Snooker: "Mad" Alex Higgins

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Snooker player Alex Higgins has been dropped from a charity event in Limerick next month after he allegedly threatened and verbally abused spectators and a referee at a separate match.

The Belfast-born former snooker world champion is reported to have reduced a 10-year-old boy to tears, threatened to smash a snooker ball into a spectator’s face and told the referee at last Thursday’s exhibition match in Kildare that he would stick his cue “up your a***”.

Higgins’ latest debacle took place in Athy, Co Kildare during a game against Jimmy White.

As a result, Limerick and North Tipperary Carer’s Association, who had arranged for the 59-year-old to play in a charity match in Limerick next month, have dropped him from the schedule and replaced him with seven-time world champion, Stephen Hendry.

Sports Editor with the Kildare Nationalist newspaper, Brendan Coffey, acted as referee at last week’s match and experienced Higgins’ abuse and threatening demeanour at first hand.

Mr Coffey claimed Higgins behaved like a “mad man”.

“Alex didn’t seem drunk. He wasn’t acting like a drunken man, just a mad man,” he said.

“At one stage he picked up the cue like someone with a spear in Braveheart and said that if anyone annoys him, he’d stab them in the chest with it.

“He shoved a ball in front of one person’s face and said he smash him between the eyes with it if he distracted him again,” Mr Coffey claimed.

Higgins was also alleged to have scolded a 10-year-old boy sitting in the front row for apparently distracting him. The boy was reduced to tears.

Taken from the Belfast Telegraph here

Snooker: World Championships - More Shocks

This tournament is turning into an unpredictable one with more shocks over the last couple of days.

Carter beat Murphy, one of the favourites, quite easily by 13 frames to 4. I thought either Murphy or Maguire were going to win the tournament this year so now, for me, Maguire has to be the favourite. There have been many complaints about the tables, particularly the cushions springing and Murphy delivered some scathing criticism about the tables in his post match interview. Murphy has been playing so well this season that I didn't expect him to lose to any player, never mind Carter, this is a great victory for Carter and he has to be really pleased with the win.

I was very surprised to see Hendry beat Ding in a match where Ding really didn't do very much in the first session. Hendry still isn't on top form so it's a bad result for Ding to lose. Ding's temperament and form really fluctuates depending on his mood and in the first session he just didn't seem up for it, ...a big mistake against an old master such as Hendry. He started to put some good snooker together in the second and third sessions but in the end it was too little too late. It even seemed like a bit of an easy match for Hendry.

Ding had a chance of beating Hendry's record of the youngest ever World Champion and it's good to see Hendry put a stop to Ding's attempt directly! If Liang Wenbo wins this year, I think he could become the youngest ever winner. Wenbo at the moment is 21 and his birthday is in March, do he could beat Hendry's record by a couple of months!! It would be some feat though as he's never even won a ranking event. He's playing some really good stuff in his match against Joe Swail right now thought and he soundly beat former World Champion Ken Doherty.

The biggest shock of the day has to be Higgins losing to Ryan Day 13-9. Higgins was 4-0 and 6-3 up but Day played some really solid snooker to win 13-9. Amazingly, Higgins completely lost his temper with the way the table was playing, banging his hang on the table, muttering and throwing the balls up and down the table when walking out of the arena for the mid-session interval. After the match, he complained very strongly about the state of the table and the cushions just like Murphy did (but Higgins' match was before Murphy's).

So with Higgins, Ding, and Murphy out of the tournament, who are now the favorites to win? I still think Maguire's in the driving seat and he's currently 8-0 up against Robinson which is another surprise scoreline! Suddenly out of nowhere, Hendry has a chance, I think he will have to ride his luck though for him to take his 8th title. Of course there's still Ronnie and Williams but they're playing each other and Ronnie is currently leading. For me Ronnie is the second favourite.

Keep you're eyes on Wenbo though, he's looking solid and is 4-1 against Joe Swail as we speak!

Snooker: Premier League, The Dolphins

We now finally know who are sponsoring the premier league this year. It looks like partybets.com! It was great to see it under way again, I love the format and the whole feel of the tournament, I find it really refreshing when compared with the traditional tournaments, although don't get me wrong, I love the traditional tournaments too!

Jimmy White and Ding Junhui were the first match of this years partybets.com premier leauge. And it was an excellent match. Ding kept his cool, as did Jimmy and they both performed well. White had breaks 87, 70 and 66 and Ding knocked in two centuries, one of which was a 138, the highest break ever achieved with the shot clock! The match finished 3-3 and I would say Jimmy was the happier of the two. Currently though, Jimmy is really struggling in the qualifying rounds of the major tournaments and this might be our only opportunity to see him on TV. There is a chance that he will get a wildcard at the Masters, I've suggested he shouldn't in the comments for this post here, but on this performance maybe I was wrong.

Ronnie looked his relaxed usual self when playing in the premier league. This format seems to suit him more than most. He only has to play 6 frames and the tournament moves from location to location on a weekly basis. These factors and the shot clock might jazz the tournament up for Ronnie and stop him from losing interest during the matches. At one point Ronnie looked on course to beat Ding's earlier 138 but either didn't know what the highest break was or didn't care. John Higgins didn't look too pleased about losing and didn't give an interview after the match. He seemed to play reasonable well though, just running out of position at important times during the match. In the end, Ronnie took a comfortable 5-1 victory.

Snooker: Alex is at it Again!

What would you do if this man confronted you? Well, allegedly, he's done it again! Local press in County Durham, where Alex was playing a charity match, have reported that Alex has punched a referee.

This is even more amazing as the match was a fund raiser against his old mate Jimmy White. Apparently the match ended in chaos when the referee Terry Riley refused to carry on after Higgins punched him in the stomach. It's said that Higgins lost his temper when the referee called a foul on him.

Terry Riley is a class one international referee and reportedly told the Northern Echo, "It was a punch and officials are not there to be punched. He just came at me and punched me in the stomach, that was when I pushed him away."

Naturally Higgins said it had been blown out of all proportion, "we were both out of order", yeah right!

This brings back memories of bad boy Higgins and I think that this kind of behaviour is best out of the professional game rather than in it. Recently I've heard Higgins say the sport isn't a Gentleman's game like when he used to play. I think he is now, and has been most of his life, a very disillusioned man with no real perspective on life, - although I don't really want to go into that too deeply! :-)

I would still love to see him play live again though, but would rather him behave himself rather than him misbehave. His talent on the table has always been a joy to watch and I consider myself lucky to have seen him play once before, LIVE, in Preston, at the Guild Hall.

Snooker: Prize Money Finally Climbing

I was reading Billiards Boutique today as Pete Williams always has something good to say. He's seen that:

"...prize money will increase by £250,000 this season (assume he means 2008) with over £1 million available at the 888.com World Snooker Championships, including £250,000 to the eventual winner.

The additional prize money will see an increase in the payouts to the winner, runner-up and semi-finalists of the Royal London Watches Grand Prix, the Maplin UK Championship and the SAGA Insurance Masters."

This year was the first time we've seen an increase in the winner's cheque for the World Championships since 2003 when it was at its highest of £270,000. It certainly goes to show how much of a barren spell snooker has had to endure since the banning of tobacco sponsorship.

Going back to 1983 when Cliff Thorburn won the World Championships and in the years running up to 2003, the winner's cheque increased approximately 10 to 15 thousand pounds per year. It's no wonder every kid in a snooker club wanted to be a professional snooker player. I guess you could say that with growth like that, - even though growth was clearly declining - ...something had to give. And it did! People were starting to complain when Jimmy was the only one allowed to smoke in the snooker final. Not only were people complaining at the Crucible, there was a national non-smoking movement gaining pace, and people were complaining all over the country.

2006 was the worst year in recent times for a professional snooker player when the World Championship prize money (or at least the winners cheque) dropped 20% from £250,000 to £200,000 from the previous year. This was, of course, when Embassy were no longer allowed to advertise on the telly and World Snooker were ill prepared in finding a new sponsor. That's one hell of a pay cut! That meant that the winners cheque was the same amount in 2006 than it was 10 years earlier in 1996!! Coincidentally, in those two years, Peter Ebdon was runner-up, sods law, he missed the biggest runner-up cheque by a year. Of course this was a time when professional snooker players were moaning like crazy at the World Snooker Association as they thought - and in some cases rightly - their careers were falling apart around their ears!

If Billiards Boutique is correct, 2008 sees a massive jump in the winners cheque, a £30,000 increase! And last year we saw a £20,000 increase, that's an increase of 10% in 2007 and 13.6% for 2008. The last time we saw a similar kind of increase was way back in 1990 when Hendry beat White in their first final 18-12. That year Hendry took home £120,000, an increase of 14.3%

The biggest increases we've seen in the modern game are in 1973 where we saw the sponsor at the time, Park Drive, increase the winners cheque by a whopping 375%, from £400 to £1,500!! Ray Reardon, the winner that year must have been delighted! Conversly, Alex Higgins, who won the championship the previous year and only a measly 400 quid must have been a bit miffed! And he only won £25,000 in 1982! There might be your reason as to why he's been so bitter and twisted over the years (I am an Alex fan by the way)! More recently in 1993, Embassy increased the winners cheque by 16.7% from £150,000 to £175,000.

Let's hope the prize money stays on the increase for a good few years to come, it should help to attract some real talent.

Oh and by the way, ....it's worth noting that past performance is no guide to future performance!!! :-)