BBC SPORT | Other Sport... | Snooker | 1979: Griffiths ushers new dawn 1979: Griffiths ushers new dawn Griffiths' final efforts paid dividends In winning the world title at his first attempt, Terry Griffiths ushered in a new era for snooker, an era in which the standards would reach levels never before seen. Griffiths, a former bus conductor and postman from Llanelli, had entered the championship with the modest goal of qualifying for The Crucible. But in the final stages he beat Perrie Mans, runner-up the previous year, 13-8 and made a break of 107 in the deciding frame of his thrilling 13-12 victory over Alex Higgins in the quarter-finals. He had to rely on tactical nous and great patience to scrape past durable Australian Eddie Charlton in the semi-finals, eventually achieving a 19-17 victory at 1.40 am following a five hours and 25 minutes final session. Dennis Taylor came through the other half of the draw to reach the final for the first time.

He led 14-12, but Griffiths, defying tiredness after his semi-final exertions and the pressure of his first major final, won 12 of the next 14 frames to complete his remarkable 24-16 victory. 20 famous people who have been postmen Authors 20 famous people who have been postmen Actor Steve Carell, Walt Disney, writers Charles Bukowski and William Faulkner, singer John Prine and President Abraham Lincoln have all delivered the mail Credit: Rex Features/AP Martin Chilton , Culture Editor 7 January 2016 • 8:47am There have been countless great fictional characters who have delivered the mail: including Postman Pat, Newman of Seinfeld, the guy in Il Postino, Kevin Costner's The Postman and Clive James in a cameo for Neighbours. The quirkiest was John Ratzenberger's Cliff Claven, one of the main characters on the NBC series Cheers , who used to toast fellow drinkers at the Boston bar by saying: "As they say down at the post office, 'here's looking up your address'".

As the Royal Mail celebrates its 500-year history in 2016, we look at some of the famous people – from a Nobel Prize winner to an American President – who really were former mailmen. ABRAHAM LINCOLN For a while in 1831 the future 16th President was the mailman in his home town of New Salem. There was no post office in the small Illinois town and when the mail came in, Lincoln would put the letters in his hat and carry them round to the recipients. Technically, Lincoln isn't the only White House resident to have had a job working with mail: Harry S Truman was the official postmaster of Grandview, Missouri, but he held the title in name only. CHARLES BUKOWSKI The acclaimed American writer's first novel, published in 1971, was called Post Office and was about his time as a postman in Los Angeles. Before giving up the job Charles Bukowski said: "I have one of two choices – stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve.

I have decided to starve." Charles Bukowski Credit: Rex Features WILLIAM FAULKNER The man who received the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature was a sneaky mailman. Mississippi-born Faulkner had a habit of fibbing about his personal life (he used to boast falsely that he had played a role in the British Royal Flying Corps) but he was less forthcoming in later life about his time delivering mail. As a mailman he was fond of reading the magazines before delivering them and chucking away any person’s mail that he deemed "insignificant". When a postal inspector investigated complaints against Faulkner in 1924, the author resigned, writing a letter that said: "As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp." William Faulkner Credit: AP WALT DISNEY The famous filmmaker had a job as a postal carrier when he was 16, in his native Chicago.

Disney was at first rejected for employment because he was too young, but he re-applied, wearing make-up and a disguise, and got the job. Disney worked as a letter carrier during the day and a collector at night. In later life, the film studio owner said: "I had a brother who I really envied because he was a mailman. But he's the one that had all the fun. He had himself a trailer, and he used to go out and go fishing, and he didn't worry about payrolls and stories and picture grosses or anything. And he was the happy one. I always said, 'He's the smart Disney'." STEVE CARELL The Golden Globe winning actor – and star of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Office – was a mailman in Littleton, Massachusetts. Steve Carell said: "It was pre-Internet, so there were lots of thick, heavy catalogues to deliver. I only lasted about seven months. I was a rural mail carrier, so I had to use my own car. I had to drive with my left hand and throw the mail out of the right window.

I had a bad throw." Steve Carell, star of the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, was a mailman for seven months Credit: Rex Features RAYMOND VAN BARNEVELD When he won his first British Darts Organisation title in 1998 – in a final watched by five million Dutch TV viewers – Raymond Van Barneveld was still a working postman. On his return, 10,000 fans greeted him at Schiphol Airport. He said: "As a postman I earned £840 a month and always struggled to look after my wife and three kids. Then suddenly I won a world title and £40,000 and everyone in Holland said, 'he deserves it because he's such a nice fellow'. But once I turned pro, and the money rolled in, people said 'Oh, he's so arrogant!'" NEIL WEBB In 2004, the former Manchester United and England footballer took a job as a postman in Reading. As a footballer, he had been earning £5,000 a week in 1989.

After a short-lived career as a manager, at Weymouth FC, he took a job as a postman, where he was earning £220 a week. He was sanguine about his career change, saying at the time: "It's good exercise. And I'm home by lunch ... It's a job. What else do people expect me to do?" Neil Webb, the former Manchester United player, became a postman in Reading Credit: Rex Features DAVID HARVEY After retiring, Scotland and Leeds goalkeeper David Harvey first worked as a publican, before becoming a postman in Scotland. "The sorting office atmosphere was like a dressing room," he said. Fellow goalkeeper Peter Bonetti moved to the Isle of Mull and also became a full-time postman after retiring. After a few years delivering letters on the Scottish island, he returned to England to begin a career as a goalkeeping coach at Chelsea, Manchester City and the England national side. Former Derby County star Kevin Hector also worked as a postman after quitting football. JOHN PRINE The Grammy winning singer and songwriter John Prine was a postman for five years. While working as a mailman, he was spotted singing part-time in a bar which led to a professional career.

One of his albums is called The Singing Mailman Delivers. DENNIS FRANZ The actor who played Andy Sipowicz in the award-winning series NYPD Blue spent 11 months in an airborne division during the Vietnam War. Afterwards, the son of German-born postal workers also became became a postman – and by his own admission, not a very good one – in the Chicago suburbs of Maywood, where his parents had settled. He gave up the job and became a highly successful actor. Dennis Franz as Andy Sipowicz in NYPD Blue Credit: Rex Features BON SCOTT The former lead singer of AC/DC, who died at 33, had been a postman in Fremantle, Western Australia, when he was 19. Now postmen can deliver mail to Bon Scott Crescent in Moncrieff, which was named after the late rock star. VIC GODARD Perhaps the only man to go from punk to post, Vic Godard was the frontman for the Seventies band Subway Sect. He quit the music business in 1992 to become a postman in London's Kew but happily returned to music and is still performing.

Other musician-postmen include Ace Frehley of Kiss and Japanese pop star Kimeru. DECLAN SINNOTT The guitarist for Irish band Moving Hearts and long-time musical partner of Christy Moore was a postman in London in the early Seventies. He later recalled: "London is the only place outside of Ireland I've lived. From 1973 into 1974 I spent a year there working as a postman for a lot of that time. My job as a postman allowed me to do overtime and earn what was very good money for the time. I did up to 40 hours a week overtime. I used the extra money to buy gear. I bought guitar amps and a PA and a beautiful TeleFender Telecaster electric guitar." ALLAN B CALHAMER The man who invented the hugely popular board game Diplomacy worked for two decades as a "letter carrier" in La Grange Park, wearing the distinctive US postal system blue uniform. TERRY GRIFFITHS The man who won the World Snooker Championship in 1979 at the first attempt had worked as a postman in his home town of Llanelli before turning professional.

Terry Griffiths Credit: Rex Features ALLAN SMETHURST The folk singer was known as Norfolk's singing mailman (and who can forget songs such as Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy? and Moind Yer Hid, Boy?) became a national celebrity in 1966 when he was signed by EMI, appeared on Top Of The Pops and the Des O'Connor Show and won the Ivor Novello award for best novelty song. Allan Smethurst, a folk singer who appeared on Top of the Pops, was a postman in Norfolk Credit: Rex Features Hurricane Sandy | nowt much to say nowt much to say Hurricane Sandy 02/03/2013 I dozed off during Newsnight a few weeks ago. It’s either a sign that I’m knocking on a bit or my desire to understand the world around us is waning. Hopefully it’s the former. Anyway, I came round about half an hour later and peered somewhat fuzzily at the now mostly green screen. Snooker was on. And the scoreline at the bottom of the screen indicated that Higgins was playing Davis.

For a few seconds I imagined I’d been transported back to the 1980s when a snooker contest pitting Higgins against Davis would have set the pulse racing. A Manchester United v Liverpool of the green baize. Sadly, it turned out it wasn’t Alex versus Steve in 1982, but John against Mark in the 2012 UK Championship in York. I watched for a few minutes before heading to bed. It’s easy to forget how popular snooker was in the 1980s. Television audiences regularly exceeded ten million viewers even for lesser tournaments such as the World Doubles. Everyone had their favourite players; the Canadian Bill Werbeniuk and his diet of lager and beta blockers, a youthful Steve Davis, the avuncular Ray Reardon or the ex-postman Terry Griffiths who won the World Championship at his first attempt in 1979, to name but a few. But snooker owed much of its popularity to Alex Higgins and the excitement that he brought to the game. Sadly he died, almost penniless, in July 2010 after a long fight against throat cancer.

Last year was 30 years since Alex won the World Snooker Championship for the second time beating Ray Reardon in the final, a decade after becoming the youngest player to win it, aged 22. The emotional scenes as he tearfully lifted the trophy with wife Lynn and baby daughter Lauren remain some of the most iconic in sport. Apart from Ronnie O’Sullivan’s admirable attempt to get the sport’s governing body to recognise this anniversary, it passed with barely a mention in the press or on television. I guess Alex never really fitted in with the modern obsession with sporting “role models”. Higgins was certainly no angel and had frequent battles with snooker officials and fellow players and was banned for a whole season after threatening to have Dennis Taylor shot in 1990. His career never recovered from this ban. Snooker had become a young man’s game and Alex was by then the wrong side of forty and drink and gambling were getting the better of him. I prefer to remember Alex in his prime; charismatic, fast, flamboyant, stylish and exciting. Snooker’s McEnroe, Ballesteros and Maradona all rolled into one.

A waif-like figure scurrying round the table, constantly twitching and perpetually in motion. When addressing the cue ball his head always seemed to jerk rather than remaining still over the shot as he rushed on to the next one. Famously open-necked, his energy and nonconformity made for a complete contrast with the sober, bow-tied, besuited gentlemen the game had been used to before his arrival. Alex was the first snooker star of the modern era and the only reason I ever became interested in the game. Unable to afford one of the nice looking six foot tables in the Co-op’s sports department, our next door neighbour put his woodworking skills into action and made us a table. The cloth was a bit hairier than that of a standard table, and shots played gently would often see balls veering off a straight line, but it gave us chance to pretend we were the Hurricane. Apart from the speed at which he played the game, one of Alex’s other notable characteristics was his ability to read the game and see and execute shots that were beyond most players. His knowledge of the angles of a table was second to none and would often see him escaping a tricky position with a shot of breathtaking audacity.

This ability was never better demonstrated than during his semi-final with a young Jimmy White in the 1982 world championship. Alex’s break of 69 in the penultimate frame of that match is widely regarded as the greatest break in snooker history. If you’ve not seen it before, put the kettle on, make a brew, click on the link below and sit back and treat yourself to six minutes of sporting genius. In a sporting world where anything rising above mediocrity is all too often labelled as “sensational”, they haven’t printed a dictionary with enough superlatives in it yet to do justice to this particular piece of action. For this young Red it was up there with Jimmy Greenhoff’s late winner, in another semi-final, at Goodison Park in 1979. The stylish underdog fighting back against those who preached consistency, machine-like efficiency and playing the percentages. One for those who think that sport is much more than trophies and statistics. Higgins comes to the table 16-15 down and trailing by 59 points with six reds left. Jimmy only needs to take this frame to win the match and make it to his first final.

There follows a sequence of eighteen shots under intense pressure that, to my mind, are as good as anything else in modern sport. The late Jack Karnehm and the former world champion John Spencer are the commentators and as the break develops it is clear they are aware that they’re witnessing something very special. At one point, Karnehm suggests that it will be “the break of the tournament” if Alex clears the table. Sporting hyperbole wasn’t as prevalent in 1982 as it is now. Meanwhile Spencer intones that “I’m feeling nervous for him Jack” as Alex lines up another shot. The commentators and television audience may have been feeling the tension but Alex appears calm throughout the break. He even has time for a smile towards the commentary box after a tremendous long pot on the black into the bottom right hand pocket. It appears that everything is clicking and there’s almost a sense that he’s playing so well that he simply can’t miss. The shot on the blue into the top right hand corner, midway through the break, played with enough check side to bring the cue ball back down the table for the reds is simply astonishing. Sadly, this was the pinnacle of Alex’s career. There should have been so much more.

There were other moments to remember such as the tremendous fightback against Steve Davis in the 1983 UK Championship when he recovered from 0-7 down to win the final. And winning the World Doubles with his mate Jimmy White in 1984. But that was pretty much it bar the odd glimpse of his supreme natural talent. The statistics don’t do him justice at all. In his pomp he was a magnificent and mesmerising sight. The last word goes to Ronnie O’Sullivan, perhaps the natural successor to Alex in the modern game; “the way he played at his best is the way that I believe the game should be played. It was on the edge, keeping the crowd entertained and glued to the action”. Share this: History of Snooker - World Snooker History of Snooker Fu on FIRE as he sets up O'Sullivan Semi Final History of Snooker The History of Snooker It is 140 years since a young officer in the British Army, experimenting on a billiard table, came up with the game we now know as snooker.

At the 2015 World Championship the best players on the planet were competing for a top prize of £300,000, watched by nearly half a billion people around the globe. Two of snooker’s leading journalists, Hector Nunns and David Hendon, plot snooker’s course from small beginnings to a major international sport… INDIA, BIRTHPLACE OF SNOOKER The first ever Indian Open ranking tournament was staged in New Delhi in 2013, an occasion celebrated with gusto throughout the snooker world. This was partly due to the emergence of two fine professional players from that country, eventual finalist Aditya Mehta and former billiards champion Pankaj Advani, with the prospect of plenty more to follow. However it also provided the perfect opportunity to reflect upon the very origins of the sport 138 years earlier, with the game having been invented in 1875 by the British Army in the Indian town of Jubbulpore (or Jabalpur, as it is now known) situated around 450 miles south-east of the capital.

According to author and essayist Compton MacKenzie in his account in ‘The Billiard Player’ magazine of 1939, young lieutenant Neville Chamberlain (not the former British Prime Minister) was experimenting on the officers’ mess table with the existing game of ‘Black Pool’ featuring 15 red balls and a black. Having thrown on additional coloured balls and heard that rookie cadets at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich were called ‘snookers’, Chamberlain observed that all those present were snookers at this tweaked version of the game, and the name instantly stuck. His Devonshire regiment, which later became the Devonshire and Dorset and are now known as the Rifles, remain fiercely proud to this day of their role in the invention of snooker. Neville Chamberlain Soon after, Chamberlain was based in the Tamil Nadu hill station of Ootacamund – or ‘Snooty Ooty’, as the exclusive mountain retreat was often known. And such was the young officer’s enthusiasm for his new game there that he even named his horse ‘Snooker’.

The further development of the sport took place in the colonial-style Ooty Club, very much a part of snooker folklore and somewhere that current World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn insists remains on his ‘bucket list’ to visit. The club features an original snooker table from the period in use today and walls still thick with tiger, leopard and deer hunting trophies – and it was from here that word and rules of the new game circulated throughout India and the former British Empire. Membership of the club at that time was restricted to “officers of the armed forces, and gentlemen moving in general society”, though luckily for most, those rules have since been eased. Rumours of this new phenomenon had reached Great Britain and aside from the birth of a certain Joe Davis in 1901 – more of whom later – the years that followed saw snooker slowly grow in the United Kingdom, cue manufacturer and billiards player John Roberts Jr helping to spread the gospel after a trip to India. Around 1910, century breaks were attributed to Scot Tom Aiken, a billiards champion, Cecil Harverson, Phil Morris of Tottenham and Lucania Hall manager George Hargest.

The first amateur snooker championship was staged during the Great War, with the result at that time decided by points aggregate after seven frames – a very early precursor to the shorter format of the modern-day European and Asian Tour series. Snooker’s rules, which had featured inconsistencies, were finally dragged together in 1919, also the year that the re-spotted black was introduced to ensure each frame had a winner. How much drama that innovation has produced over the years, and still does to this day. With a number of established amateurs, it took a man who would become snooker’s first superstar to usher in the age of professionalism. JOE DAVIS AND PROFESSIONALISM Snooker’s next era belonged to one man only – the incomparable and all-conquering Joe Davis. The others involved as professionalism took a hold were more often than not bit-parts in the Joe show and they knew it, with varying levels of resentment. However the years from the mid-1920s unquestionably also marked an exciting phase in the game’s emergence and saw it challenge and overtake the more established game of billiards in the UK, with matches drawing crowds in the thousands.

Joe, along with younger brother Fred, was born in Whitwell, Derbyshire just past the turn of the century – sons of a miner who turned publican at the Queens Hotel, Whittington Moor which crucially housed a full-size billiards table. And Joe would go on to become a strong contender for the tag of greatest player of all time with his incredible longevity at the top and unmatched exploits on the table. He won 15 world titles in succession, the last coming after World War Two. He was also the driving force behind the first professional World Championship in 1927, the forerunner of today’s tournament that will be watched by hundreds of millions around the globe. The famous silver trophy that will be held aloft by this year’s champion on May 5 has not changed – bar a few extra names engraved in the intervening years. Though weaned on billiards and like many others initially looking down on the new sport Joe, a financial pragmatist, immediately saw snooker’s greater earning potential.

When he claimed victory from a field of 10 entrants in that 1927 final at Camkin’s Hall, Birmingham, 20-11 against Tom Dennis, the man unable to focus with his right eye and variously called the ‘Sultan of Snooker’ and the ‘Emperor of Pot’ pocketed a princely £6 10s. Sidney Smith, another son of the Derbyshire snooker hotbed of the time, became the first man to make a total clearance (136) at the Daily Mail Gold Cup in 1939. And the first post-WWII World Championship final between Joe and Australian Horace Lindrum, won 78-67 by the Englishman at the Royal Horticultural Hall to sell-out crowds of 1,200 twice a day for a fortnight, represented a peak leading to almost inevitable decline in interest and commercial sway. Fred won the first of his eight world titles in 1948, and the BBC, who are again providing the pictures from this year’s Crucible action, made their debut outside broadcast coverage of snooker from Leicester Square Hall in 1950.

In 1952 a boycott by most of the top players left only two entrants. Lindrum beat New Zealander Clark McConachy 94-49 at Houldsworth Hall in Manchester in a ‘world final’ contest recognised by virtually nobody, though Lindrum’s family were still protesting he was the first Australian to win it when Neil Robertson lifted the trophy in 2010. And on January 22 1955 Joe, also referred to as the ‘Grandfather of Snooker’, became the first man to have a 147 maximum break officially recognised in an exhibition against Willie Smith that effectively also brought the curtain down on Leicester Square Hall, formerly Thurston’s (a table manufacturer) and an iconic playing venue for half a century. Joe, having already produced at least two coaching manuals, brought out in 1956 the definitive ‘How I Play Snooker’, a sacred text of technical know-how that has since been described as “the bible” for all players by six-time world champion and namesake Steve Davis, handed the book by his father Bill.

One of the 56-year-old’s only unfulfilled career ambitions remains to bring out a tome to rival it. However, Joe’s decision to retire from the World Championship in 1946 but continue to play in tournaments and exhibitions seriously devalued the game’s premier event as everyone knew the best player wasn’t in it. It led to a decade of decline before the sport was rescued by a medium which would herald a new dawn. THE AGE OF COLOUR In July 1969, man first walked on the moon and, that same month, snooker took its own giant leap, which would lay the groundwork for the professional circuit as we know it today. Pot Black was a weekly series designed to showcase the BBC’s new colour service. The controller of BBC2 was David Attenborough, who would become a broadcasting legend through his ground-breaking natural history programmes. He wanted content which could emphasise colour. Snooker, which also had the advantage of being easy to cover, fitted the bill perfectly. Ted Lowe, a former manager of Leicester Square Hall in London, who had lent whispering commentaries to snooker shown by the BBC in black and white, devised the format and eight professionals were invited to play.

The series was a huge hit and players quickly became well known, which in turn boosted their capacity to earn money from exhibitions. Joe Davis, John Spencer, Ray Reardon and John Pulman All this had seemed unlikely in 1957 when snooker’s very future appeared doomed when the World Championship was discontinued through lack of interest. It had been revived by Rex Williams in 1964 and played as a series of challenge matches, all seven of which were won by John Pulman. In 1968, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association was established and the following year the championship reverted back to a knockout format. John Spencer won it in 1969 but Ray Reardon, a former miner and policeman, would dominate the 1970s, winning six world titles. Reardon was the period’s leading player but its star was a young Northern Irishman whose lightning fast skills had been honed in the Jampot club in Belfast. Alex Higgins was a firebrand whose very being seemed destined to challenge the establishment on and off the table.

He won the world title at his first attempt in 1972, pocketing a first prize of £480, and spectators packed into exhibitions to watch him play. It was ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, despite his bad behaviour, or maybe because of it, who gained snooker popularity and publicity in this time where Pot Black was still the sport’s main TV outlet. Sponsors, particularly from the tobacco industry, started to take notice and the BBC increased its coverage with highlights from the World Championship and a new invitation event, the Masters. As Reardon, Spencer and Higgins led the way on the table, things were moving forward behind the scenes under the astute stewardship of Mike Watterson, an independent promoter who was savvy enough to realise the sport’s potential as television exposure created increased sponsorship opportunities. The World Championship had been played in various outposts, including Australia, before Watterson looked for a new home for the 1977 tournament, ideally an intimate set-up which could become a permanent venue for the sport’s Blue Riband event. One night his wife, Carol, returned from seeing a play at a theatre in Sheffield which she thought may fit the bill.

And so the stage was set for snooker’s transformation from relative obscurity to front page news as the game hit the heights like never before. DAVIS AT THE HEAD OF THE SNOOKER BOOM The Crucible stands in the middle of Sheffield city centre. For 50 weeks of the year this theatre-in-the-round stages great dramatic works, but for 17 days annually it becomes a sporting hub where careers are defined and dreams are made or shattered. John Spencer triumphed at the 1977 championship there before Ray Reardon won his sixth world title the following year. 1978 had seen the BBC considerably increase its coverage of the tournament and they were rewarded with stellar viewing figures. In a decade, only Alex Higgins had successfully challenged the Reardon/Spencer grip on the World Championship but the old order was to be irrevocably broken in 1979. Terry Griffiths’s triumph as a qualifier in his first season as a professional acted as a catalyst for many amateurs to take a chance on the pro ranks. One ginger-haired Londoner had already made the leap.

Steve Davis of Plumstead was a shy but dedicated player tutored by his father, Bill, and managed by an extrovert businessman called Barry Hearn, who ran a chain of Lucania snooker clubs. Steve Davis As the 1980s dawned, Davis and Hearn set about cleaning up on and off the table. Davis’s first major success came at the 1980 UK Championship and he ended the season by winning the world title, Hearn barrelling across the Crucible stage and nearly knocking him over in jubilant celebration. With the world champion under his wing, Hearn began to see the possibilities of snooker outside of mere results. With a natural touch for the popular he began to build his Matchroom empire by signing more players and promoting independent tournaments. These were golden years. All over the UK, snooker clubs were opening and a vibrant amateur scene began breeding the stars of the future. ITV had enviously viewed the BBC’s audience figures and began televising its own events. Thus, a professional circuit built up and prize money rocketed.

Sponsors were lining up to invest in a sport which the British public watched like a soap opera, with its distinct cast of characters, many of whom found their private lives the subject of unwanted attention from a tabloid press also riding the boom. Higgins was inevitably the subject of many of these stories. The volatile bad boy of the baize won an emotional second world title in 1982, tearfully beckoning his wife and baby daughter on to the Crucible stage in the moments following his 18-15 victory over Reardon. Cliff Thorburn had become the first non-British world champion in 1980 and made the Crucible’s first 147 break in 1983, a year before another Canadian, Kirk Stevens, made one at the Masters. Jimmy White, who had won the world amateur title at the age of 18, missed out on a world final place in 1982 when Higgins made a miraculous clearance of 69 while trailing 15-14 in their semi-final before winning the decider. White fought back from 12-4 down to Davis in the 1984 final but was beaten 18-16.

Davis was indeed the man to beat. He made the first televised maximum break at the 1982 Lada Classic, captured six UK Championship crowns and spent seven years as world number one. However, he was on the wrong end of the most famous snooker match of the boom years. In 1985, he built an 8-0 lead over Dennis Taylor in the world final and was apparently coasting to a third straight title. Taylor, a Northern Irishman who wore large ‘upside down’ spectacles, fought back and at 11pm they were level at 17-17 with one more frame to play. It lasted over an hour and came down to the final black. Davis had a chance to pot it but missed, leaving Taylor to sink it. 18.5 million viewers were still watching BBC2, a record audience to this day for the channel and for any UK programme broadcast after midnight. Despite this reverse, and one to 150-1 pre-tournament hopeful Joe Johnson in 1986, Davis, like snooker itself, remained imperious throughout the 1980s.

In 1989, he crushed John Parrott 18-3 to win a sixth world title. He seemed unstoppable, but a young man from Scotland had other ideas. THE HENDRY YEARS Every so often in sport there comes along an individual who not only dominates rivals in competition, but introduces a whole new dimension and changes the way a game is played – and Scotland’s Stephen Hendry was to prove just such a figure in snooker. Born in South Queensferry, Hendry was bought a small table by his parents as an afterthought at the age of 12. On such twists of fate are legends formed. He swiftly served notice of a growing force with wins at the Scottish Under-16 and Scottish amateur level, turning professional at the tender age of just 16 years and three months. By the time Hendry retired in 2012, he had set records that may never be broken, and built up a glittering and trophy-laden CV, not least with his achievements on the greatest stage of all, the World Championship at the Crucible Theatre.

Hendry’s legacy will therefore not only be title triumphs and memories, but the certainty that many of those now at the top of the game were hugely influenced by what they saw him doing on the table in his pomp, the shots he played and the attacking approach to break-building and single-visit snooker he espoused. Stephen Hendry With the world waiting for someone to inherit the Steve Davis mantle, Hendry – with manager Ian Doyle guiding his career – unhesitatingly leapt up to the plate. The early milestones came and went. There was a first Crucible appearance at 17, famously being applauded off by Willie Thorne after losing 10-8. And a first ranking title in 1987, as Hendry beat Dennis Taylor 10-7 at the Grand Prix. The dominance truly began in the 1989-90 season, culminating in a first world title – and Hendry, now 45, remains at the time of writing the youngest player to win it at 21 years 106 days.

Six further times Hendry lifted the trophy at the Crucible, and inevitably his series of finals against People’s Champion Jimmy White are the best remembered, with the Scot often unfairly cast in the role of the hunter who killed Bambi’s mother. Four times he snatched the prize away from the Whirlwind, including the remarkable ten frames in a row to win 18-14 in 1992, and the ice-cool 58 clearance to win 18-17 in 1994 with a broken bone in his arm after White had missed a black off the spot in the decider. In these and other successes Hendry was fearless, aggressive, ruthless, focused and determined – and executed tough shots under the most intense pressure time and time again. And he never forgot the trailblazing he was doing for Scottish snooker, walked in by a piper with Alan McManus for their all-Tartan 1993 Crucible semi-final. Not all of Hendry’s finest moments came in Sheffield, though. In 1994 he made seven century breaks in the UK Championship final, beating Ken Doherty 10-5 in Preston.

And in 1997 he recovered from losing six frames in a row in the final of the Liverpool Victoria Charity Challenge to come out at 8-8 and win the match against Ronnie O’Sullivan with a 147 maximum break. While it is possible O’Sullivan could get to Hendry’s mark of seven world titles and 775 career centuries, the 36 ranking titles record looks secure for all time as does the 27 consecutive appearances in the final stages of the blue-riband tournament in Sheffield. Victories over Hendry in big matches at or near his peak were rare, hard-earned and for that reason all the more special. Just ask Ken Doherty what beating him in the Crucible final meant in 1997, or Peter Ebdon with his ‘revenge’ showpiece victory in 2002 after losing in the 1996 final. John Parrott and John Higgins also claimed world titles in the 1990s. Hendry also remains the last snooker player to seriously figure in the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year poll, coming second only to Paul Gascoigne in 1990.

For many, Hendry gets the nod as the greatest player of all time – but like all reigns his was to end, with a group of players he inspired seizing the initiative. THE GOLDEN CROP BEAR FRUIT While Stephen Hendry was taking snooker to another level in the early 1990s, a trio of teenagers were taking their first steps on the professional circuit, the start of a journey which would propel all three to the top of the sport. The circuit had gradually grown from a handful of professionals to 128 players, but in 1991 the WPBSA decided to throw the pro ranks open to anyone willing to pay the entry fees. Suddenly there were 700 professionals, a revolution which swept away many of the now ageing characters who were such an important part of the 1980s boom. Ronnie O’Sullivan’s name was known long before he turned professional. His father, Ronnie senior, instilled in him a disciplined practice routine from boyhood and brought leading amateurs to the family home to play his son on their full sized table.

O’Sullivan cut a swathe through the amateur ranks and won 74 of his 76 qualifying matches in his debut season, 1992/93. Snooker had decamped to the Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool for a long summer of preliminary rounds and O’Sullivan emerged as the undoubted star. Remarkably, a year later he beat Hendry 10-6 in the UK Championship final the week before he turned 18, becoming the youngest ever ranking event winner. His performances were often dazzling. At the 1997 World Championship he made a 147 break in a record time of just five minutes, 20 seconds. Ronnie O’Sullivan O’Sullivan had the world at his feet. But away from the table, he struggled from depression, triggered by his father’s life conviction for murder. O’Sullivan’s magisterial performances on the baize were therefore coupled with erratic behaviour, disciplinary action and constant threats to retire. He did not win his first world title until he was 25, in 2001. A second followed in 2004 and third in 2008.

After his fourth in 2012 he finally went through with his threat to walk away, taking a year off, apart from one minor event. However, the time away proved to O’Sullivan that snooker was still in his blood. He returned to win a fifth world title in 2013. With four UK and five Masters titles, plus a record 12 maximum breaks, his claim to be the greatest ever was strengthened in his late 30s, when most players decline. He could have won more but for his two contemporaries, John Higgins and Mark Williams, the other celebrated members of the class of 1992. Higgins, an all-round player in the Steve Davis mould, was the first of the three to win the world title. His 1998 triumph saw him end fellow Scot Hendry’s eight-year reign as world number one. Higgins, who had won three ranking titles while still a teenager, was a regular tournament winner but it took him nine years to capture a second world title. He quickly won two more, in 2009 and 2011, as well as three UK titles and the Masters twice.

Williams became the third Welshman and first left-hander to win the World Championship in 2000. In 2003, he won a thrilling contest with Ken Doherty 18-16 to complete a clean sweep of that season’s three major titles, having already captured a second UK Championship and second Masters, a feat only previously accomplished by Davis and Hendry. Laid back off the table, Williams was ruthless on it, his mettle having been proven by edging Hendry 10-9 on a re-spotted black in the 1998 Masters final. O’Sullivan, Higgins and Williams were products of the 1980s UK snooker boom. They were inspired by the blanket TV coverage, played in the sundry junior and amateur events and climbed their way up from the bottom rung of the qualifying ladder to the very top. From 1998 to 2013 they won 11 of the 16 World Championships between them. They were the leading lights as snooker entered a new millennium, which would see the sport exploring new global opportunities.

SNOOKER GOES GLOBAL Despite its British roots, professional snooker made several forays to foreign climes before travelling became the norm for top players. South Africa staged challenge matches in the 1960s, the 1975 World Championship was played in Australia, there were regular tournaments in Canada in the 1970s and in the 1980s Barry Hearn’s Matchroom led the way in spreading the gospel to countries such as China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. The first ranking event staged outside the UK was the 1988 Canadian Masters. There were European Opens in France, the Netherlands and Belgium and an Asian Open in China in 1990. Thailand became a regular and popular stopping off point for the circuit in the 1990s after the emergence of James Wattana, who won three ranking titles, including his home event on two occasions. It was not until the new millennium however that snooker’s global reach was truly explored thanks to a Chinese teenager and a pan European broadcaster. Ding Junhui had been touted as a star of the future from a very young age but found the UK-based qualifying set-up tough.

He was withdrawn from the 2005 China Open in Beijing and then re-entered as a wildcard. Sensationally, just days after turning 18, he won the tournament, beating Stephen Hendry 9-5 in the final. 110 million viewers watched on Chinese television and it sparked a boom similar to the one the UK had enjoyed two decades earlier. Meanwhile, Eurosport, which had showed snooker sporadically for years, signed a deal to broadcast every major event, bringing the sport to viewers in 61 countries, many of them completely new to the game. Like British audiences, they had a cast of characters to which to warm. O’Sullivan, Higgins and Williams remained the holy trinity but there were world titles too for Peter Ebdon (2002), Shaun Murphy as a qualifier (2005) and Graeme Dott (2006). Ding won two UK titles and Neil Robertson of Australia emerged as a top player, eventually triumphing at the Crucible in 2010. At the Masters, Paul Hunter won three dramatic finals, all in deciding frame finishes having been behind each time.

Hunter’s easy going manner, good looks and genuine humility made him a popular new star and his performances helped keep snooker in the spotlight. Everyone in the sport was devastated when he died from a rare form of cancer in 2006 at the age of only 27. Off table things were less rosy. The UK government had prohibited tobacco companies from sponsoring sport, which helped create a huge hole in snooker’s finances and, despite the increasing global interest, the circuit began to shrink. There was nothing wrong with snooker on the table but its administration needed a serious overhaul to maximise its popularity. The task fell to a man synonymous with the game’s boom years of the 1980s. THE HEARN REVOLUTION Today in 2014 snooker stands as a truly global sport, its tentacles forever reaching into new territories. It is played in 90 countries by over 120 million people, and watched by 450 million worldwide. One of the fastest-growing sports on the planet is also knocking on the door for future inclusion in the Olympic Games.

But just a few short years ago the game stood at a major crossroads, having seen the number of full ranking tournaments drop to six, and with leading professionals voicing concerns that their lack of earning opportunities were rendering them little more than ‘part-timers’. Ronnie O’Sullivan, speaking in 2009 as the situation came to a head, called for a ‘Simon Cowell’ figure to step in and save snooker. As it turned out, that man was Barry Hearn. Former WPBSA and World Snooker chairman Sir Rodney Walker effectively held a vote of confidence in his own regime in December of 2009, and the membership voted 32-24 against his re-election, paving the way for Hearn to assume control. And having been voted on as WPBSA chairman Hearn, determined to succeed in a sport that had kick-started his own career, asked for a mandate from the players to take the commercial rights and move it forward.

Barry Hearn Owner of Leyton Orient Football Club, a successful darts and boxing promoter and manager of Steve Davis and formerly a large stable of snooker stars at Matchroom in the 1980s, Hearn pledged in a series of frank exchanges with the players, many of them highly sceptical, to put on more events and increase prize money and earning opportunities. In a crucial vote in the summer of 2010, Hearn squeaked home by 35 votes to 29. The revolution might easily not have happened, with the new World Snooker supremo insisting he would have walked away had he lost. And he has delivered what was promised in a way that has seen even previously outspoken opponents among the players admit they were wrong, making the regular Players Tour Championship series in Europe and Asia an important part of the calendar.

From six full ranking tournaments and a total prize fund for the season of £3.5million in 2009-10, in 2014/15 there were 11 – in addition to the Masters, 9 more European and Asian Tour events, the Champion of Champions, the World Grand Prix, the World Seniors, and the quick-fire, single-frame Shootout in Blackpool. Total prize money now tops £8million. There have been new tournaments put on in Germany, China, Thailand, Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Latvia and India. The years have not been without controversy, with some leading players resistant to the removal of protection previously afforded to the top 16, not least coming in at the 128-man stage rather than the last-32 round – but Hearn and WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson have never wavered in their view that this is how a democratic and properly run sport should operate, along the golf and tennis models.

Many within the sport expect India to be the ‘new China’, but if one thing is certain it is that India – where snooker was born in the 19th Century, coming full circle this season – will not be the last new stop on the global route planner as a game which began so humbly continues to fascinate hundreds of millions around the world. Latest News Masters 2018 Tickets On Sale Monday Stay Connected World Snooker Championship: Michael White targets debut win - BBC Sport BBC Sport World Snooker Championship: Michael White targets debut win 20 Apr 2013 Media playback is not supported on this device White geared up for Crucible debut World Championship 20 April-6 May Coverage: Live on BBC Two, BBC Two HD, Red Button and online on the BBC Sport website, mobile and BBC Sport app. Updates on BBC Radio 5 live Welsh qualifier Michael White believes he can emulate his mentor, Terry Griffiths, by winning the World Championship at his first attempt. Griffiths remains the only player to win the world crown at the Crucible on his debut appearance. White faces double world champion Mark Williams in the first round, but the rookie is adamant he can win the title.

"My ambition is to be world champion and I'm hoping it's going to be this year," said 21-year-old White. "I wouldn't bother going up there if I didn't think I could win it." Griffiths, the 1979 world champion, has coached White for almost a decade and will be in his corner in Sheffield. Welsh world champions Ray Reardon - 1970, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78 Terry Griffiths - 1979 Mark Williams - 2000, 03 "He'll know how I'll be feeling. He'll be there to help me," said the 2006 world amateur champion, who came through two qualifying rounds to secure his place at the showpiece Crucible event. White came to prominence in 2000 when, aged nine, he become the youngest player to score a competitive century break, a record he still holds. That achievement secured him at invitation to play at the Crucible during the 2001 World Championship, where he was accompanied by another child prodigy, Judd Trump.

After seeing the young White play at the Crucible, former world champion John Parrot remarked: "I hope I've retired before I have to play him." Eight years later, White beat Parrot 5-0 in a qualifying round for the Shanghai Masters. "He didn't quite retire in time, did he," joked White. Trump, 23, has gone on to realise his potential by winning the 2011 UK Championship and two other ranking events. White's progress in the professional ranks has been far slower in comparison. Seven years since leaving the amateur ranks, he reached the first round of a ranking even for the first time in 2012. But White's struggles on tour have not dented his confidence. And a 4-1 victory over Williams last June at a Players Tour Championship event in China has given him further encouragement that his time is about to come. "I played exceptionally well and beat him," said White, whose match with Williams starts in Sheffield on Saturday. "Confidence grows with winning. The more you win the more confident you get.

That's certainly what's been happening to me at the moment." Share this page Snooker: Revenge is sweet for Davis: Old guard take their stand against the challenge of a new generation | The Independent Snooker: Revenge is sweet for Davis: Old guard take their stand against the challenge of a new generation Wednesday 21 April 1993 23:02 BST Click to follow The Independent Online THE problem with precedents is repeating them. Peter Ebdon was the outstanding figure in the opening week of the Embassy World Championship 12 months ago, his pony-tail a symbol for the new generation sweeping aside snooker's establishment. Last night he was just a first-round loser. The outcome was different, the opponent the same. The victory over Steve Davis, the six-times world champion, last year projected Ebdon's name far beyond Sheffield, but injuring that particular pride was always likely to prove dangerous. Last night Davis extracted revenge, winning 10-3. It was a defeat that, by the end, was as comprehensive as the scoreline suggests, Davis winning six frames in a row from 4-3.

'It was nothing personal,' he said, 'if you take grudges on to a snooker table you are not going to be able to play. I was just happy to play some relaxed snooker.' Another man hardly reaching for the tranquilisers was Terry Griffiths. He bypassed David Roe 10-6 to remind everyone that 45-year-olds need not necessarily be pensioned off in a sport where middle-age and puberty seem to be charging towards each other at an alarming velocity. The Welshman is part of a fast disappearing breed: a player who worked at something other than his cue action. He was a miner, a bus conductor and a postman before he took the coin and won the world title at his first attempt in 1979. He turned professional as he turned 30; Ronnie O'Sullivan, another player here, is a full-fledged pro at 17. There is enough about Griffiths, however, to nullify youthful bravado and confidence borne of a low rank and everything to gain. 'I'm difficult to perform against,' he said after his 10-6 victory over David Roe.

'I disrupt the play, slow things down and tie opponents up with safety shots.' He was so awkward against Roe the scoreline did him an injustice. Griffiths, chipping away with breaks in the 40s rather than the 100s, was 6-0 and 9-4 in front before Roe, who is 18 years his junior, revived. The last frame was classic Griffiths, a 64-19 win with six visits to the table none of which yielded more than 25. James Wattana, the seventh seed, had a less comfortable day, scraping through 10-7 against Tony Jones for a victory, he said, he did not deserve. 'I don't know why but the touch wasn't there,' he said. 'Tony played better than I did. I will need to produce something more.' EMBASSY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP (Sheffield) First round: T Griffiths (Wal) bt D Roe (Eng) 10-6; J Wattana (Thai) bt T Jones (Eng) 10-7; S Davis (Eng) bt P Ebdon (Eng) 10-3.

(Photograph omitted) Jamie Jones causes shock by beating Shaun Murphy on Crucible debut | Sport | The Guardian Jamie Jones causes shock by beating Shaun Murphy on Crucible debut • Former barman overcomes 2005 world champion 10-8 • 'I've never felt pressure like it,' says 24-year-old Shaun Murphy looks on as Jamie Jones celebrates winning their first-round match at the world championships. Photograph: Steven Paston/Action Images Press Association Monday 23 April 2012 19.31 EDT First published on Monday 23 April 2012 19.31 EDT Close This article is 4 years old Jamie Jones has gone from pulling pints in his local snooker club to being a Crucible hero after knocking out Shaun Murphy to cause the biggest shock at this year's world championships. The 24-year-old from the village of Cimla near Neath worked seven-hour shifts after putting in six-hour practice stints but he put that behind him three years ago to dedicate himself to life on the professional tour. And now Jones has followed the example of his Welsh compatriots Terry Griffiths and Mark Williams by winning on his Crucible debut.

Griffiths, a former postman, went all the way on his first appearance in 1979, while Williams has won two world titles. Jones has a long way to go to match either man's achievements but he promised there was plenty more to come after beating Murphy, the 2005 world champion and world No5, 10-8. He said: "I've never felt any pressure like it in my life. I've never known an occasion like it. For my Crucible debut I think I played pretty well. That's definitely not my best, though. I can play better than that. "Everyone in the village where I live has been watching on TV and my phone hasn't stopped going since I left the table. It'll be like a circus at home." Jones raised eyebrows with a 10-2 victory over the world No15, Ricky Walden, in the final world championship qualifying round and he also beat the reigning world champion, John Higgins, at the PTC Finals in Galway last month. Next up is a second-round match with Andrew Higginson or Stephen Lee. "It's certainly not how I saw the tournament going," said Murphy.

"I thought Jamie held himself together really well and he didn't play like a debutant." Meanwhile Ronnie O'Sullivan turned the most keenly anticipated first-round match into a procession as he surged 7-2 ahead of Peter Ebdon. Seven years have passed since Ebdon came from 8-2 behind to defeat O'Sullivan 13-11 in the quarter-finals, staging his fightback on a famous night when his slow play drew criticism. This time Ebdon came to Sheffield as an in-form player having won the China Open at the start of the month. He has lost weight on a strict vegan diet and is physically fit to last the distance in Sheffield but he was no match for O'Sullivan. The only real drama in the session came in the opening frame. Ebdon took 40 seconds deliberating over his first shot, offering a reminder of how pedestrian his play was in their 2005 encounter. The frame could then have gone either way. O'Sullivan had a clear opening when he potted pink and could have added the black, although it was awkward.

Playing it left-handed, O'Sullivan missed, and Ebdon potted it to force a 64-64 tie, meaning a re-spotted black was required. Ebdon almost missed the ball entirely. O'Sullivan missed what was a gift of a chance. Eventually O'Sullivan sank the black but Ebdon soon levelled up at 1-1. It was Ebdon's last success until the final frame of the session, with O'Sullivan at times ruthless. There was a century from O'Sullivan in barely five minutes in frame three. Ebdon will return on Tuesday afternoon needing a comeback on a familiar scale. We were all snooker loopy in the 80s, remembers Jamie Jackson | Sport | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close Spandau Ballet, leg-warmers, the Rubik's Cube, big hair, synthesisers, Yuppies, the Falklands War and Margaret Thatcher. All of them, and plenty more besides, are currently being reformed, repackaged, reappraised or resold. The 1980s, the decade that began with Lady Diana falling in love with Prince Charles, are being reinvented.

The sporting landscape in Britain then was totally different. Football was suffering an image problem, mostly because of hooliganism and stadium disasters, and there was no Sky, and therefore far less televised football. Amazingly, snooker regularly drew a bigger audience. The waistcoated men of the green baize were genuine superstars: Steve Davis, Jimmy White, Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor were able to earn small fortunes while the country went as Snooker Loopy as Chas & Dave in their top-10 hit of 1986. Step forward Neal Foulds, Eddie Charlton, Joe Johnson, Kirk Stevens, Cliff Thorburn, Willie Thorne, Bill Werbeniuk, Alain Robidoux, Jim Wych, Doug Mountjoy, Mike Hallett, Silvino Francisco, Tony Meo, Tony Knowles and David Taylor, aka the Silver Fox: all supporting acts who found their names suddenly lit up.

With football in the doldrums, the wall-to-wall coverage of snooker – 18.5 million watched Davis lose to Dennis Taylor on the final black of the 1985 World Championship final – revealed enough drama to keep lucrative ­sponsorship money flowing in, fill ­column after column on the sports pages, and fuel constant pub debate. "It's difficult to look back to those days without smiling. All I remember is earning loads of money and laughing all the time," says Barry Hearn, the impresario who joined forces with Davis in 1975 before dominating snooker in the 1980s with his Matchroom sports management company, which looked after many of the prominent players. "Nothing compares to those 10 years. It was led by these amazing characters – Bill Werbeniuk drinking 16 pints in a day, Terry Griffiths singing Welsh lullabies, Willie Thorne giving you the best price on the favourite, Dennis Taylor telling his jokes, Jimmy White the little urchin and Davis being boring," says Hearn, who tells his yarns like a prospector recalling the discovery of Klondike gold.

"I was in my office in 1981 and the telephone went. A voice said: 'Mr Bally Hearn? This is Channel 7 TV Bangkok. We want you to come here.' I didn't even know where Bangkok was. The BBC's pictures were going all around the place, you see. "He said: 'Steve Davis is world champion, you're his manager. How much do you want?' I had no idea. I said: 'Twenty thousand dollars.' When he agreed, I thought 'Bollocks! I could have done better than that.'" Davis won the first of his world titles in 1981 when he beat Doug Mountjoy, yet snooker's "Gazza 1990" moment might be traced to Alex Higgins' tears when the errant Irishman won a second world title the following season. That was the sixth year the World Championship had been played at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre. The arena's atmosphere for the showpiece event was another vital ingredient in the sport's allure. And when the chain-smoking, argumentative Hurricane broke down clutching his baby daughter on live television, Box-Office Snooker was born.

That same year Tony Knowles was a 26-year-old former Bolton art college student with good looks and a mullet haircut. In his second appearance at the Crucible he trounced the defending champion Davis 10-1 in the first round. It was big news. As were his tabloid revelations about his bedroom exploits with snooker groupies the following season. "It was all a long time ago now," Knowles tells Observer Sport. He was fined £5,000 by the WPBSA, the governing body, for bringing snooker into disrepute. "But beating Davis by such a score was a career highlight," he says, before also picking out his two tournament wins. The first of those was in the Scottish Open of 1982 against David Taylor. Now 65 and a hotel owner in Cheshire, Taylor says: "The biggest moment of my life was reaching the semi-final of the World Championship in 1980.

And, I also commentated on Steve Davis's 147." That was the first televised maximum break, but it was overshadowed by Thorburn pulling off the same feat at the Crucible a season later against Griffiths, which was one of snooker's key moments as the sport built towards a critical mass. "It was purgatory because my wife had just lost a baby and she'd told a friend not to tell me," says Thorburn, now 61 and living back in Canada. "Then I made the 147, was having a glass of champagne and it slipped out. When I called my wife there was a press photographer saying, 'Come on Cliff, smile, smile!' because of the 147, while my wife's sobbing." Thorburn, the 1980 world champion, headed a five-strong Canadian contingent at the time. Robidoux, a former World Championship semi-finalist who still plays in Canada, arrived in 1988 as a 27-year-old "with only my suitcase and not even speaking the language".

Jim Wych, now 54 and a commentator, reached the quarter-finals at the ­Crucible in 1980 at his first attempt "which is still the record for an overseas player", he proudly says, and "Big" Bill Werbeniuk, who drank 16 pints of lager to settle his nerves, reached four World Championship quarter-finals. He died six years ago. In 1985 Stevens, who in his pomp had a penchant for wearing all-white suits at the table, was involved in the era's most notorious episode. Francisco, a 39-year-old South African, defeated him in the British Open final before accusing the 27-year-old of being as "high as a kite." Francisco was fined and docked ranking points before Stevens admitted to a cocaine addiction. It proved to be a final contested by two cursed players. While Stevens' career never recovered, Francisco was later forced to work in a fish and chip shop to survive and in 1997 was caught smuggling £115,000 worth of cannabis through Dover. He served three years in prison. When Observer Sport caught up with both men they were reluctant to speak.

On the phone from Toronto, Stevens, who is the current Canadian Open champion but no longer plays the professional circuit, was asked about his experiences. "No thanks, I'm all right," he said. When Francisco's son was contacted in Leeds the Observer was told that his father had mellowed with age. "I'll give him a ring and tell him [to call]." But the player once known as the Silver Fish never rang back. Davis was back in the World Championship final the year after losing to Taylor, but Joe Johnson, a 33-year-old from Bradford who had never before won a match at the Crucible, beat Davis comfortably 18-12. "It was a fairytale," Johnson says. "But I had no fears. Everybody treated Steve Davis as God, but I'd played him as an amateur – we'd never met as professionals – and beaten him 10-1." Johnson put down his cue when he was 53 and is now a commentator for TV channel Eurosport, alongside Hallett, who turned professional in 1979 with Jimmy White and Tony Meo. "It was family – we used to travel to Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand.

One year I played 21 events," says ­Hallett who, at 49, is still competing, having won close to £1m. Hallett describes himself as fortunate to have played during what Foulds, who did become a millionaire and is now a BBC commentator, says was "the best time for snooker. There was less sport on television, less to do if you were indoors. And, there were a few charismatic people around." White, the loser of six world finals but always the crowd's darling "because I took on shots", certainly had personality. Now 45, he has not given up the dream. "It's a bit of a sickener that I've never won a world final, but I believe I can still win it," says the Whirlwind, who will be watching the final tomorrow. White also believes that despite the loss of sponsors – the 2004 ban on tobacco advertising hobbled many tournaments – and the lowering of snooker's profile in a modern era that offers myriad leisure choices, the game retains robust health.

He points to the World Championship's new sponsor (Betfred.com) and the fact that more than 100 million viewers in China watched Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo play in the first round a fortnight ago. In a sense White is right. But, it is hardly the same. "Fucking hell, it was only a game of snooker," is Hearn's closing reflection on his and the sport's golden period. "But we were introduced to state governors and ambassadors. "In China in 1983, Steve Davis did a billiard exhibition in front of the top man and his government. They all came in with these little girls helping them – basically the game had to be stopped every 10 minutes because they were all incontinent and had to keep going to the loo. "People who weren't around then can't understand what it was like. Terry Griffiths said to me recently, 'The only problem with those days was I didn't appreciate them enough at the time'. "But I think most of us did."

Question: Which former postman won the World Snooker Championship at his first attempt in 1979?
Answer: TERRY GRIFFITHS