Tony’s father was the steward of a local Conservative Club and introduced his son to snooker at the age of nine. There was ample opportunity to play whenever any of the club’s tables were free. Originally planning a career as a graphic artist, at 18 he decided his future lay in snooker and left Art College. He had won the 1972 National Under-19 title and made, in practice, his first century break. He was spotted by the late Jim Worsley, the man who was responsible for bringing Alex Higgins to England. A second Under-19 title came two years later. The remainder of his amateur career was not particularly distinguished although he represented England in the Home International series of 1978 and 1979 winning all nine of his matches. He did win the Pontins Autumn Open in 1979 and then applied for professional status. At first rejected, he was accepted a few months later.

His professional career started slowly and it was over a year before he won a match in a major tournament. This was the 1981 would championship where he won two qualifying matches to take him to the Crucible where he lost to Graham Miles in the first round. The following autumn he reached the UK quarter-final and then came the 1982 Embassy. He had to qualify again and was drawn to play Steve Davis who had won his first world title the year before and was beginning to look almost unbeatable, No one was prepared for what happened. Tony led 4-0 at the first interval and ended the session 8-1 up before running out a 10-1 winner. he went on to the quarter finals before Eddie Charlton beat him 13-11.

That result at the Crucible catapulted Tony into the top 16 and he started the next season by winning the opening ranking event, the Jameson International and when he returned to Sheffield in April 1983 he reached the semi-finals and suddenly he was world number four.

1983/84 started just as well. Runner up in the Scottish Masters to Steve Davis was followed by his second ranking title, The Professional Players, and then he reached the final of the World Doubles with Jimmy White and was a member of England’s World Team Cup winning side. Consistent results in the other ranking events despite a first round exit in the Embassy, took him up to number two in the rankings. He added a Masters’ semi-final and Irish Masters quarter-final and then went out to Australia and won their Masters.

The next season he reached two more finals, the Jameson International and the English Professional, but Steve Davis beat him on each occasion. In fact, of the four individual finals Tony has lost, Steve has been the victor every time and it was also he, with Tony Meo, who beat Tony and Jimmy White in the World Doubles final. Steve certainly got his revenge for that defeat at the Crucible. Tony went on to end that season with his second world semi-final when Dennis Taylor beat him on the way to his title.

The following year he reached the world semi-finals again, and again lost to the eventual winner, Joe Johnson. The next few seasons saw several more quarter and semi-final appearances in the ranking events which was enough to keep him in the top 16 till the end of the decade. Then he lost his consistency to a certain extent and although, for the first half of the nineties, he retained a ranking in the low twenties he could not make back to the top flight.

A couple of really bad seasons in 1995/6 and 1996/7 saw him drop to 72nd and he failed to qualify for the main tour for 1997/8. After one season, however, he was back but now in his mid forties he rarely manages to string enough good results together to get to the final stages of any event and his appearance in the last 32 of the 1988 Irish Open was the only occasion, since his return to the main tour, that he has reached even the last 64.

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