Interviewing Ronnie O’Sullivan a couple of decades ago, he momentarily dwelt on the fact his dad was still doing time and his mum had once been imprisoned after being found guilty of tax evasion.
His father, who was at The Crucible to see his son’s seventh world championship win, served 18 years for murder and was released in 2010. During parts of our chat, O’Sullivan would shrug his shoulders at the family strife that surrounded him. “S*** happens,” he would repeat. But then he would talk about his sessions with psychologists, his pursuit of some sort of inner peace. He saw hypnotist Paul McKenna and had a session with former England cricket captain Mike Brearley.
O’Sullivan, brought up in Chigwell, and Brearley, educated at the posh City of London School and Cambridge University, made an odd pairing. Brearley, apparently, wondered if there was a connection between the hand used by O’Sullivan’s dad in the fatal stabbing of Bruce Bryan and the fact Ronnie was struggling with his cue action.
