It
was good to see Cliff at this year’s World Championships.
He has been coming over for many years now, not as a player,
but to help with corporate entertaining for the association
at the finals weekend.
I
first met Cliff in the early seventies. He had met John
Spencer in Canada and the former World Champion advised
Cliff to come to England to improve his game. Cliff practiced
in a Snooker Club in Bolton. Word soon got around that this
Canadian was playing Snooker for money and wasn’t
very good! I went over one day and played him. We must have
played for about three hours and he hardly missed a ball!
Afterwards we went for a curry. He was telling me that he
was going back to Canada and giving the game up because
he was disappointed with the way he had been playing and
didn’t think he was good enough to make it. I assured
him that if he produced in tournaments, the same snooker
he had played against me that evening, he would be a fool
to give it up. The rest is history!
Its
strange how things work out in life. In 1979 when I reached
the semi-final I beat Cliff in the first round, a year later
he would win that coveted title in dramatic circumstances
against Alex Higgins. That final will always be remembered
for the Iranian Embassy siege, that interrupted the coverage
on television, and the BBC switchboard was jammed with complaints
from viewers wanting the snooker back on. We British know
where our priorities are!
That
win of course made him a household name, even moving one
viewer to write in saying that he was Clark Gables double.
All good for Snooker and the characters that were being
created! The other great thing you got with Cliff Thorburn
was that he was an overseas player and it gave Snooker that
International flavour, which is very important to any sport
if you want to be recognised worldwide.
Apart
from winning the world Championships the other moment that
Cliff will be remembered for is the first maximum ever made
at the Crucible. Of course if you were watching, this year
they showed a split screen of Ronnie O’Sullivan and
Cliff’s 147 breaks, I think Ronnie had finished his
as Cliff was reaching 40 points. Cliff saw the funny side
of it, after all Ronnie is ‘The Rocket’ and
Cliff ‘The Grinder’.
I
will finish this with an example of Cliff’s dry sense
of humour….
We were in Bombay, India, in 1979. After playing a match
Cliff was in the Bar having a drink and one of the spectators
came up to him and congratulated him on his performance
and followed by asking him what he did for a living…
Cliff
- ‘Play Snooker’
Spectator - ‘Yes good Snooker Player, but what do
you do for a living?’
Cliff - ‘I am a professional Snooker Player’
Spectator - ‘Yes very good but how do you earn your
money?’
Cliff
could see that no matter what he said this guy could not
get his head around earning money at Snooker so ….
Cliff
- ‘I am a dump truck driver in Toronto!’
Spectator - ‘Oh very good occupation’
...and
he shook his hand and left!
Cliff
looked good when I saw him in April and he was excited about
opening a new Snooker club in Toronto. I also asked him
about Kirk Stevens another great snooker player from Canada.
He said he was really well but that he had put on a bit
of weight.
Maybe
we could talk about Kirk next month…….
