Jimmy Michie (pronounced "Mickey"; born 4 August 1971) is an English former 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 ...

player from

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the towns in the City of Wake ...

, Yorkshire, and a two-time

WPBSA 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 ...

ranking tournament semi-finalist, who has also reached 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 ...

. Michie has been described as "charismatic" by the snooker press.

Career

In the 2006/2007 season Michie was ranked only 61, for the first of two successive seasons, having failed to do better than the last-48 (third round) in ranking tournaments, although he did get that far twice that season. In the

Northern Ireland Trophy The Northern Ireland Trophy was a professional snooker tournament. History First contested in 1981 and named ''Northern Ireland Classic''. It was an invitational event held at Ulster Hall, Belfast, and Jimmy White beat Steve Davis in the f ...

, after having beaten

Ben Woollaston Ben Woollaston (born 14 May 1987) is an English professional snooker player from Leicester. His sole professional title came at the minor-ranking third Players Tour Championship event in 2011. Woollaston's only ranking event final came at the ...

and six-time World Champion runner-up

Jimmy White James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won three seniors World titles. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his fluid, attacking style of play, White is the 1980 World Amateur Champion, 2009 ...

, he lost 4–5 to

James Wattana James Wattana (; born January 17, 1970, as วัฒนา ภู่โอบอ้อม ''Wattana Pu-Ob-Orm'', then renamed รัชพล ภู่โอบอ้อม ''Ratchapol Pu-Ob-Orm'' in 2003) is a Thai former professional snooker pl ...

, and he fell in the

Malta Cup The European Masters is a professional ranking snooker tournament that has been staged periodically since 1989 as the European Open. Between 2005 and 2008 it was known as the Malta Cup and was the sole ranking tournament in Europe outside the Brit ...

Stuart Bingham Stuart Bingham (born 21 May 1976) is an English professional snooker player who is a former world and Masters champion. Bingham won the 1996 World Amateur Championship but enjoyed little sustained success in the early part of his professional ...

, 3–5. Michie has placed as high as no. 55 twice, in both the 2002/2003 and 2004/2005 seasons. His first ranking semi-final (fifth-round) performance was earned, at the 1999

British Open The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later th ...

by defeating

Tony Drago Tony Drago (born 22 September 1965) is a Maltese former professional snooker and pool player. Known for his speed around the table, during his snooker career he won two professional titles: the 1993 Strachan Challenge Event 3 and the 1996 G ...

Marcus Campbell Marcus Campbell (born 22 September 1972) is a Scottish former professional snooker player. He was ranked within the world's top 64 for 15 consecutive seasons. Career Campbell is most famous for whitewashing Stephen Hendry 9–0 in the 1998 ...

Ronnie O'Sullivan Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player who is the current world champion and world number one. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in the sport's history, ...

, and 1991 World Champion

John Parrott John Stephen Parrott, (born 11 May 1964) is an English former professional snooker player and television personality. He was a familiar face on the professional snooker circuit during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, and remained withi ...

, finally losing to Anthony Hamilton. In the 2002 LG Cup, he beat

Marco Fu Marco Fu Ka-chun, MH, JP (, born 8 January 1978) is a Hong Kong professional snooker player. He is a three-time snooker world rankings, ranking event winner, having won the 2007 Grand Prix (snooker), 2007 Grand Prix, the 2013 Australian ...

and Mark King, and narrowly defeated quarter-finalist

Gerard Greene Gerard Eamonn Greene (born 12 November 1973 in Chatham, Kent) is a Northern Irish professional snooker player. He represents Northern Ireland in international events, as his parents are from Belfast. Greene has enjoyed moderate success in his ...

5–4 (after having been down 1–4 before dramatically rallying), to reach the semi-finals again. However, he lost 2–6 against the tournament's eventual winner,

Chris Small Christopher Small (born 26 September 1973) is a retired Scottish professional snooker player and now a qualified snooker coach. His playing career was ended by the spinal condition ankylosing spondylitis. Career At age 15, Small was the numbe ...

. His only World Snooker Championship entrance to date was in the 1996 event, in which he was bumped out in the first round, 8–10, by

. The World Snooker website reported that he "arrived in a stretch limo" at

the Crucible ''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as a ...

, apparently excited at his first World title opportunity, "but made a low-key exit after losing". In January 2011, he was involved in a controversial televised match against

in the inaugural Snooker Shoot-Out. Campbell's price to win the match crashed on the betting exchanges pre-match and several bookmakers refused to take any bets on it altogether. The WPBSA issued a statement saying that they would carry out a full investigation. The match against Campbell would prove to be Michie's last as a professional, as he retired shortly afterwards.

Off the table

In 2002, Michie unsuccessfully offered a reward of £1,000 for the return of his cue, which had been stolen along with his car. During the semi-final of the 2006 World Championship, Michie assisted

by gluing a new tip on to O'Sullivan's cue, as O'Sullivan had persistent problems with his cue tip, helping O'Sullivan avoid a penalty during the Championships. The tight-knit pro snooker world involves Michie in other ways, as of early 2007 he is in physical training to prepare for charity marathons to raise funds for the anti-cancer foundation that is the legacy of now-deceased fellow pro

Paul Hunter Paul Alan Hunter (14 October 1978 – 9 October 2006) was an English professional snooker player. He was a three-time Masters champion, winning the event in 2001, 2002, and 2004, recovering from a deficit in the final to win 10–9 on a ...

References

External links

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Global Snooker profilePro Snooker profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michie, Jimmy English snooker players 1971 births Living people Sportspeople from Pontefract