Introduction

Joe Hannard has been running a Youtube channel under the pseudonym CaptainGoodspeed, and currently has over 16,500 subscribers. His channel involves commentary and reviews on sports and retro video games. He also represented Mark Allen in the 2020 Virtual World Snooker Championships, reaching the quarter-finals. Joe also hosts a podcast called Joe & Toby Talk, where they talk about all topics relating to snooker and Formula 1.

We had a lovely chat earlier and our interview is underneath. This conversation took place on Saturday 3rd April 2021. Enjoy!

Interview – CaptainGoodspeed

Memories of the Crucible

CoR: Obvious question, but are you looking forward to the upcoming World Championships?

CaptainGoodspeed: Very much so! It’s a thing we look forward to every year, isn’t it? There’s nothing that compares to it. I’ve only been there once. It was back in 2011 to see Ronnie O’Sullivan actually and it was the first round against Dominic Dale. It was really good and I think it was Stephen Hendry on the other table against Joe Perry and we got to see a bit of him as well.

I would love to go back some day but it’s just finding the time. I’m just hoping some of it will fall during the Easter holidays.

CoR: I’ve only been there once but I’ve only seen four frames between two matches! Because the matches between Mark Selby & Fergal O’Brien and Anthony McGill & Stephen Maguire ended early, Dennis Taylor had to come out to do some exhibitions and shared some random anecdotes!

CaptainGoodspeed: I also went to the 2018 UK Championship final and I saw the first session between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Allen with my girlfriend and we thoroughly enjoyed that! Someone local to me at the time couldn’t go and put the tickets on Facebook and I snapped them up! That was a great session and that was when Ronnie broke the record for winning the most Triple Crowns. I watched the second session from home though.

CoR: That’s almost a sensible way of doing it because at least you are guaranteed to see all of the frames in the first session.

CaptainGoodspeed: Yeah, that’s what I’ve always been stressed about actually, I would love ot see the whole thing. It depends on what you value more: do you want to see the person lifting the trophy or do you want to see lots of snooker.

CoR: I saw a couple of finals. One of the finals I saw with my Dad in the 2015 Welsh Open final and we watched the first session live based on exactly that logic. John Higgins won that first session against Ben Woollaston 5-3 and when we got home, Higgins won the first four frames he needed to win the title 9-3! I almost see the entire final of the 2019 World Grand Prix in Cheltenham but I had to miss the final frame to get the last train out to head back to London annoyingly.

Who are the favourites for the 2021 World Championships?

CoR: Who do you think will win the Worlds? Are you a betting man?

CaptainGoodspeed: Well, I actually do a World Championship preview podcast with another Youtuber and we go through all of the odds before the first round, give tips and make predictions. I usually bet on individual matches rather than tournament winners though. I did an accumulator last year and got 14 out of 16 first-round matches right and that’s the best I’ve ever done!

For me, I reckon it will be between Mark Selby and Neil Robertson just on recent form, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Judd Trump or Ronnie O’Sullivan get to the final. I feel that Judd’s gone off the boil a bit, which is understandable after the success he’s had but it looks like his purple patch might be over.

CoR: I think so. He’s been a little off since the start of this year, but it’s strange to say that his purple patch is behind him and yet he won two ranking titles this year. He is probably knackered, his recent interview decorum has come under scrutiny for being ungracious and a rest and time away will do him good.

If he gets drawn against a high-ranked opponent in the first-round, then I would be concerned because trump never seems to be comfortable in the first-round.

CaptainGoodspeed: That’s something I also noticed actually. Dominic Dale was drawn against Trump twice and he had him on the ropes and Trump somehow manages to get through, no matter who he’s playing. I agree with you, if he ends up being against Stuart Bingham or Ryan Day then I would worry. If Stephen Hendry or Jimmy White end up being his opponent, I don’t think Trump would cope with the pressure! Shame they drew against each other but at least that means one of them will get to the second round.

CoR: I just want to see Ronnie get someone like Rod Lawler in the first round! I think Ronnie would HATE to get someone like him!

CaptainGoodspeed: I think he would take the mickey a little if that were to happen but somehow I doubt Rod will make it to the Crucible this time around.

CoR: Are there any players you think or want to see qualify?

CaptainGoodspeed: I want to leave it to the others to do the talking! But I do have a funny feeling that Stuart Bingham won’t qualify. Both Luca Brecel and Mark King can beat Bingham but Brecel has been relatively anonymous recently. I know he won the Championship League last year, but it’s a strange one, especially since he’s been overhyped. He’s not even that young now, is he??? 26!

CoR: True. But if Bingham does go through, no-one will want him.

CaptainGoodspeed: He will be intimidating to anyone. I think the only player who would fancy him is Ronnie but that’s because he has such a good H2H record against him. I think he beat him with a session to spare at one point in 2013 or 2014? Those years seem to merge for me.

CoR: I just remember 2013 as the year of Dechawat Poomjaeng!

CaptainGoodspeed: Haha! I miss him a bit. Yeah, that’s not exactly the name I expected to talk about today but he was a good player and had a good personality about him. The three misses, of course. Can you imagine him without a crowd? He would make his own audience!

The 2019 Virtual World Championships

CoR: Talking of World Championships, you were involved in a virtual one last year, weren’t you?

CaptainGoodspeed: Yes, that was a big honour. The World Championships was postponed by the pandemic last year, as we all know. WST and BetFred came up with the idea of the Virtual World Championships based on the Snooker 19 video game. I’ve done Youtube content on the game since it came out and the organisers were kind to offer me a place.

CoR: How did they manage to find you?

CaptainGoodspeed: I’ve been in contact with the developers of the game from when it came out because I did a lot of preview videos of the game. They noticed that I was promoting it and I got an interview with the director of the game. It was crazy as I’ve been playing snooker games for years and now I had so much contact with these guys. There is actually a community of players of Snooker 19 full of keen and competitive players and I became one of the 16 players at the tournament. I got randomly drawn as Mark Allen and Allen sent me a few best wishes tweets, which was really nice.

CoR: What was it like playing live? I had an interview with Tom Mayhew about this and he said he was under so much pressure because he kept thinking about what shot the viewers would want him to take on?

CaptainGoodspeed: Interestingly, it wasn’t live. Our matches were recorded and WST then scheduled the days of when our matches would come on live on Youtube. So it would have the impression that it was live but it had our thinking time erased. WST condensed it into some sort of package with Rob Walker introducing the players. I’ve got a soundbite of Rob Walker saying my name!

CoR: No way! That’s amazing!

CaptainGoodspeed: It was silly really, but it was incredible pressure because the prize was to win a signed cue, go to the Crucible and lift a trophy there! Not everybody gets the chance to do that. Unfortunately, I got knocked out in the quarter-finals in the deciding frame when he snookered me back getting out of my snooker!

We also had to play on the hardest difficulty, which meant that the aiming controls are less lenient and there is such a small margin for error to play any shot correctly.

CoR: DId you get a lot of comments from the Youtube community?

CaptainGoodspeed: Because I had quite the following from the snooker community, I actually had a lot of support. The reception outside of that was quite negative because they weren’t seeing the century breaks and the matches were short but the effort was appreciated within the gaming community. I got involved with one of the game creators Chinny and we commentated on some of the highlights of the World Virtual Snooker Championship, which was so much fun!

CoR: What sort of commentator were you trying to be?

CaptainGoodspeed: I like to see myself as a cross of John Virgo and Dennis Taylor personally. I get a bit excited and try to get all the clichés in there!

CoR: That’s just Phil Yates, isn’t it?

CaptainGoodspeed: Haha, not that many clichés! Everyone was complimentary with our work. As social communities go, snooker is one of the less volatile.

The Paolo Di Canio Interlude

CoR: I agree with that – it’s not like football where its fans accuse each other of living in each other’s heads rent-free over the most trivial of reasons.

CaptainGoodspeed: Since you support Swindon, do you want Paolo Di Canio back?

CoR: No. Though he did get us promoted and to the playoffs in the next division, he is a complete lunatic.

CaptainGoodspeed: Come on, Paolo Di Canio – that’s what you got to lead these conversations with!

CoR: THIS IS NOT WHAT SNOOKER FANS WANT.

Working Behind The Video Game Controller

CoR: For people who may not be familiar with your channel, what else do you do? I assume it isn’t just Snooker 19 previews?

CaptainGoodspeed: No, not at all! I actually started off as a Football Manager channel way back in 2015. I pride myself in a variety of sports in video games, whether it would be golf, tennis, Formula 1, rugby, basketball, etc and I grew a good community of sports fans on my channel.

Snooker has always been my passion and I don’t know why I didn’t do snooker videos earlier. But it’s doing very well on my channel and I think my knowledge of the game helps connects with my followers and I’ve done 400 episodes of Career Mode as Ronnie O’Sullivan!

I’ve got multiple channels aside from this one.

CoR: Oh yeah?

CaptainGoodspeed: I’ve got CaptainGoodSpeed Plays, which is for general gaming.

CoR: What sort of consoles do you have then?

CaptainGoodspeed: Playstation 5. I do the “Retro Show” using a Playstation 1 & 2. I have younger viewers and it is great to expose them to some of the older classics that I grew up with.

CoR: That’s not retro gaming. Nintendo 64 – THAT’S retro gaming!

CaptainGoodspeed: Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1 are the same generation!

CoR: I was obsessed with video games when I was younger. The most recent console I have is the GAMEBOY Advance SP and that was in 2003! I still find myself playing James Bond: Goldeneye, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, etc.

CaptainGoodspeed: I have younger viewers and it is great to expose them to some of the older classics that I grew up with. I played “The Weakest Link” on the PS2 recently and “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?“!

CoR: I didn’t know that “The Weakest Link” was an actual game! How is that an actual game???

CaptainGoodspeed: You would never get games like that these days…

The Inconsistent Ronnie

CoR: Almost forgot we were meant to be talking about snooker, what are your favourite players?

CaptainGoodspeed: Ronnie, of course. He was probably one of the first performers I saw play snooker. I love his interviews – the key is to not take him too seriously. I think a lot of people takes what he says and run with it. The thing about the players he called ‘numpties’, it’s not surprising because he has talked about the quality further down the rankings before and he knows it does spark a reaction. He did that when he went on about his cue action and mentioned that he would have to “lose an arm and a leg to fall out of the Top 50“.

But on the other hand, he can be gracious and gives credit when he feels it’s due. When he lost to Robertson in the 2021 Tour Championship final, he says “I can’t compete with that”, giving his opponent a lot of credit.

CoR: He’s hit and miss with interviews depending on how annoyed you get by them. It does make things a little satifying when he does lost to people of such a low-ranking.

CaptainGoodspeed: That’s the beauty of Ronnie! Even though he has achieved so much, I do sometimes wonder if he is one of the most inconsistent player of all time. On one hand, he players like every GOAT should but on the other hand, he can be ridiculously bad at points.

CoR: But even when he has a bad day, it’s still enough for him to go far into a tournament and in cases win some of them!

CaptainGoodspeed: He won the last World Championship playing his C-game.

Reminiscing the Madness of the 2020 Semi-Finals

CoR: Yes. I think his performances were helped by the lack of crowd though because there’s no media attention and he was able to quickly adapt ot his practice game and he admitted that himself. I’m unsure if he would’ve got his 6th under normal circumstances, like that opinion makes any difference now. Having said that, he still beat Ding Junhui, he still made a comeback against Mark Williams…

CaptainGoodspeed: …I think it from 6-2 down or maybe even 7-2!

CoR: Then that was that semi-final against Mark Selby and I’m not sure who else would’ve beaten Selby in that scenario…

CaptainGoodspeed: It was one of the rare occasions where someone made Selby crack by knocking a few balls about before forcing his game into the match and we saw that in Selby’s post-match interview.

CoR: Selby could barely get back to the table in the last three frames of the match.

CaptainGoodspeed: It reminded me of a match many years ago. It was a 2009 UK Championship semi-final and Ronnie was 8-2 behind John Higgins and he just kept reeling break after break after break to force a decider and Higgins didn’t get a chance at all.

CoR: That’s really interesting. But going back to last year’s Worlds, Ronnie deserved to win. Even though he played his C-game a lot of the time but he raised his game when it really mattered. Tha

CaptainGoodspeed: I agree with that!

CoR: Especially the Selby bit, comeback from Williams and how he was relentless against Kyren Wilson in the final by winning eight frames in a row. Ronnie was probably knackered from his semi-final, Wilson was completely and utterly shattered from his.

CaptainGoodspeed: Yeah, Wilson was emotionally exhausted.

CoR: That final was weirdly anti-climatic but that was just because those two semi-finals were so dramatic.

CaptainGoodspeed: I haven’t seen anything like it. For me, the 2002 World semi-finals are the only ones to compete with the 2020 ones, because they were dramatic as well. One (O’Sullivan vs. Hendry) was dominated by century breaks and another (Ebdon vs. Stevens) had the dramatic moment when Ebdon potted a high-pressure pink when he would have lost the match had he missed it.

CoR: I got John Virgo’s line “Well, that’s the bravest shot Clive I’ve ever seen,” in my head now!

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks go to Joe Hannard / CaptainGoodspeed for taking his time out to chat with me.

I take no credit for the photos used in this interview. Sources include SportingLife, Eurosport, WPBSA, World Snooker and The Week UK are the owners of some of the photographic material.

All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of content is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the author (Cluster of Reds Snooker Blog).