World Seniors Championship 2011 - a personal note

Taylor and Bond, just having fun

It was the 2010 World Championship when Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis were re-enacting the 1985 World Championship final. The ref in charge was Eirian Williams. Couldn't have taken a better decision. 
 
Back then I wasn't well aware about the fact that these two brilliant players were about to turn back the years and with nowadays experience try and re-make that final. What can I say? I wasn't too much of a Snooker Loopy back then ... but then it happened.

 
As the first balls were being rolled into their rightful pockets I just knew they were doing something out of the ordinary ... and that's how I felt now watching the World Seniors.

 

The one and only Cliff Thorburn

I'm no longer a snooker ignorant so the impact was even bigger. To see most of the players that have rocked snooker, it was just amazing. To see players that I haven't seen perform for years, to watch them still having that sparkle of geniality ... well, I’m afraid words are not enough to describe what my poor snooker heart felt like. But you all know what I'm taking about don't you?!

 
Although most of us dreamt of a White v. Davis final, it didn't happen. Although many of us hopped to see the "Whirlwind" defend his title, he sadly didn't succeed. Although some of us would have wanted to witness the adding of some kind of "seven" word title to the "Nugget's" collection it didn't happen. 

 

What are the rules again???

But for one reason or another it’s all right. The tournament was fun and filled with laughter and competitive snooker. I believe the fact that some of snooker's greatest legends were performing in our own living room overcame the "I want that guy to win!" or "I want a clash between X and Y!" patterns. Or maybe not? 

 
The important thing is that this event has evolved from what it was a year before. The first step was the fact that we had many more players, then that it was televised. OK, so maybe the rules were a nit fuzzy and that 30 seconds shot-clock that was beginning to do its job after each frame's first 10 minutes wasn't such a great idea, but hey! The players seemed to really enjoy themselves and the audience was just over the moon with seeing their idols in the arena.
At the end of the day that's what it matters.

 

Davis and Drago

Dene O’Kane travelled across the world to land in the UK for this event, Cliff Throburn left his beloved Canada for some genuine snooker, Joe Johnson gave up commentary and pick up his cue again, John Parrott proved he still has that offensive attack who made his famous, Doug Mountjoy made us remember when he rulled the snooker world and I could go on for a while.

 
But I don't want to be accused of being pro-every-snooker-tournament and supporting everything and everyone that's involved in snooker, so I'll tell you what I didn’t like (besides the 30 seconds shot-clock).

 
Although I will be eternally grateful that someone though to broadcast the entire event, I'm not a huge fan of the way SkySports treats snooker. I can't really explain why, but it has to do with being too commercial, giving the players too many nicknames … I don’t know ... it just doesn't give me that home-baked-snooker feeling that BBC is conveying each time snooker is on.

- Joe and John -

Oh, and the fact that they kept on writing "Premier League" on the screen when this was a totally different tournament didn't help at all.

 
But all things aside and looking at the half full part of the glass, at least we had the chance to see the legends perform for the entire weekend and for the moment I'm happy with that.

 
It was great to see Darren Morgan doing so well and to be totally honest I kind of enjoyed the fact that an "outsider", a player that needed to qualify for the event won it. Of course that seeing Steve Davis lose for the second time it wasn't a pretty picture. I mean, I wanted to see him lifting that trophy, but as E-Type's song "Campione" says "There can be only one" and this time it was Darren.

Morgan is champion

Steve has had a great run during the latest PTCs and hopefully he'll retain that beautiful cue action to actually win a ranking event. Wouldn't that be a blast!

 
So to conclude, it was a legendary weekend and I feel blessed I was be part of it, even if I wasn’t actually there in the crowd. What can I say? I'm a softy when it comes to the snooker legends.