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1981 UK Championship
The 1981 UK Championship (also known as the 1981 Coral UK Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place at the Guild Hall in Preston, England, between 22 November and 5 December 1981. This was the fifth edition of the UK Championship, the fourth staging of the competition in Preston, and the fourth consecutive UK Championship to be sponsored by Coral. The televised stages were shown on the BBC from 28 November through to the end of the championship. Tournament summary * Steve Davis retained the first of his major titles by defeating Terry Griffiths 16–3 in the final. * Jimmy White, fresh from his success in the Langs Scottish Masters and Northern Ireland Classic, which took place earlier in the season, beat Clive Everton, John Virgo, Dennis Taylor and Ray Reardon, in reaching the semi-finals at his first attempt, but then was whitewashed 0–9 by the reigning World and UK Champion Steve Davis. * Two other y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UK Championship
The UK Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. It is one of snooker's prestigious Triple Crown events, along with the World Championship and the Masters. It is usually held at the Barbican Centre, York. Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the tournament a record seven times, followed by Steve Davis with six titles and Stephen Hendry with five. Mark Allen is the reigning champion, winning his first title in 2022. History The UK Championship was first held in 1977 in Tower Circus, Blackpool as the United Kingdom Professional Snooker Championship, an event open only to British residents and passport holders. Patsy Fagan won the inaugural tournament by defeating Doug Mountjoy by 12 frames to 9 in the final and won the first prize of £2000. The following year the event moved to the Guild Hall, Preston, where it remained until 1997. The rules were changed in 1984 when the tournament was granted ranking status and all professionals were allowed to enter. Since then, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Reardon
Ray may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), a bony or horny spine on a fin Science and mathematics * Ray (geometry), half of a line proceeding from an initial point * Ray (graph theory), an infinite sequence of vertices such that each vertex appears at most once in the sequence and each two consecutive vertices in the sequence are the two endpoints of an edge in the graph * Ray (optics), an idealized narrow beam of light * Ray (quantum theory), an equivalence class of state-vectors representing the same state Arts and entertainment Music * The Rays, an American musical group active in the 1950s * Ray (musician), stage name of Japanese singer Reika Nakayama (born 1990) * Ray J, stage name of singer William Ray Norwood, Jr. (born 1981) * ''Ray'' (Bump of Chicken album) * ''Ray'' (Frazier Chorus album) * ''Ray'' (L'Arc-en-Ciel album) * ''Rays'' (Michael Nesmith album) (former Monkee) * ''Ray'' (soundtrack) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Spencer (snooker Player)
John Spencer (18 September 1935 – 11 July 2006) was an English professional snooker player who won the World Snooker Championship title at his first attempt in 1969, the year that the event reverted to a knockout tournament. He won the world title for the second time in 1971, and was the first player to win the championship at the Crucible Theatre when it moved there in 1977. Spencer was the inaugural winner of both the Masters and the Irish Masters tournaments, and was the first player to make a maximum 147 break in competition, although this is not recognised as an official maximum because the pockets on the table did not meet the required specifications. Spencer was born in Radcliffe, Lancashire. He started national service when he was 18 years old, and did not then play snooker for 11 years. He won the English Amateur Championship in 1966, before turning professional in February 1967. He won over twenty tournaments in all, including three editions of ''Pot Black''. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Johnson (snooker Player)
Joe Johnson (born 29 July 1952) is an English former professional snooker player and commentator, best known for winning the 1986 World Championship after starting the tournament as a 150–1 outsider. A former English Amateur Championship and World Amateur Championship finalist, Johnson turned professional in 1979, and after several years as an unranked player, reached the final of the 1983 Professional Players Tournament, where he lost 9–8 to Tony Knowles. In 1986, as an underdog, he defeated Steve Davis 18–12 to win the 1986 World Snooker Championship. The following year, he reached the final again, losing 18–14 to Davis. At the 1987 UK Championship, Johnson came close to making a maximum 147 break, missing the pink ball on 134. Johnson also won the 1987 Scottish Masters, the 1989 Norwich Union Grand Prix and the 1991 Nescafe Extra Challenge before retiring from professional play in 2004. He has also won the 1997 Seniors Pot Black and the 2019 Seniors Masters, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Hallett
Mike Hallett (born 6 July 1959) is an English former professional snooker player and commentator. Career Hallett was born in Grimsby on 6 July 1959. Having won the national under-16 title in 1975, he turned professional in 1979. His world ranking peaked at number six in 1989–90, after his only ranking tournament victory at the 1989 Hong Kong Open in which he beat Dene O'Kane 9–8. In a semi-final match against John Parrott in the 1988 Benson & Hedges Masters, he recovered from needing four snookers to win the decider 6–5. However, he lost 9–0 to Steve Davis in the final, the only whitewash in the Masters final. Three years later, in 1991 he reached the Masters Final again at Wembley where, in the best-of-17-frame match, he surged to a 7–0 lead over Stephen Hendry and missed a pink which would have put him 8–0 ahead. He then moved into an 8–2 lead and needed just the pink and black to clear for the match in the eleventh frame, but missed the shot with the rest. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirk Stevens
Kirk Stevens (born August 17, 1958) is a Canadian former professional snooker player. Career Stevens started playing young, achieving his first aged just 12. He turned professional aged 20, and reached the semi-finals of the World Championship aged 21. In 1984 he achieved a maximum 147 break in a televised match against Jimmy White in the Benson & Hedges Masters, which remained the only such break ever made in the competition until Ding Junhui achieved the same feat in 2007. His stylish choice of attire (he often appeared at major tournaments wearing an all-white suit, as opposed to the traditional black suit with a white shirt) and his youthful 'popstar' good looks made him a ladies' favourite. In 1985 he was wrongfully accused of taking stimulants before the final of the Dulux British Open Snooker Championship by South African Silvino Francisco. Stevens lost 9–12. Francisco was subsequently fined by the world governing body of snooker, the WPBSA, for the comments. The WPBSA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Edmonds
Ray Edmonds (born 25 April 1936 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire) is a former English professional player of English billiards and snooker. He twice won the World Amateur Snooker title, and won the World Professional Billiards Championship in 1985. Playing career Edmonds first played snooker as an amateur, winning the World Amateur crown in 1972 and 1974. After turning professional he reached the main stages World Snooker Championship on four occasions, in 1980, 1981, 1985 and 1986, on each occasion losing in the first round. He was as a semi-finalist at the 1981 English Professional Championship, and runner-up in the invitational 1982 Bass and Golden Leisure Classic. Edmonds became World Professional Billiards Champion in 1985. At the 1988 Grand Prix (snooker), he reached the last-16 round. In the qualifying competition for the 1994 World Snooker Championship, he lost 3–5 to Surinder Gill, and the following year he lost 4–5 to Darren Limburg. In 1995, he resigned from the bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Thorne
William Joseph Thorne (4 March 195417 June 2020) was an English professional snooker player. He won one ranking title, the 1985 Classic. He also reached the final of the 1985 UK Championship, losing 16–14 to Steve Davis after leading 13–8. He was noted for his break-building, and was among the first players to compile 100 century breaks. He earned the nickname "Mr Maximum". After retiring as a player, Thorne became a snooker commentator, primarily for the BBC. Career Thorne was born on 4 March 1954 at the family home in Anstey, a village located near Leicester, to Bill Thorne, a Desford Colliery miner, and his wife Nancy. He had two brothers. Thorne was educated at the Thomas Rawlins School in Quorn, and played multiple sports but excelled the most in snooker. He began playing snooker while holidaying in Eastbourne at the age of 14. He left school at age 15 and became an estimator for a glass factory while practising snooker in Loughborough and then Leicester's snooker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex Higgins
Alexander Gordon Higgins (18 March 1949 – 24 July 2010) was a Northern Irish professional snooker player who is remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the game. Nicknamed "Hurricane Higgins" because of his fast play, he was World Champion in 1972 and 1982, and runner-up in 1976 and 1980. He became the first qualifier to win the world title in 1972, a feat only two players have achieved since – Terry Griffiths in 1979 and Shaun Murphy in 2005. He won the UK Championship in 1983 and the Masters in 1978 and 1981, making him one of eleven players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. He was also World Doubles champion with Jimmy White in 1984, and won the World Cup three times with the All-Ireland team. Higgins came to be known as the "People's Champion" because of his popularity, and is often credited with having brought the game of snooker to a wider audience, contributing to its peak in popularity in the 1980s. He had a reputation as an unpredictable a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cliff Thorburn
Clifford Charles Devlin Thorburn (born 16 January 1948) is a Canadian retired professional snooker player. Nicknamed "The Grinder" because of his slow, determined style of play, he won the World Snooker Championship in 1980, defeating Alex Higgins 18–16 in the final to become the first world champion in snooker's modern era from outside the United Kingdom. He remains the sport's only world champion from the Americas. He was runner-up in two other world championships, losing 21–25 to John Spencer in the 1977 final and 6–18 to Steve Davis in the 1983 final. Ranked world number one during the 1981–82 season, he was the first non-British player to top the world rankings. In 1983, Thorburn became the first player to make a maximum break in a World Championship match, achieving the feat in his second-round encounter with Terry Griffiths. He won the invitational Masters in 1983, 1985, and 1986, making him the first player to win the Masters three times and the first to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Williams
Desmond Rex Williams (born 20 July 1933) is a retired English professional snooker and billiards player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the World Professional Billiards Championship from Clark McConachy in 1968, the first time that the title had been contested since 1951. Williams retained the title in several challenge matches in the 1970s, and, after losing it to Fred Davis in 1980, regained it from 1982 to 1983. He played a leading role in the re-establishment of the World Snooker Championship on a challenge basis in 1964, and lost twice to John Pulman, once in a single match and once in a series of matches played in South Africa. When the Championship reverted to being a knockout from 1969, he reached the semi-finals three times. In 1968 he initiated the revival of the Professional Billiards Players Association (known as the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Associatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doug Mountjoy
Doug Mountjoy (8 June 1942 – 14 February 2021) was a Welsh snooker player from Tir-y-Berth, Gelligaer, Glamorgan, Wales. He was a member of the professional snooker circuit from the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, and remained within the top 16 of the world rankings for 11 consecutive years. He began his professional snooker career by taking the 1977 Masters, which he entered as a reserve player. He won both the 1978 UK Championship and the 1979 Irish Masters. Mountjoy reached the final of the 1981 World Snooker Championship where he was defeated by Steve Davis. He was also runner-up at the 1985 Masters losing to Cliff Thorburn, but by 1988 he had dropped out of the top 16. Mountjoy enjoyed a resurgence in his 40s, and at the age of 46 he defeated Stephen Hendry in the final of the 1988 UK Championship. He followed up by also winning the next ranking event, the 1989 Classic, and by the end of the 1988–89 season he was back in the top 16, where he remained until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
