Most of you reading this are more likely to enjoy snooker, let’s be honest. This is a snooker blog after all. But despite us being passionate about the beautiful game, there is always something that we don’t like about the sport and nowadays the simple solution to this is to tweet to Barry Hearn about it. Do it, but at your peril.
I’ve seen many countdowns on Youtube and nowadays telling people what you like isn’t going to attract debate and attention as much as what we hate about our hobbies and ourselves. Us Brits are a self-deprecating nation with a wonderful sense of irony and we love it. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, hate spreads far and wide otherwise The Daily Mail would’ve been out of business years ago. So here it is, an article on things I don’t like about snooker. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts, as mine range from being pernickety and technical to being biased or just me being a grumpy sod. Please tell!
4. The Dreaded Mobile Phone During Matches
Phones can be annoying and can take away enjoyment from your experience when you are constantly looking at life through a tiny screen and getting frustrated by things you shouldn’t be frustrated about on social networking – some people forget talking nowadays. One of the things I hate in snooker is that there is always some charlatan either forgetting to put his phone on silent or even worse takes a picture on flash when a player is down on the shot. When someone’s phone goes off loudly, you feel such a huge wave of contempt for that person from everyone else that it is palpable.
I’ve watched snooker live a few times. My first match was the 2015 Welsh Open final between John Higgins and Ben Woollaston. I’m thankful to be at Alexandra Palace and the Crucible. Every time there was a phone going off with an annoying ringtone and a referee warning someone to not take a photo to distract the player. Hell, there’s even a couple of clips of it here, including Joe Swail raising his cue towards the offender:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oSr5mbwsIc
There’s not a lot that irritates players other than that but this pisses me off just because it’s just so damn inconsiderate. All it does is delay the game or worse, force the player to make a mistake and someone could lose a frame based on that idiot with the ‘Crazy Frog’ theme tune as a ringtone to the entire audience. That guy is probably No. 5.
3. Everything Has To Be About Ronnie
Okay, I’m being overdramatic. Everyone agrees that Ronnie O’Sullivan is more than just a fabulous player. He’s a potting machine, a maverick and an artist on the green baize. What I hate is that the mainstream media fawn over him and are interested in snooker only when Ronnie is around, as if he is greater than snooker and no other player matters. This is especially the case when the BBC sometimes do go overboard on Ronnie. Give the other extremely talented and successful players a chance, dammit!
A perfect and recent example is the first few rounds of the English Open. We had Liang Wenbo’s first maximum and youngsters Anthony McGill, Alexander Ursenbacher and Jack Lisowski making their long-awaited breakthrough. Unfortunately, that event is most famous, if you like, for Ronnie O’Sullivan for wearing blue trainers and apparent threats of pulling out if he didn’t abide by the dress code. That entire episode was completely unnecessary because The Rocket has been in that situation before in the 2014 UK Championships where he resorted to black trainers due to an injury.
This sometimes forces World Snooker to accept that the presence of the Rocket will gain much more coverage and could be in danger of over-relying on him for the sake of the sport. Snooker should show that it can draw massive crowds without Ronnie. A perfect example is Power Snooker, a now-defunct invitational event designed to be the faster and more exciting version of snooker. It only ran for two years, but in the second year, it was revealed that Ronnie was paid £25,000 in appearance just to play, compared to just £3,000 for each of the other players. Neil Robertson quoted: “If a tournament needs one player for it to happen, [it] shouldn’t be on at all…”
What does annoy me is that they completely ignore the amount of talent and personalities in the circuit in Selby, Robertson, Trump and Yan and resort to “a snooker player getting angry – what’s that about?” headlines. Because of this, snooker now seems to have the tendency of gaining coverage for petulant behaviour that is considered outside snooker etiquette and that is often highlighted if Ronnie is involved. Just let him play the game and stop making him look like an attention-seeking prat, please!
2. The Snooker Shoot Out Being A Ranking Event
This is something that is fairly controversial and to be honest, a sacrilege for purists. I ranted on about this before so if you want the long version, here it is: FEATURED: Should Snooker Shoot-Out ever be a ranking event?
I’m not a full-on purist through and through, but this decision completely baffles me. I can get behind this event as a non-ranking event but it doesn’t make sense that this is a ranking event. It doesn’t make sense that winning 7 frames here is more than winning 7 BO7 matches in the Paul Hunter Classic and worse, almost equivalent in ranking points as reaching the quarter-final of the World Championships. Even though it is ‘just’ one ranking event, that amount of money is significant enough to get players relegated from tour by a difference of just one frame in a random draw.
Love the moral high ground of the traditional snooker fans. Come on let's be a bit crazy sometimes it's not the end of the world !
— Barry Hearn (@BarryHearn) May 11, 2016
Of course, the decision is for the increased viewing figures, money, a different kind of pressure unlike most events in the calendar and inspiring a future generation of snooker fans to get behind the sport. That I can understand, especially the latter and I enjoy watching it. But it’s confusing when Barry Hearn offered players a choice of either the Shoot-Out as a ranking event or no Shoot-Out at all and that unfortunate mistake that cost David Gilbert a potential title didn’t help its reputation. When being World Championship Runner-Up and a World Cup winner is rated higher than winning the Shoot-Out, a ranking event now, to qualify for the Champion of Champions is illogical and stupid. I cannot understand how under the “brutal” regime of Barry can there be an event where you can win with little effort but a disproportionate amount to gain.
1. GGGOOOOOARRRRRRNNN ROOONNNAAAYYYY!!!!!
That is bull. This for me is the absolute bane of snooker experience for me. It hurts my ears more than Cliff Richard’s “Mistletoe and Wine” Christmas din. Good luck me.
It's really disappointing when the loudest the crowd has ever been is right after when Murphy misses a long pot and presents Ronnie with a chance. 😒 #ChampionofChampions #GOOOARRNNRONNIE
— Cluster of Reds (@clusterofreds1) November 12, 2017
There is absolutely nothing wrong with opening supporting a player during the match. Players get clamours of encouragement all the time. I don’t wish to paint every Ronnie fan with the same brush, but there’s always that small crowd that only turn up for big UK events who bellow out such arse gravy for Ronnie I have to put the TV on mute.
What’s worse, you mainly hear them as soon as Ronnie’s opponent misses a pot. Snooker has always prided itself on sportsmanship but it really annoys me that they blurt it out such bile like football louts every SINGLE BLOODY TIME. It’s only Ronnie fans who do this. It always gives me the impression that they support Ronnie who’s very successful, over snooker rather than the other way round as if they are hanging onto his success by his coattails until he loses and then they disappear quicker than Robert Mugabe after his resignation. Weirdly, you never hear any of this in any of the international events!
Of course, this is a narrow-minded opinion. But it’s just a horrible noise that spoils the match, irritates the other player, isn’t respectful and yet no-one tells them to shut it. It happened a lot during the Champion of Champions between Murphy and Ronnie. The best way to watch snooker is to be immersed in the tension, seeing geniuses at work hitting every safety by the millimetre and hearing the satisfying sound when a colour clearly slams into the pocket and then the shock of someone missing a long pot by such a small margin. Ronnie jumps from his chair, barely starting to think of his shot:
“GGGOOOOARRRRRRNNN ROOONNNAAAYYYY!!!!! GO ON RONNIE! GO ON!!!!!!”
“Quiet please.”
Yup. That. But thankfully, we all have our gripes about the game we love and sometimes in this age it is lovely to have a good vent. What about yours?
