Introduction
Lula Witzescher has always been involved in the German snooker circles. She took over and currently runs the German snooker blog SnookerPro, writing articles on tournaments, women’s snooker and mental health. Outside of snooker, she enjoys dancing and is currently writing numerous drafts of her first novel.
We had a lovely (and very long) chat earlier and our interview is underneath. This conversation took place on Saturday 6th March 2021. Enjoy!
Interview – Lula Witzescher
Women’s Snooker
Lula Witzescher: There is always a question as to why there aren’t many women in snooker. I feel like I am the only person within the snooker-blogging scene who is talking about this. I’m just an amateur writer and sometimes it is really nice when someone says nice things about my work.
CoR: It’s nice when someone gives you a compliment every now and again. When you receive one, it makes your day, doesn’t it?
Lula Witzescher: Yes, I have my ‘fans’ who read my articles and I know what they want.
CoR: Do you know how my ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves’ Series came to be? It was shortly before one of the Women’s World Championships and an Irish woman on Facebook asked if I could write a preview on it because she said there were very few articles on women’s snooker. I delved into some research on the competitors for a few hours and learn something about them and she gave me the thumbs up when I published it. How come you say you are one of the few German bloggers?
Lula Witzescher: I think mine, as well as Break-Off by Chris who predicts results, looks into the rankings table and hosts a podcast are the only German bloggers who are active with regular content over the last few years. When I took over SnookerPro and continued to publish content, people were really surprised that I’m a woman doing it and didn’t realise it before.
I don’t get many idiotic comments since but usually after I post about women’s snooker, the usual post crop up – that there’s no discrimination, that they have the same chances, etc. I talk to Diana Schuler (snooker player & Marketing Director of World Women’s Snooker) and she told me so many stories about people in the club making comments about her. I’m just tired of talking about these issues with ‘dudes’ and therefore, I have a long ‘block’ list!
CoR: I remember the story of Rebecca Kenna when she left a local snooker league because a couple of ‘men’s only’ clubs refused to let her play and she was invited on a number of shows discussing it all. I managed to interview her about it. She still occasionally gets told on Twitter that there is no sexism at all and that’s mad.
A Lesson on German Snooker
CoR: I want to talk about the German Masters. I’ve never been to Germany myself, but the tournament looks incredible.
Lula Witzescher: It is.
CoR: The format is relatively long, the crowds are always packed, loud and knowledgable to an extent. The format of how the tables are laid out in the main arena looks great!
Lula Witzescher: Yes, it’s great but you forget that Germany has 80 million people, yet there is a capacity of 2,000 in the Tempodrom. People expected a boom of interest in Germany now we have two German professionals on tour but half a million Germans watched the World Championship final and it was the same ten years ago.
If you look at the numbers in the clubs in Germany, there are approximately 4,000 active snooker players. I feel there are only a few hundred fans who have a lot of knowledge of snooker. I remember Michael Holt telling me that he recognises the fans because we are the same group of people at the German Masters and the Paul Hunter Classic. Then there are other fans who know O’Sullivan and might know the likes of Judd Trump, Neil Robertson and Mark Selby, but that’s it. I watched the 2017 German Masters final with Anthony Hamilton and some don’t seem to know who he is. I didn’t care what kind of tournament I’m watching or who were in these finals, I just watch!
CoR: That’s proper love for snooker, if you just watch!
Lula Witzescher: I wasn’t a fan of any player, I didn’t care!
Lula’s Support For Dark Mavis
CoR: Well, you are a fan of one player in particular: Mark Davis!
Lula Witzescher: I had a feeling that you would come up with this…
CoR: Of course I would! Of course I would, this has to be here! So why Mark Davis?
Lula Witzescher: So I had stopped watching snooker after Paul Hunter died because I was quite badly affected by it and I decided that snooker wasn’t that important to me. But much later I randomly watched snooker and got more into it. I initially didn’t want to hear about the backstories, sob stories and past lives of each player because it wasn’t something that interested me. I decided that I want to support a player who has no such stories, like a clean sheet of paper who only plays snooker.
If you talk to Mark Davis, he’s so good at talking about snooker without talking about anything else and that’s a relief to me. There no paparazzi surrounding him. I met Mark Davis a few times and he’s a perfect example who doesn’t really deal with much of the mental stuff. We talked about his coaches Terry Griffiths and Chris Henry. He gave me a lot of insight into the difference between the two coaches, as Griffiths is more technical and Henry is more mental.
CoR: I don’t know if it is a backhanded compliment to favour a snooker player because he is normal and uncontroversial!
Lula Witzescher: I try and not be normal!
CoR: That’s fine, everyone has their quirks.
Lula Witzescher: I don’t really get this idea of ‘being a fan’ of somebody, it’s not my way. I ask players if I can take a photo of them but I don’t feel as if I have to be in the same photo. They think that’s strange. Why should I prove that I met a snooker player by making a face next to them?
CoR: Haha! That’s a good point, you don’t need to have the proof!
Lula Witzescher: I like some players more than most and that changes over time. At first, I didn’t like Trump because he constantly plays ‘hit and hope’ shots whenever he is in any trouble. Now he has developed his game hugely. Something really clicked when he started working with his brother. But Rod Lawler … I watched Rod play Mark Davis in the German Masters and it was torture.
CoR: How can you say that about Rod the Plod? Haha! You look as if you were having flashbacks of that match and wish you didn’t bring that up! Did you watch Davis’s final in the 2017 English Open against Stuart BIngham?
Lula Witzescher: Yes, but it was hard to watch because he was waiting for his first ranking title and I wanted him to win it.
CoR: I just remembered that there was a pivotal moment in that final where Davis feathered the white when among the balls, owned up to the foul and Bingham cleared to win the frame. That was gutting and that swayed the match…
Snooker as a Hobby
CoR: Don’t you volunteer with Snooker.org as well?
Lula Witzescher: I’ve been doing it for a few years. The volunteers are a close community too. It’s really nice. When I had a depressive episode, it was good to have some responsibility and structure while being in contact without properly engaging with people. The Snooker.org community is quite diverse. There are people from Brazil, China, Australia, Sweden, Finland all updating scores on Snooker.org.
CoR: I didn’t realise the community was so big.
Lula Witzescher: At the moment it’s 10-12 active people. I think I worked with 20 people since I started working with Snooker.org in 2016 I think. How come you started the blog?
CoR: I got into snooker during the 2011 World Championship because everyone talked about the young Judd Trump bring in something different to snooker, in a sport where I thought there were just the same people. I slowly got more into it. Later, I was really interested in snooker and I thought the blog was an opportunity for me to be creative and could be something to look forward to when I returned home. And so I started emailing other bloggers for advice on how to set one up.
At first, I did this anonymously so if it did fail, then I could disappear without anyone knowing me. I’m still amazed I’m still writing but it’s great that I feel like I can.
Lula Witzescher: That’s interesting because that’s a different path to the one I took. I initially worked with a friend called Daniel at SnookerPro and I wanted to write about things that no-one was writing about. Everyone seemed to only be writing about Ronnie O’Sullivan! So I decided to set myself a challenge by not mentioning his name in my articles!
CoR: Did you just call him ‘some bloke’? That’s quite impressive.
Lula Witzescher: I just called him ‘the favourite’ or ‘the guy without shoes.’ 🙂
Looking at the European Youngsters
CoR: What do you think of the chances of Lukas Kleckers and Simon Lichtenberg? Do they get a good following or do you think they could reach the Top 16 eventually?
Lula Witzescher: I admit I see more potential in Simon. But the problem is that snooker isn’t accepted as a profession yet. The German players tend to have a Plan B, so Lukas Kleckers did go to university and Simon juggled snooker with a degree in economics. But having a Plan B means you can’t put everything into snooker. They both put a lot of work into it but I doubt they will reach the Top 16.
CoR: Do you reckon there will be a German players in the Top 16 or any young players good enough in the future?
Lula Witzescher: There is just not enough material to get to the top. It’s hard for such a small number of snooker amateur players to produce one very good professional so I don’t think so. I feel snooker in general won’t develop very well because the amateur game in Europe is in decline. There are lots of snooker clubs closing in the UK. If you look at China, it took them 10 years to get a handful of players to reach the Top 32 and there are millions of kids playing snooker over there!
I listened to Alan McManus on the Snooker Scene podcast and I remember that he talked to David Hendon about the huge number of events he played in back in the day compared to now. It’s also harder for some new professionals who get soundly beaten in the first round every time because they won’t develop well.
CoR: I kind of agree. I know he joined the tour on merit, but I’m still unsure whether it was right for Iulian Boiko to be a professional player. Just because at 14-15 years, I’m not sure getting beat a lot of the time is going to help him.
Lula Witzescher: I met him in Fürth at the 2019 Paul Hunter Classic. He seemed quite mature for his age because he is convinced that he needs more strategies to win a match, rather than potting his way out of trouble. If you watched his interview at the 2021 Gibraltar Open, I think you can hear a lot of maturity. He was given an opportunity to be professional and he was willing to take it. I remember him having a lot of fun at the Speed Cup in Fürth.
CoR: I remember reading about Iulian Boiko for the first time a few years ago. I wrote some previews on the EBSA European Amateur Championships and he was competing in the Men’s category at 9 years-old! I admire his dedication at such a young age and it takes guts for a 9 year-old for compete at that level.
Lula Witzescher: But because of those early losses, he was able to tweak his technique at such a young age. I am quite optimistic about him. But he looks older than he is!
CoR: I miss the Paul Hunter Classic, come to think of it. I know your annoyance of how it was being treated. It was a shame it when downhill since it became a ranking event. Maybe it should’ve been left as a non-ranking? Do you see it returning?
Lula Witzescher: I don’t know. The last one was the first invitational event and it wasn’t bad. I enjoyed it because of the atmosphere, the familiar venue and it felt more friendly. There wasn’t the same amount of snooker to watch, but it was good for the German fans. But I don’t know if they have the money to fund another snooker event. The people who work there are volunteers.
CoR: I hope it has a future because it would be a fantastic prestigious European amateur event. It has the reputation of Paul Hunter and players like Trump, O’Sullivan and Selby won there too.
Lula Witzescher: I liked the two years where they also had the woman’s tournament in Nuremberg and played the last rounds in Fürth and it was nice of them to play in a good venue in front of such a crowd. Maybe the PHC can be a mixed event instead to inspire girls to pick up a cue? Stadthalle is quite an intimate arena and the crowds would feel packed. But in 2019 there was no tournament for women.
CoR: I just hope when this pandemic is over, the women’s circuit returns in full swing. When Thailand hosted the 2019 World Championships, that to me showed the huge progression of the Women’s Tour. Not only were they doing the World’s Championship abroad again but the facilities at the Hi-End Snooker Club was first-class. Unfortunately, it all stalled due to the pandemic.
Lula Witzescher: I think women’s snooker is more progressive in Asia than in Europe at the moment. Both women and men use first-class facilities there but let’s see.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks go to Lula Witzescher for taking his time out to chat with me.
I take no credit for the photos used in this interview. Sources include Touch-Magazine.net, Hastings Observer, Sportsmole, BBC, Women’s Snooker and World Snooker Tour are the owner of some of the photographic material.
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