Sydney Lee (April 1911 – 1986) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

professional

billiards 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 ...

and

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. He was four times a quarter-finalist in 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 ...

during the first half of the twentieth century. He was a snooker referee on ''

Pot Black ''Pot Black'' was a snooker tournament in the United Kingdom broadcast on the BBC. Each match was contested over a single , where other tournaments were significantly longer. The event carried no ranking points, but played a large part in t ...

''. He was the game consultant for a 1970 episode of

Steptoe and Son ''Steptoe and Son'' is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business in 26a Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC in black and w ...

entitled "Pot Black" and, as well as performing a number of trick shots was the stand-in for many of the more difficult regular shots seen in the show.

Career

Lee enjoyed considerable success as an amateur

player. He was runner-up in the Empire Billiards Championship in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1931 and winner when the event was next held, in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1933. He was also runner-up in the

English Amateur Billiards Championship The English Amateur Billiards Championship, organised by the English Amateur Billiards Association (EABA), is a tournament in the game of English billiards dating back to March 1888. In the first championship, Hugh Lonsdale of Manchester defeated ...

in 1929 and won it 4 times in succession from 1931 to 1934. Lee turned professional in 1934 and first played competitive professional snooker in 1935, entering the 1936 World Championship. In his first match, he faced Clare O'Donnell, and having trailed 4–8, recovered to lead 15–13; however, O'Donnell won the next three frames to prevail 16–15. His effort at the next World Championship concluded similarly, Lee losing his first match 11–20 to

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 the same followed in 1938, when he lost 7–24 to

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 ...

. Having lost to Sydney Smith in the 1939 World Championship, Lee played in the

1939/1940 Daily Mail Gold Cup The 1939/1940 Daily Mail Gold Cup was a professional snooker tournament sponsored by the '' Daily Mail''. The cup was won by Alec Brown with Sydney Lee finishing in second place in the final table. It was the sixth and last Daily Mail Gold Cup ...

; there, he defeated Smith,

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 ...

Alec Brown Alec Thomas Brown (born July 23, 1992) is an American professional basketball player for BC Budivelnyk of the European North Basketball League and the Champions League. He played college basketball at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. Br ...

and Tom Newman, but lost to both Joe Davis and Fred Davis. Brown finished top of the group, winning the competition. At that year's World Championship, Lee lost 11–20 again, this time to Fred Davis. Upon the resumption of that tournament in 1946, Lee had no more luck than in his previous attempts, losing his first match 12–19 to Stanley Newman. However, he did enjoy a victory in the 1947 edition, beating Jim Lees 19–16, before losing 10–25 in the second round to

Willie Leigh William Ernest Leigh (190720 November 1972) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. Biography William Ernest Leigh was born in Derby in 1907. His father was the licensee of the Station Hotel, Derby. He won the 1923 u ...

. Lee progressed to the third round of the 1950 World Championship, defeating Canadian Con Stanbury and Herbert Holt, but lost at that stage, 14–21 to

Kingsley Kennerley Kingsley Kennerley (27 December 1913 – 26 June 1982) was an English billiards and snooker player. Career In the period from 1937 to 1940 Kennerley enjoyed considerable success as an amateur in both billiards and snooker. He won the English Am ...

. Following a first-round loss in 1951, Lee did not play a competitive match for twenty-three years; however, he entered the 1974 World Championship and was seeded to the first round. There, he met

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 ...

, but scored only 210 points as the latter whitewashed him 8–0. Playing in the tournament earned Lee £150, the only prize money of his career, but he did not enter a professional tournament again.http://cuetracker.net/Players/Sidney-Lee/Prize-Money/Per-Season

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Sydney English snooker players 1911 births 1986 deaths Snooker referees and officials People from Streatham English players of English billiards World champions in English billiards English referees and umpires