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The dream of becoming world champion never leaves you

When I was about nine or 10, I remember seeing snooker on the TV for the first time and saying out loud, and all too confidently for a whipper-snapper in short trousers, that I “could easily do that.”

It looked so simple, pushing a white ball with a stick to make a red ball go down a hole.

It wasn’t until some years later that I came across snooker again, having never fulfilled my prophecy in the intervening years. It was 1985, and what a year, with THAT final, to become hooked on a sport that would become a big part of my life.

I, like millions of other teenage boys, begged my parents to let me stay up to watch Dennis Taylor destroy my new hero Steve Davis’ dreams. But that is all ground well trodden on.

Thankfully, it didn’t destroy my appetite for snooker. Far from it. On Christmas Day that year, I was the happiest lad in the world with my new 6x3ft table. It was to become my best friend, of sorts, and I’d soon dream of becoming (hears David Vine’s voice announce): World Snooker Champion.

I was on that table hour after hour, day after day, in the front lounge of our suburban semi-detached. When it wasn’t out, it was lying in wait behind the sofa, ready for a quick re-assemble and the comforting click click click sound of the balls and the plop plop plop of said balls into pockets.

I used to arrange tournaments between my friends, frantically trying to find a field of 16, even dragging my younger sister’s hopeless, completely uninterested friends away from their Barbies to make up the numbers.

The cream of the crop always came good though, and I almost always ‘took home’ the trophy.

When there was no-one else to play, I took on the likes of Reardon, White, Mountjoy, Griffiths and even Davis himself. All in my mind of course, playing alternate shots, one as “me” and then the other as “Davis”, although I hardly ever lost, truth be told. And I took it seriously, best of 19 for the first round, best of 25 for the second round and quarter-finals, best of 31 for the semis and best of 35 for the final. That was a lot of snooker, but I loved it. Just loved it. And for the record, I’m still proud of my 18-3 defeat against Davis.

By the time the 1986 World Championships rolled around, I was hooked. Before the tournament got under way, I went through the entire draw and predicted each result up to the final. Something I still do to this day (Robertson to beat O’Sullivan in this year’s final).

Once again, my hero Davis somehow lost, unfathomable to me. But my love for the game remained undiminished, and I still dreamed of one day, just one day, lifting that famous trophy in the most famous of famous venues.

But there was a sticking point to that masterplan: I was never that good. Even on a 6x3 table with generous pockets, I could only muster breaks of 40 and 50-odd. I’ll always blame it on the mantelpiece being in the way, or having to crouch to play a shot so as not to get in front of the TV when mum was watching Crossroads.

In later years, I’d become a regular visitor to the Crucible, both as a fan and in a professional capacity as a journalist. One year, I even had the privilege of sitting in the ‘press box’ – those two tiny rows of seat either side of the entrance to the stage – for the entire two days of the final. That was an incredible experience, it was so small, so compact, so intense, but ... wow.

I even had, for a couple of years, the luxury of owning my own full-size, bone fide slate-bed table. It was proper pukka. And despite thinking that you’d never be off it, truth is you rarely have that much time. Not like when we were kids, when time seemed never-ending and work and real life never got in the way.

And the thing about a full-size table, compared to my trusty old 6x3, is that it’s bloody hard. When I graduated to the grown-up’s table in my late teens, the fact that I could hardly pot a ball almost, just almost, put me off playing.

But I still dreamed of being world champ, and that’s why I persevered. Unlike wanting to play for Manchester United or winning Olympic gold in the 100m, you can harbour dreams of conquering the snooker world at any age, unless your eyesight decides to give up on you. Even now, when my official highest break is only a meagre 42, I still think that, miraculously, my God-given talent is somehow going to reveal itself and everything will just fall into place.

So that’s why, when you ask every snooker professional what it would mean to win the World Championship, as we have done with our Living Snooker bloggers this week, and every single one of them says it’s what they’ve dreamed of since they were a small child, you know exactly what they mean.

The only difference between them and us is that they have a very realistic chance of fulfilling that dream. And good on them.