knowing it had just witnessed sporting genius. “Marvellous” said Karnehm as the final ball dropped. Higgins strode back to his table but not before another glance towards Spencer. He smiled, pointed and said “yeah”. For a man prone to emotional outbursts it was a wonderfully understated gesture, but also one that drained any semblance of confidence Jimmy White may have held on to. Alex “the Hurricane” Higgins was back, whole again and winning. Nothing could go wrong now…

Question: Which snooker player was also known as the Hurricane?
Answer: -Alex Higgins