Illustration of a game of three ball pocket billiards in early 19th century Tübingen, Germany

The game of billiards dates back to the 15th century but snooker is a more recent invention. In the late 19th century billiards games were popular among British army officers stationed in India, and players used to experiment with variations on the game. Due to the fact that billiards was a two-player game, multi-player variations such as life pool (where different coloured balls were use as cue and/or object balls, depending on the situation or number of players) and pyramid pool (fifteen red balls racked in a triangle where each player received a point per ball potted) became popular. Black pool was a form of pyramid pool that took the black ball from a life pool set so a player could pot a red then the black for more points. The most commonly accepted story is that, at the officers’ mess in Jabalpur some time in 1875, a Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain suggested adding coloured balls to black pool so that the variation featured fifteen reds, a yellow, green, pink and black (blue and brown were added some years later). The word ’snooker’ was army slang for a first-year cadet. During a game a cadet missed a shot and Chamberlain said to him: “Why you’re a regular snooker!” After explaining the meaning to his fellow peers, Chamberlain added that they were perhaps all snookers at this game. The term was adopted for the new variation and has been in use ever since.^[1] British billiards champion John Roberts travelled to India in 1885, where he met Chamberlain. Chamberlain explained the new game to him, and Roberts subsequently introduced it to England.

Snooker championships date back to 1916. In 1927, Joe Davis helped establish the first professional world championship, and won its prize of £6.10s (£6.50, equivalent to about £200 or $348 today). He went on to win every subsequent world championship until 1946, when he retired from tournament play. The trophy he donated all those years ago is still awarded to the world champion.

A dispute between the professionals and the Billiards Association & Control Council (BA&CC, the game’s then-governing body) meant that there were only two entrants for the ‘official’ world championship – Horace Lindrum (Australia) beat Clark McConachy (New Zealand). However, the professionals organised their own ‘world championship’ (termed the Professional Match-Play Championship) between 1952 and 1957, and the winners of this version are generally accepted as the World Champion. Nevertheless, it is Lindrum’s name that is engraved on the familiar trophy.

Snooker suffered a decline in the 1950s and 1960s, so much so that no tournament was held from 1958 to 1963. In 1969, the BBC, in order to demonstrate their new colour broadcasts, launched a new snooker tournament, called Pot Black. The multi-coloured game, many of whose players were just as colourful, caught the public interest, and the programme’s success wildly exceeded expectations. Ted Lowe, the commentator famous for his whispering delivery, was the driving-force behind Pot Black, which survived until well into the 1980s.

In the early 1970s, the world championship received little TV coverage. However, in 1976 it was featured for the first time and very quickly became a mainstream professional sport. World rankings were introduced in 1977. Money poured into the game, and a new breed of player, typified by Steve Davis, young, serious and dedicated, started to emerge. The first maximum break of 147 in televised tournament was made by Davis against John Spencer in the Lada Classic, Oldham, in 1982. The first 147 at the World Championships (Crucible, Sheffield) was by the Canadian Cliff Thorburn. The top players became sterling millionaires. There was even a comic snooker song in the pop charts: Snooker Loopy by Chas and Dave, featuring contributions from a host of players including Steve Davis and Willie Thorne.

Perhaps the peak of this golden age was the World Championship of 1985, when 18.5 million people (one third of the population of the UK) watching BBC2 saw Dennis Taylor lift the cup after a mammoth struggle against Davis that finished with the potting of the last possible ball (with the exception of a re-spotted black), at 00:20 after a gruelling Sunday night. The 2006 final has since surpassed this with Graeme Dott beating Peter Ebdon at 00:53. To this day, polls rank the 1985 World Snooker Championship final amongst UK TV’s most memorable all-time moments. With seven wins in the modern era, Stephen Hendry is often considered the most successful player ever.

Snooker remains immensely popular in the United Kingdom, second only to football amongst television viewers. Indeed, it has recently been referred to as “the most mesmerising sport on television” by a BBC advert for their coverage of the 2006 World Championships.

References

1. ^ Billiards – The Official Rules & Records Book, US ISBN 1558211896

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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