The 1976 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1976 Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship purposes) was a professional

ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...

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 that took place at two venues. This was the first world championship to be sponsored by

Embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

; their sponsorship lasted for the next 30 years.

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 (gr ...

won in the final 27–16 against

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 Wor ...

. There were seven century breaks in the championship.

Overview

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 professional

tournament organised by the

World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards based in Bristol, England. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotion ...

(WPBSA). Founded in the late 19th century by

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

soldiers stationed in India, the

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 ...

was popular in the British Isles. However, in the modern era, which started in 1969 when the World Championship reverted to a knockout format, it has become increasingly popular worldwide, especially in East and Southeast Asian nations such as China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

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 ...

won the first World Championship in 1927, hosted by 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 ...

, the final match being held at

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 asp ...

in Birmingham, England. The 1976 championship featured sixteen professional players competing in one-on-one snooker matches in a

single-elimination A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

format, each match played over several . These competitors in the main tournament were selected using a combination of the top players based on results from the three previous years, and the winners of a pre-tournament qualification stage.

Tournament detail

The leading 14 players in the

Order of Merit The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by K ...

received automatic entry to the final stages and were joined by two winners from the qualifying competition. The leading 8 in the Order of Merit were seeded. The

Middlesbrough Town Hall Middlesbrough Town Hall is a municipal facility located in Albert Road in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. History The current building was commissioned to replace an Old Town Hall in the Market Place ...

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

staged the top half of the draw and the Wythenshawe Forum,

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 ...

, staged the bottom half and the final. The final was held over 4 days from 20 to 23 April. Champion Ray Reardon won 15–7 against John Dunning including breaks of 106, 81 and 71; Dennis Taylor 15–2 with a break of 115 in the last frame and then his semifinal against Perrie Mans by 20–10 with a top break of 133 plus runs of 85 and 70. The final, where Reardon had travelled to where Higgins had been playing, was a fractious affair with complaints from Reardon over the quality of the table and the TV lighting. Eventually, the referee was replaced after further complaints from the champion. Higgins had the better of the earlier exchanges, leading 4-2 and 10-9 before Reardon started to dictate both the pace and tactics. The Welshman eventually won, very comfortably, 27–16 to secure his fifth title. The highest break of the tournament was 138 made by John Spencer in his match against David Taylor. Earlier in the week

Eddie Charlton Edward Francis Charlton, (31 October 1929 – 8 November 2004) was an Australian professional snooker and English billiards player. He remains the only player to have been world championship runner-up in both snooker and billiards without winn ...

had compiled a break of 137; however, it did not count as a record because the table was not up to standard.

Main draw

Numbers in (parentheses) indicate seeding. Sources:

Qualifying

References

{{Snooker season 1975/1976 World Snooker Championships

Sport in Middlesbrough Sports competitions in Manchester