Ken Doherty clinched the Snooker World title 25 years ago this week.
It is the silver anniversary of a golden moment in Irish sport, the Dubliner fulfilling the promise of what he kept being told was a ‘mis-spent youth’…
His 1997 Crucible Theatre win completed a unique treble as he became the first player to have been junior, amateur and senior world champion.
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It would be the pinnacle for Doherty, always the supreme tactician, but admitting that in winning just six titles in his career, he should have won more.
Bu that World Championship — where he finished the last three games with a combined 48-22 frame win over his three opponents — showed his mettle.
The beating of Stephen Hendry in the final is a tale in itself, the brilliant Scot having won the previous five World Championship titles, taking the first game of the final and going on to cue six century breaks in the match.
Yet Doherty, without a century break of any description and posting five breaks in the eighties, owned the cue ball and won the final 18-12.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the 1997 Snooker World Championship wasn’t won with rash, split-second decisions, albeit the aftermath saw Doherty make the fastest, life-changing, brilliant decision of his Red Devils life …
“I got a call from some messer pretending to be Alex Ferguson, saying ‘I know you are a big Manchester United fan, how about parading that trophy up at Old Trafford?’ ,,
“And I told him to ‘eff’ off ... well it sounded like a wind-up didn’t it?
“And then there was a short silence before the voice said very steadily: ‘Kenny, it’s Alex Ferguson here and I’m not gonna ask you a second time …’
“I froze, it was that voice…and realised there’s a moment in your life where you have to make a quick decision ‘Yes, I’d love to ... yes please…”
Doherty stood with the trophy on the pitch in front a packed Old Trafford on the same day Manchester United were collecting the 1996/97 league title.
He would have liked to have more trophies and have had more on-field moments.
But while he did not win a lot, consist high-finishing was equally lucrative.
“I could have won a lot more, yeah, absolutely,” he says, looking back.
“I probably should have stayed based in England, should have done what the likes of Mark Williams and Ronnie O’Sullivan did and exercised a lot of different sort of areas of my game.
And then, adding with a touch of sadness for an ‘old friend’: “I probably should have, maybe years ago, changed my cue, I had the same one for 40 years since I was, like, 11 years of age.”
O’Sullivan was recently crowned 2022 champion, at the age of 46.
“Ronnie’s genius and his talent deserves to be recognised as the best and to get a seventh world champion title was fabulous.
“I don’t think we will ever see the likes of another Ronnie O’Sullivan again, not in my lifetime anyway.
“I wouldn’t say I could call him a great friend, I’ve known him for a long time and we have had a few, sort of, ins and outs over the years because we are sort of rivals.
“But there would be a mutual respect for each other and we are mates enough that last Monday I hugged him and shook his hand and told him there was no-one happier than me about the way he won it.”
Doherty’s and O’Sullivan’s paths first crossed over 30 years ago.
“His father used to send a taxi for me as far back as when Ronnie was 12 years of age
“Then when he turned pro he played on the number 2 table in Ilford and I was on the number 3 table so we played each other a lot and even a few weeks before the 1997 World Championship, we played each other every day for two weeks solid.
“He made that 147 in five minutes and eight seconds in the first round in 1997 and, of course, I thought he was gonna win the World Championship that year because he was playing so well.
“But he lost in the second round (by a frame to Wales’s Darren Morgan) and I ended up winning the tournament!”
There was and still is a lot to be learned from O’Sullivan.
“I went in there one time when his dad was sending the taxi and from where we would generally play the best of 19 frames and, this time, I hammered him 10-2.
“We’d normally come up and his mother would make lunch and then go back down play another best of 19.
“So because I beat him by a such a big margin he says ‘I’m not playing you this afternoon because I’ve to catch upon my schoolwork and I’ve a few things to do.
“So his father organised the taxi and as I’m getting into the taxi I realise I have forgotten my little towel for my cue.
“I go back through the house, through the garden and down to the snooker room and there is Ronnie practising routines, getting ready for the next day.
“He went all red and was blushing, didn’t know where to look or what to say but I got it, I saw that bit of steel, that will to win.”
The now Sheffield-based Doherty, a regular on the World Series, has secured his ProTour card for the next two seasons.
“Ronnie has more than just dedication, he has an appetite for success as well,” he says.
“Being able to play the way you play in practice, that’s what O’Sullivan can do, he bridges the gap between practising and training very well.
“There is a lesson there for me because I’ve always been a good practicer.”
Doherty spent his early teens hustling in Jason’s snooker hall in Ranelagh.
He laughs at the image of Paul Newman playing small-time pool hustler ‘Fast Eddie’ Felson in The Hustler (1961) !
“I love The Hustler and the sequel made years later, The Color of Money — both of those were brilliant.
“The Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason one (The Hustler) was classical, it had great atmosphere added to by the fact it was shot in black and white.
“They say I’d a ‘mis-spent youth’ but I had some of the best times of my life going in and out of Jason’s, meeting characters and I’ll tell you what, it was a great sort of grounding for life.
“There was a jukebox in Jason’s, there was a pinball machine, there was a table football machine.
“The jukebox seemed to be constantly playing My Way, then there was House of the Rising Sun, Hotel California and all that eighties stuff, Bon Jovi, AC/DC and some ska, Madness, The Specials, The Selecter, all of that.
“I used to clean up the ashtrays and sweep the floor just to get a few free games on the Evel Knievel pinball machine or Space Invaders and have a game of snooker then at the end.”
Snooker, it transpired, was soon taking over from a promising under-age football career at Rathmines Boys.
“I was captain there and played with them until I was 14, 15 but when I started winning money in Jason’s in the snooker handicap I thought this is a lot easier than going out in the middle of a pitch of a rainy Saturday morning or a Sunday morning.
“I wasn’t getting paid for that but I could pick up money in Jason’s every Saturday or Sunday!”
If this is giving the impression Doherty didn’t see sunlight in any way, shape or form from the ages of 15-20, that is was Coca-Cola and crisps all the way ... it may be right.
“Yeah, I used to get the aul’ Mars bar, packet of crisps and a can of Coke if I’d made a few bucks on the weekend.
“I’ll never forget Jason’s because you learned how to grow up very, very fast.
“It was such a great spot and the Cosgrave family, they were so good to me there.”
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