The 1979 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1979 Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a

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 ...

professional

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 from 16 to 28 April 1979 at the

Crucible Theatre The Crucible Theatre (often referred to simply as "The Crucible") is a theatre in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England which opened in 1971. Although it hosts regular theatrical performances, it is best known for hosting professional snooker's m ...

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

, England. 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), it was the third consecutive

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 ...

to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament having taken place in

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic R ...

. A qualifying event for the championship was held, producing eight qualifiers who joined the eight invited seeded players in the main event. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, and was sponsored by the

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 ...

cigarette company. The winner received £10,000 from the total prize fund of £35,000. Tournament debutant

Terry Griffiths Terence Martin Griffiths (born 16 October 1947) is a Welsh retired professional snooker player and current snooker coach and pundit. In his second professional tournament, he became world champion when he won the 1979 World Snooker Champion ...

met

Dennis Taylor Dennis Taylor (born 19 January 1949) is a Northern Irish retired professional snooker player and current commentator. He is best known for winning the 1985 World Snooker Championship, where he defeated the defending champion Steve Davis in a ...

in the final, which was a best-of-47- match. Griffiths won the match 24–16, to become the first player to proceed from the qualifying competition and win the title at the Crucible. There were 13

century break In snooker, a century break (also century, sometimes called a ton) is a of 100 points or more, compiled in one to the table. A century break requires potting at least 25 consecutive balls, and the ability to score centuries is regarded as a m ...

s compiled during the championship, the highest of which was 142 by

Bill Werbeniuk William Alexander Werbeniuk ( ; 14 January 1947 – 20 January 2003) was a Canadian professional snooker and pool player. Recognisable for his girth, he was nicknamed "Big Bill". Werbeniuk was a four-time World Championship quarter-finalist and ...

Overview

The

is an annual professional

tournament organised by the

(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 aspe ...

in Birmingham, England. Since 1977, the event has been held at the

, England. The 1979 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 in the

snooker world rankings The snooker world rankings are the official system of ranking professional snooker players to determine automatic qualification and seeding for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour. The ranking lists are maintained by the sport's governing body, ...

and the winners of a pre-tournament qualification stage.

Tournament summary

* Griffiths began the tournament by defeating

Bernard Bennett Bernard Bennett (31 August 1931 – 12 January 2002) was an English former professional player of snooker and English billiards, whose career spanned twenty-six years between 1969 and 1995. Bennett was a stalwart of professional snooker and ...

and

Jim Meadowcroft Jim Meadowcroft (15 December 1946 – 25 September 2015) was an English professional snooker player who latterly was a coach and a commentator on the game. His most successful years were during the 1970s; he was ranked number 12 in the world in ...

in the qualifying rounds. At the Crucible, he defeated

Perrie Mans Pierre "Perrie" Mans (born 14 October 1940) is a retired professional snooker player from South Africa, who first won the South African Professional Championship in 1965, and won the event 20 times. Mans won the Benson & Hedges Masters in 1979 ...

in the first round, followed by a 13–12 victory over

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 ...

in the quarter-final. In the semi-final he trailed

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 ...

by 16–17 before winning 19–17 at 1:40a.m., the latest finish of any match at the time. Griffiths then beat future champion

24–16 in the final, to win the world title at his first attempt. He became the first qualifier to win the title at the Crucible. *

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 ...

and future six-time champion

Steve Davis Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a Sports commentator, commentator, musician, DJ, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he rea ...

made their Championship debuts, but they lost in the last-16 round: 8–13 to Fred Davis and 11–13 to Dennis Taylor, respectively. * Aged 65 years and 247 days, Fred Davis became the oldest ever player to win a match at the Crucible. Three days later he also became the oldest player to reach the quarter-finals. *

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who wa ...

refereed the final.

Prize fund

The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below: * Winner: £10,000 * Runner-up: £5,000 * Third place: £3,000 * Fourth place: £2,000 * Quarter-final: £1,250 * Last 16: £1,000 * Highest break: £500 *

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 ...

: £10,000 * Total: £35,500

Main draw

The results for the tournament are shown below. The numbers in brackets denote players seedings, whilst players in bold are match winners.

Qualifying

The results from the qualifying competition are shown below, with match winners denoted in bold:

Century breaks

There were 13

s at the championship, the highest being 142 by

. There was also a £5,000 bonus for compiling a higher break than the championship record of 142. * 142

* 125

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 ...

* 121, 120, 107, 101

* 112, 105

* 112 John Spencer * 110, 109 Fred Davis * 106

* 106

References

{{Snooker season 1978/1979

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

World Championship 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, ...

Sports competitions in Sheffield