The 1952 World Snooker Championship was a

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

tournament held between 25 February and 8 March 1952 at Houldsworth Hall, in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England. The event featured only two entrants – Australian

Horace Lindrum Horace Lindrum (born Horace Norman William Morrell, 15 January 1912 – 20 June 1974) was an Australian professional snooker and billiards player. A dominant snooker player in Australia, he lived in Britain for long periods and played in the maj ...

and New Zealander

Clark McConachy Clark McConachy (15 April 1895 – 12 April 1980), often known simply as Mac, was a New Zealand professional player of English billiards and snooker. Life and career McConachy was born at Glenorchy in Otago in 1895. He was the New Zealand ...

. Due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the

Billiards Association and Control Council The Billiards and Snooker Control Council (B&SCC) (formerly called the Billiards Association and Control Council (BA&CC)) was the governing body of the games of English billiards and snooker and organised professional and amateur championships ...

(BACC), most players withdrew from the event. The BACC thought the championship was primarily about honour, and financial consideration should come second, whilst the PBPA disagreed. The PBPA established an alternative 'world championship' called the PBPA Snooker Championship which would later become the official world championship as the

World Professional Match-play Championship The World Professional Match-play Championship was a professional snooker tournament established in 1952 as an alternative to the professional World Snooker Championship by some of the professional players, following a dispute with the Billia ...

. The competition was played as one continual match, held over 145 . Lindrum won the match, taking a winning 73–37 lead early on the 10th day and won 94–49. In winning the event, Lindrum became the first player from outside the British Isles to gain victory in the tournament, and the only one of three players to do so, with

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 Hi ...

in 1980 and

Neil Robertson Neil Robertson (born 11 February 1982) is an Australian professional snooker player who is a former world champion and former world number one. The only Australian to have won a ranking event, he is also the only player from outside the United ...

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

. The status of the event is debated, with some historians only counting Thorburn's and Robertson's wins due to the field of just two players.

Background

The

World Snooker Championship The World Snooker Championship is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker. It is also the wealthiest, with total prize money in 2022 of £2,395,000, including £500,000 for the winner. First held in 1927 Wor ...

is an annual

cue sport Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

tournament and is the official world championship of the game of

. The first world championship in

1927 Events January * January 1 – The British Broadcasting ''Company'' becomes the British Broadcasting ''Corporation'', when its Royal Charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith becomes the first Director-General. * January 7 * ...

, held in

Camkin's Hall William Alexander Camkin (1894 – 26 April 1956) was a billiard hall owner who came to prominence in the early years of the World Snooker Championship, when many of the tournament's matches were held at his clubs. He was involved in various aspe ...

, Birmingham, England, was won by

Joe Davis Joseph Davis (15 April 190110 July 1978) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s, and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game i ...

. Due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the organisers for the event, the

(BACC), most players withdrew. The BACC thought the championship was primarily about honour, and financial consideration should come second, whilst the PBPA disagreed. The PBPA went on to create the

, where the remaining players would take part, and would be retroactively given status as the world championship for following years. With just two participants remaining –

and

– the tournament was contested over a single match. The pair met in a best of 145 match, held between 25 February and 8 March 1952 at the Houldsworth Hall in Manchester, England. McConachy had played in the

1951/1952 News of the World Snooker Tournament The 1951/1952 News of the World Snooker Tournament was a professional snooker tournament sponsored by the ''News of the World''. The tournament was won by Sidney Smith (snooker player), Sidney Smith who won 6 of his 8 matches. He finished ahead o ...

from September 1951 to January 1952. This was an annual round-robin handicap tournament played by the leading professionals. McConachy was defeated in each of the eight games he played in and winning an average of 11 frames in each 37-frame match. He also lost all three matches he played on level terms, 10–27 to Albert Brown, 8–29 to

John Pulman Herbert John Pulman (12 December 192325 December 1998) was an English professional snooker player who was the World Snooker Champion from 1957 to 1968. He won the title at the 1957 Championship, and retained it across seven challenges from 1 ...

, and 11–26 to Sidney Smith. He lost 11–26 to Joe Davis, despite receiving a 21-point start in each frame. On 19 February, the Tuesday before the final, McConachy had scored one of the early snooker

maximum break A maximum break (also known as a maximum, a 147, or orally, a one-four-seven) is the highest possible in a single of snooker. A player compiles a maximum break by potting all 15 with 15 for 120 points, followed by all six for a further 27 ...

s in a practice frame at the Beaufort Club in London. An official of the BACC later examined the

table Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table data ...

and found it slightly over the standard size and so the break was not accepted as official. At the time, Joe Davis held the record for the highest official break of 146. Lindrum did not play in the News of the World tournament. His last competitive tournament was the 1951 World Snooker Championship, in which he had lost to

Walter Donaldson Walter Donaldson (February 15, 1893 – July 15, 1947) was an American prolific popular songwriter and publishing company founder, composing many hit songs of the 1910s to 1940s, that have become standards and form part of the Great American Song ...

in the semi-final, trailing 25–36 on the final day.

Summary

With the score tied at 6–6 after the first day, Lindrum won eight of the next twelve frames to lead 14–10 after the second day's play. This lead extended to 22–14 after the third day. All 12 frames were shared on day four, with each player winning six, but Lindrum still led 28–20. The fifth day saw featured Lindrum extend his lead to 38–22 after day five, winning ten of the twelve frames played. Lindrum led 44–28 at the end of the first full week of play. Lindrum won eight frames on the eighth day of play to lead 52–32, before winning nine frames the following day to leave him 61–35 ahead. With the score required for victory being 73 frames, Lindrum won 10 frames on 5 March to lead 71–37, needing just two of the remaining 37 frames for victory. Lindrum won the first two frames to reach a winning 73–37 position on 6 March. The remaining 35 dead frames were due to be played, although in the end only a total of 143 frames were played, Lindrum winning 94–49. Lindrum became the first player from outside the British Isles to win the World Championship, and would remain the only Australian until compatriot

won the event in

Main draw

Sources:

References

{{World Snooker Championship 1952 (1)

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

World Snooker Championships The World Snooker Championship is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker. It is also the wealthiest, with total prize money in 2022 of £2,395,000, including £500,000 for the winner. First held in 1927, i ...

Sports competitions in Manchester