Jimmy White thrown career lifeline

Jimmy White’s professional career will continue for two more years at least after he accepted a tour wildcard from snooker supermo Barry Hearn.

Hearn’s tour invitation – to coincide with 40 years of the world championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre – ensures White will continue to enthral his legion of fans in the twilight of his career as the game’s elder statesman.

It’s an unlikely mantle for a player with a wild past but one who the sport’s governing body realised still has an important part to play in its future.

The Whirlwind, 54, and 1997 world champion Ken Doherty were the beneficiaries of Hearn’s benevolence.

White accepted his wildcard during a special televised Crucible 40th anniversary ceremony, with Hearn in the audience looking on.

“I’m definitely going to be playing for the next couple of years,” confirmed White.

“I haven’t won the world championship, but I’m not finished yet. This is such a great place for snooker.

“I’ve seen snooker go from the top in the 80s to a small decline in the 90s, but now it’s in the best shape ever and to be a young professional now, it’s the greatest game to be in.”

White’s 37-year professional career appeared to be over when he failed to qualify for this year’s world championship.

The six-times runner-up wrote his name into Crucible history in his pursuit of the world crown – seeing his dream dashed by greats Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and John Parrott.

The world title is the only prize missing from his glittering CV, which includes the world amateur title and Benson and Hedges Masters.

White amassed ten major titles during a colourful career – the UK crown in 1992 the pinnacle of his achievements, establishing him as one of the most recognisable faces in British sport.

His tour invitation means he can side-step snooker’s Q school in the summer and look forward to pitting his wits against a new crop of tour snooker talent – most not born when his quick fire game first burst onto TV screens in 1981.

April 18, 2017 0

Liverpool v Newcastle 21 years on: A Coming of Age

The defining league game of the new age of satellite football celebrated its 21st birthday a few days back.

“Collymore closing in!” and all that. Poetry to Liverpool fans, purgatory for Newcastle supporters.

For me, the glamour surrounds of a Northumberland workingmen’s club was the vantage point for a never-to-be-forgotten night of goals, elation and heartache.

The squall of spilled Carling Black Label and McEwan’s Best Scotch which greeted strikes from Les Ferdinand, David Ginola and Tino Asprilla was all part of a wild night when the wheels came off Newcastle United’s title challenge.

Watching highlights of the April 1996 top of the table clash, reveals a game from a different era, one which has aged well in many respects, but is increasingly a museum piece.

The juggernauts of Liverpool and Newcastle United collided spectacularly in a 4-3 thriller widely acclaimed as the most exhilarating match ever seen in the Premier League.

In any era, either side would have been worthy league champions.

Fowler, Redknapp, Barnes and McManaman could grace any team, as could Ferdinand, Ginola, Beardsley and Asprilla.

But both ultimately flattered to deceive, their challenges snuffed out by Alex Ferguson’s perennial party-poopers.

As a Newcastle fan, watching Kevin Keegan’s side back then was like getting an access all parks pass to Disney World.

He had no pretence of doing anything other than meeting Sir John Hall’s brief of winning Newcastle its first league title since Hadrian visited the North East for a long weekend.

No dynasty building. Just assembling the heavy artillery needed to deliver the maximum firepower possible to land the title as quickly as he could.

In doing so, Keegan and his team connected in a way no other Newcastle side has done before or since with fans who crave the acknowledgment of knowing their devotion is appreciated by those lucky enough to represent them.

‘Toon’ live games in the mid-1990s were the very definition of ‘appointment to view television’ for fans.

Days were built around them and watching the match in the boozer – if you weren’t lucky enough to be able to get into St James’ Park – took off in a huge way.

Sky Sports’ business model appeared to be constructed on the foundations of mega live clashes involving Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle.

Standing room only

Getting a seat in the old Morpeth Social Club the night Newcastle rolled into Anfield proved more difficult than usual.

A refurbishment of the main bar downstairs meant the little-used upstairs bar was to be the amphitheatre for the masses to watch the gladiators do battle.

Its 1950s-style wall seats and furnishings were relics from a different era – a lot like the likely lads who descended on it that night craning to see the drama unfold on a fatback tele mounted on a wall bracket.

Shoehorned into the tiny room, the place was absolutely rocking.

Christ only knows what passers-by outside thought. Grown men leaping around framed against condensation soaked windows – best not go there.

Game on

The game itself was simply superb. It still raises the heart rate all these years later.

It encapsulated all that was so good and yet so bad about Newcastle at the time. Rapier-like attack, powder puff defence.

When Fowler – then the most dangerous young striker in the country – stole in to plant a header past Pavel Srnicek in the second minute, it was hardly a surprise.

What followed was thrust and counter thrust. Caution thrown to the wind by two sides front-loaded with talent.

Asprilla’s goal in particular had blokes around me on the tables, hanging off each other as he cartwheeled over to the Toon fans in celebration.

Dinking the ball around David James with the outside of his right boot for it to spin sideways off the turf into the net was typical of a player who no-one could quite get a handle on.

Only Newcastle United could accommodate Asprilla.

Their Las Vegas team was built on gamblers – even full-backs Steve Watson and John Beresford were given licence to spin the roulette wheel, marauding forward in a way only out and out wingers dared attempt. Fantastic to watch, but it came at a cost.

I swear the television camera is nearly rocked off its gantry when Collymore scores his last gasp winner.

The crowd roar is at a higher octave, more like that heard in South American games, such is their total absorption in the drama.

Commentator Andy Gray was moved to say it was a privilege – he stressed it twice – to witness it. It didn’t feel like it at the time to me, but I eventually came to realise he was right.

For those distraught, face down on tables in Morpeth Social Club, we knew our chance had probably gone.

Games against Blackburn and later Nottingham Forest would deliver the final blows and extinguish all hope of winning the ultimate prize in English football.

Modern times

So what is the game’s relevance today? In some ways it’s like unearthing a time capsule, the game recorded on a video tape, lying next to a Sega Mega Drive and pair of Adidas Predator boots.

Free-flowing football with players trusted to adapt to changing situations as they unfold on the pitch. Not your standard Premier League fodder nowadays.

Just look at England mark 2016. Footballers lost when their opponents suss Plan A. Without the wit to know why or how to cope.

Player athleticism and tactical analysis are king in the era of big bucks. They trump all. At its expense are skill and flair – and often excitement.

Seeing two teams cancel each other out through superbly plotted managerial plans has a certain appeal.

But it seems there are few gamblers at the top level anymore, willing to concede in the pursuit of scoring more.

Of course, as a Toon fan the Liverpool-Newcastle game was going to move me more than many other football supporters.

But apart from England’s 1990 World Cup semi-final exit, I can’t ever remember being so completely gripped by a game or being carried along on the wave of emotion that went with it.

Its impact stayed with me long after the game ended. Working as a press officer at Northumbria Police, I was used to speaking with reporters about matters other than criminal investigations.

The number of journalists – months later – from outside the North East who told me exactly where they were the night of the Anfield game, the impact it had on them and how Newcastle was the result they looked for after their own side’s, stuck in my mind.

All telling me this because I supported Newcastle United. Maybe more in sympathy than anything else, they wanted to talk about my club.

The power of football to bring strangers together never ceases to amaze me.

Times change of course, even Morpeth Social Club – the old boozer – is long gone, replaced by a cracking bar, conference and gig venue called the Riverside Lodge.

Newcastle meanwhile stand on the cusp of yet another return to the big time and all that entails. Time to look forward.

No harm though once in a while, of turning back the clock 20 years to a time when we had joy, we had fun and a couple of seasons in the sun.

April 12, 2017 0

Jimmy White: End of an era?

The career of one of the biggest names in British sport may have come to an end last week.

It probably passed you by – barely troubling mainstream media – but the days of Jimmy White as a professional snooker player could well be over.

Defeat in the qualifying tournament for the World Championship means White has dropped out of the tour’s top 64.

For his 37-year career as a pro to continue, he’ll need to go to snooker’s version of Q school – or rely on a wildcard for events from a benevolent Barry Hearn, the sport’s supremo.

As it stands, it’s up to ‘The Whirlwind’ to decide if lugging his cue to a backwater to face off with hungry young whippersnappers desperate for a slice of the action he has enjoyed for so long is an ordeal he’s prepared to put himself through.

What’s not in dispute is White’s contribution to the popularity of a sport whose 80s heyday rode on the back of his unparalleled connection with the public.

Streetwise and self taught, White was the antithesis of his nemesis Steve Davis. Practice, abstinence and mineral water weren’t part of White’s pre-match routine.

Gambling, cigarettes, alcohol and – as he admitted in latter years – worse, fuelled a wildly talented player who followed in the footsteps of his idol Alex Higgins.

Safety play was simply ignored. White backed himself to pot his way out of any trouble he found himself in – and invariably did.

The careful, considered play of stalwarts Eddie Charlton, Cliff Thorburn and Ray Reardon won many a-title. But it was deadly dull. Ice Ages came and went while they pored over safety exchanges with the baulk cushion their location of choice.

White in full flow in the early 80s was as talented and attacking a player as the game has ever seen.

Left-handed, intuitive – he had the ability to assess a table and make decisions before his latest Embassy Regal had barely settled in its ashtray.

I remember seeing White play for the first time against Steve Davis in the first round of the 1981 World Championship. His all-out potting, anti-establishment style captured me and my mates absorbed in a sport enjoying wall-to-wall BBC TV coverage.

White should have put Higgins to the sword in their epic World Championship semi-final the following year. Leading 15-14, he broke down on 59 with a final spot all but secured.

An inspired Higgins though produced what is widely regarded in the game – and by White – as the greatest pressure clearance in the sport’s history.

The 69 break crushed a 20-year-old White who lost the deciding frame, but established himself as the hottest property in the UK’s hottest sport.

White took the game to new heights in his 1984 Benson and Hedges Masters semi-final against Kirk Stevens.

An evening session at the old Wembley Conference Centre was a home fixture for the Tooting boy.

A century from White was answered by a 147 from Stevens who somehow wrestled the cue ball around awkwardly positioned final colours to complete a stunning maximum.

Up breezed White for frame ten, unfazed. He promptly knocked in a quick-fire 119 featuring two baize searing ‘flair’ shots in dispatching the final pink and black.

White landed his first major crown the following day, seeing off Griffiths and officially announcing himself as Davis’ main rival for the world title.

A Davis in his pomp though pipped him three months later at the Crucible 18-16. ‘The Nugget’, as White called him, always seemed to have his number in the crunch encounters between snooker’s two heavyweights.

White didn’t do easy. Winning was always fraught. Ripping the Mercantile Credit Classic from a devastated Thorburn in 1986 when needing a snooker on the pink and black, was a case in point.

Losing was equally dramatic. Being a sport’s ‘best never to have’ player is a huge burden to carry.

Sergio Garcia managed to rid himself of that monkey after 70-odd Major attempts and 18 years of trying at last weekend’s US Masters.

Millions willed White to do likewise at The Crucible for two decades.

To have watched a dominant Davis at the table would have been challenge enough. But then to see him replaced in the 90s by Stephen Hendry was just plain cruel.

Out of his six world finals, White realistically should have won two. His 18-14 defeat to Hendry in 1992 saw him sat ashen-faced for a couple of hours, helpless as the Scot reeled off ten frames on the bounce.

Two years later, when in prime position, he cracked and missed a black off its spot in a final frame decider, handing victory to Hendry and with it, his last chance of lifting the game’s biggest prize.

There’ve been flashes of his old brilliance since. A ranking title in 2004. Victory over Ronnie O’Sullivan. He’s won all the sport’s glittering prizes – bar the big one.

Longevity is a barometer of sporting greatness. White has been at the top of his for the thick end of four decades.

He was a pioneer of an attacking game now taken on by a fresh generation to its ultimate conclusion of one knockout blow per frame. Potting taking precedence over strategy.

The new breed owe much to a man who always did things his way.

April 11, 2017 2