Ken Doherty has told how his mother made him deliver a tray of apple tarts to the local Spar supermarket just days after he won the World Snooker Championships.
The cue ace dubbed the “Pride of Dublin” admitted the biggest win of his life 25 years ago this week made little difference to the Doherty household.
And Ken, who lost his dad Tony when he was just 13, reckons the grit that saw him defeat Stephen Hendry at the Crucible in 1997 probably came from mum Rose.
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The 52-year-old told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I’d probably say that I got my determination from her. She instilled all those qualities in me.
“She was a very loving mother, very religious, everything was about the home and school.
“I got a good lot of inspiration from her, particularly after my father died.
“That was tough times, that toughened me up as well.”
A documentary to air on Virgin Media tonight, entitled Seventeen Days in the Crucible, looks back at Ken’s momentous win and his early career.
He recalls how despite coming home to a hero’s welcome and an open top bus, it was back to business for his mum in the aftermath.
He said: “My mother was a great baker and she used to bake apple tarts for the local Spar shop.
“There was one time that the manager was so busy he couldn’t come up for them.
“It was eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, I’d been out on Friday night, probably in Night Owls with the lads.
“It’s 1997 and I’m world champion. She shouts up ‘Kenneth, you got to take the apple tarts down to the local Spar’.
“She gave me a bread board... there’s probably 12 or 14 apple tarts, I’m carrying them through the middle of Ranelagh at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning.
“People are beeping the horn saying ‘Doherty what are you doing?’
“Whether I was world champion or not I was still her son and I still had to do the chores.
“I came home to thousands of people at the airport, a civic reception, open top bus...
Ken reflected on his early days playing frames at Jason’s in Ranelagh.
His house backed onto the snooker hall and the click of the balls was the last thing he heard from his bed each night.
And he revealed that he still has the warped pool cue left behind by a mystery punter which he bought for the princely sum of two pounds.
He said: “I still have the two pound cue, I have it for 40 years now. Nobody came back for it, it was put back on the pool rack.”
Ken and his old sparring partner Stephen Hendry have both been given wild cards to compete for the next two years and are currently playing the World Seniors in Sheffield.
Both Hendry and Dennis Taylor will join Ken for a few exhibition dates in Kerry and Limerick later this month, starting in Tralee on May 22.
He said: “We were in the [TV] studio the other day and he said how he had won seven world championships and I had only won one.
“He said what’s the big deal, if I hear about this 25th anniversary one more time. We’re both playing in the seniors draw but we won’t meet in the final which is a pity.
“It would be great to relive it, we’re at the end of our careers and both of us are just trying to enjoy it as much as we can.
“We’re both loving the game and being involved in TV as well which I enjoy.”
Ken revealed that he and his Indian-born wife Sarah are no longer together but they remain on good terms as they share son Christian, 14.
He said: “It was an amicable split, we’d been together for 20 years and we’ve got a son together.
“We both love him very much and we’re both still friends. We still talk on the phone.”
Ken’s hero coming up the ranks was Jimmy White but he now reckons Ronnie The Rocket O’Sullivan is the best the game has ever seen. He said: “He is the greatest player of all time, he has just won his seventh world championship.
“He reminds me a lot of Jimmy, playing entertaining, exhibition type shots.”
Reflecting on the unexpected win that saw him catapulted from snooker underdog to a household name, Ken said he couldn’t believe it was 25 years ago.
He said: “It’s gone so quick, so it’s unbelievable. I have done a lot since then in fairness.
“Stephen was a great champ, he dominated through the nineties, so to get one over on him over 35 frames and to lift that cup was a great feeling. The reaction from people in Ireland, the open top bus, that is the stuff of dreams. You never expect anything like that.”
And he says his looming retirement from the game no longer fills him with the feeling of dread it once did.
He said: “I think I’ve made my peace with it now. I’m going to carry on for two more years.
“I never thought from Jason’s all those years ago picking up that warped cue that I’d go this far.
“I’ve met so many nice people, got to go to so many nice places around the world.
“I’ve been very very lucky to be involved in the sport and to make a career out of it.”
- Seventeen Days in the Crucible is screening on Virgin Media One tonight at 10pm.
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