End the Snooker Psychodrama

Slow break-ups are the worst. When one party is signalling very clearly to the other that things are nearing the end, but not actually cutting the chord, it’s an agony of a peculiarly sapping kind. Best to just get on with it and end the thing.

It’s hard to avoid feeling that the long-running relationship between Sheffield and the snooker is at a similarly torturous impasse. Both parties are going through the motions. “I love Sheffield”, Barry Hearn, the grand consigliere of world snooker via his sports promotions company, Matchroom Sport, insisted this week. “Sheffield loves snooker”, hundreds of stickers in café and shop windows assure him in return. But then we get the doubts, the caveats. It’s not quite working for me. Perhaps we need a break. I need you to change — and find another 2,000 seats from somewhere. Can you do that? For me?

In case you’ve missed the gentle hubbub, the World Snooker Championships are back at the Crucible Theatre, where they’ve been held since 1977. But in recent years, we’ve been stuck in snooker Groundhog Day. The World Championships come to town and Hearn is immediately in the press, warning that Sheffield’s days of hosting the competition might be coming to a close. Not enough seats equals not enough bums on them equals not enough money (for the players, you understand). And Saudi Arabia and China are both pretty transparently signalling that they want it.

Meanwhile, the council goes on a quest to round up as many top snooker players as possible to say how much they love it here and that snooker can never ever leave Sheffield.

The will-they-won't-they is exhausting. And one comment from Hearn this week really stuck in the craw. “The Crucible’s been a big part of my life and a big part of snooker's life,” he intoned. “But it has to move with the times and someone, whether it’s [the] government or Sheffield, has to come up with a way of showing us that they’re going to treat us with respect.”

Respect, Barry? Respect? Every year we turn our city centre into a snooker theme park. We sign over two weeks of prime programming time from our best theatre and let you use it for a pittance. This year, we’ve even brought in a public space protection order mere weeks before the championships. How much respect do you want?

If we’re going to talk about respect, perhaps we could talk about playing off a financially stretched local authority against the limitless oil wealth of the House of Saud? Perhaps we could talk about acting like the onus is on our city to give you what you want, instead of investing some of the £34m in profits you made last year alone in developing the new venue you so desire? In fact, perhaps we could talk about your regular musings to the press about snooker’s future, while our city leaders grit their teeth and stick to the lines that were agreed before the tournament?

To be totally honest, I’ve never got into snooker. I remember occasionally catching it on the telly as a child when channel surfing after Blue Peter, and having no idea why the men in white gloves kept sabotaging the game by putting the balls back on the table straight after the players had potted them. It’s the kind of sport you need a long-suffering parent to keep getting you to watch; I never did.

But it would be a shame if it left Sheffield and I’d never been there, so I decide to buy a last-minute ticket for Tuesday morning. Easier said than done – but there’s one seat right at the top for a quarter final the following morning, so I shimmy on down.

Nearly a thousand of us sit waiting for the TV coverage to start, while the presenters bounce on the balls of their feet. It's a sign of how unfamiliar I am with the game that for a moment I think the hype man getting the crowd going is none other than Barnsley’s MP (and erstwhile South Yorkshire Mayor) Dan Jarvis. It’s actually Rob Walker, but the two men look and sound remarkably similar.

While the other half of the Crucible is watching two of the biggest names – John Higgins and Mark Williams – face off against each other, on our side of the partition it’s two relative newcomers. Neither Chris Wakelin nor Zhao Xintong have ever reached the quarter finals before — Wakelin hasn’t got past the first round. Zhao — one of ten Chinese competitors this year — has had to slog his way here through the qualifiers, having previously served a year’s ban for being party to match fixing.

If I was looking for a metaphor for the future of snooker, Wakelin and Zhao certainly do their best to provide one. The Englishman starts well, an opening break of 93 seeing him clinch the first frame while scarcely giving Zhao a moment at the table. Wakelin’s head shines in the spotlights like the balls he surveys, glancing down with the air of a disappointed headteacher. His confidence is such that he even sets up a stunt shot, playing his cue across, rather than along, the rest. The crowd murmurs excitedly — only for Wakelin to think better of it.

But despite Wakelin’s incredible journey to the quarters, his Chinese opponent is the bright young thing in this match up. The second frame starts with an incredibly drawn-out back-and-forth, Wakelin posing unanswerable questions, Zhao finding impossible solutions.

Zhao eventually wins the battle of minds, and goes on to level things out at 1-1. From there he takes a decisive hold of the match. He has a certain nonchalance as he makes his way round the table, that of a young man who knows that he’s very, very good at what he’s doing. They go into the interval with Zhao 3-1 up; not long after it’s 6-1. Both players have begun to fluff cues, but Wakelin has the lion’s share of the errors, and perhaps bad luck – at one point tapping in a tricky red beautifully, only to see the cue ball sink into a corner pocket. “Oh, Chris”, sighs the commentator.

Everyone here knows they might well be witnessing one of the very last world snooker championships held in Sheffield. One commentator leans in perhaps a bit too hard, describing the Crucible as “the greatest arena on earth; the rightful home of the world championships.” In the only bit of the morning where one is allowed to speak – once both tables have gone to an interval – I chat to An (just the one ‘n’). She’s here solo, over from the Netherlands, on what’s now an annual pilgrimage to pour her Dutch pension into local coffers. Would she go to watch it in China? “No.” Saudi Arabia? “No! It’s a dreadful country! I don’t even watch it on television when it’s there.”

Wakelin is, unsurprisingly, the crowd’s favourite. You can tell that because every now and then someone will mumble “Go on Chris” at a barely audible volume. This lot make Wimbledon crowds look rowdy.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? Snooker scarcely resembles the other sport Hearn essentially controls, which he draws frequent parallels with: darts. Darts, it won’t have escaped your attention, is having a moment. The frenzy of wunderkind Luke Littler has drawn much bigger audiences, and London’s Alexandra Palace is heaving for the Championships. There are attempts already to make snooker into the spectacle darts (and golf before it) is becoming. Last year Saudi Arabia hosted the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship, much derided for the introduction of a ‘golden ball’; potting it a certain number of times resulted in a $1m bonus prize for a player.

Still, I’m unconvinced snooker can be monetised so easily. Its appeal is in its lack of flash. Just look at the sponsors on the players’ waistcoats. A full waistcoat sponsor would just be preposterous, so ‘London Hot Tubs’ have to settle for a minute label on Wakelin’s right pectoral.

And of course, snooker fans aren’t here to party – unlike their counterparts at the darts. They just want to stare really intently at balls rolling across baize. “It wouldn’t work to be higher up”, one spectator over from Beverly tells me (we’re sat in row N, out of a possible O). “You want to be able to see the reactions on their faces. Not on the screens.”

The players want more money, Hearn insists. Well, don’t we all? But the prize money on offer – half a million for the winner – is exactly the same as what Littler took home from the darts this year. True, the darts money is going up in 2026. But that seems to be just as much to do with the lucrative new deal the Professional Darts Corporation has just signed with Sky, as it is with crowd numbers. The Snooker World Championships still have the highest total prize pot in the world, greater even than the £2.3m on offer at the last Saudi Arabia masters.

And yes, of course, if you were building a purpose built snooker arena it wouldn’t look exactly like the Crucible. But judging from the attitude of fans, World Snooker may find it loses more than it anticipates by moving out of its home for almost fifty years. While Sheffield and snooker may be reaching the stage where relationship counsellors are needed, for the fans the ardour is strong as ever. They love snooker; they love Sheffield.

But though democracy increasingly resembles sport, sport has never been a democracy. And Matchroom Sport’s hereditary structure (Hearn has now officially handed the reins over to… his son, Eddie) doesn’t look wholly different to the Saudi regime in the running to host the tournament in future. “I’m too old for brinksmanship”, Hearn told Radio 4 this week. Before once again making vague, but not totally committed threats to clear out of Sheffield.

And for Sheffield? One possibility being whispered about is that while the World Championships might move away, the UK Championships, now held in York, might make their way here. That would be something. But it could only feel like a major downgrade.

I get home that evening and have some menial jobs to do, so put the snooker on for the next leg of the Williams vs Higgins match. Just to get me in the mood to write this piece, you understand. The tables have turned – Williams is pulling it back and has got himself out in front. He plays some really clever safety shots, showing great composure. Meanwhile Zhao has all but squished poor Chris Wakelin, who trails 11-4. Oh, Chris.

Drat. This sport has got its hooks in me, just at the point when it seems set to bid farewell. I just needed a spell in the gloom of the Crucible to unlock the secret part of my brain that loves watching coloured balls bounce around while middle-aged men furrow their brows.

So… could you change your mind, Barry? Just give us one more chance. Just one more. We can change. Please. 

Barry?