| Alex Higgins who hit
the snooker world like the hurricane which became his nickname,
was to become the biggest box-office draw the game has ever
known. Completely unorthodox, always controversial he was never
out of the news, on or off the table. No one had seen anyone
like him when he played in the 1972 world championship. He would
virtually throw his whole body at the cue ball but could pull
off the most amazing shots anyone had seen at that time and
people flocked to see him in their thousands whenever he played.
Even Jimmy White probably never had quite the drawing power
of Alex at his peak.
Born in Belfast, Alex started playing snooker at the age
of eleven at a local club, The Jampot, but at 14 and only
seven and a half stones, he left for England and a career
as a jockey. However he put on a lot of weight and was released
from his apprenticeship without ever having ridden in public.
He returned to Belfast and the Jampot and by 1965, age 16
he had compiled his first maximum. In 1968 he won both the
All-Ireland and Northern Ireland amateur championships. He
wanted to make some real money out of the game and moved to
Manchester in 1971 and turned professional.
He entered the 1972 world championships and set the snooker
world alight by beating John Spencer 37-32 to become champion
at his first attempt. He was just what the game needed. The
people loved him and the sponsors rushed to put more money
into the game. He only managed to reach the semi-finals the
following year and the quarters in 1974. Another semi-final
in 1975 was followed by reaching the 1976 final where he lost
to Ray Reardon. The following two years saw him go out in
the first round but in 1979 he only lost his quarter-final
in the deciding frame to the eventual champion, Terry Griffiths,
and the next year he made it to his third final, a narrow
16-18 defeat by Cliff Thorburn. An early exit in 1981 was
followed by unforgettable scenes in 1982 as he beat Ray Reardon
to become champion again. this was after a wonderful semi-final
encounter with Jimmy White, arguably the best match ever seen
at the Crucible.
In the meantime Alex had reached four successive Benson &
Hedges Masters finals from 1978 to 1981, winning the first
and last of them as well as the 1980 British Gold Cup and
three Irish Professional titles. He added a fourth in 1983
and ended that year with a dramatic win in the Coral UK Championship.
he was 0-7 down to Steve Davis but won the match 16-15.
He had a drinking problem and was consistently in trouble
with the authorities receiving numerous bans and he was finding
it harder to compete on the table. He was, however, a member
of Ireland’s winning World Cup team for three consecutive
years, 1985-87 and in 1989 won the Irish Masters as well as
a fifth Irish Professional title.
Further lengthy bans caused him to slip down the rankings
and he now had to play through several qualifying rounds to
reach the money earning stages of the big tournaments. This
he consistently failed to do and to add to his problems, he
developed cancer. He has still not officially retired but
was last heard of playing for £10 or £20 a time
at a small club in Manchester.
No one can doubt that he has been the bad boy of snooker
for most of his career and has brought most of his problems
on himself but equally it can be said that, without him, the
big snooker revival of the seventies would never have happened.
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