When you walk into the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, you walk into history itself.
These are the corridors where legends have trod. This is the arena where reputations have been made and destroyed.
Nobody would choose the Crucible as a venue for the game’s biggest event today. It is far too small. It is prosaic and cramped and not the modern, forward looking location for a major sporting event.
Equally, nobody would take it away from Sheffield unless they had a very good reason. For all its faults, the Crucible remains a magical place, its status enhanced by the myths and legends of its past.
If you shut your eyes, you can see them, those iconic moments that, stitched together, form a rich tapestry of snooker history: Terry Griffiths an exhausted first time champion...Barry Hearn barrelling across the stage into Steve Davis after his first title...Alex Higgins in tears, beckoning his wife and child...Cliff Thorburn’s 147...Dennis Taylor’s black...Stephen Hendry at 17...Jimmy White’s maximum...Hendry and Hendry again...Ronnie O’Sullivan’s record breaking 147...John Higgins...Mark Williams...Shaun Murphy...
This is where it all happened and this is where it will all happen again over the next 17 days.
There will be drama. There will be shocks. There will be controversy and things said that can’t be unsaid and unexpected misses and fine potting and big breaks and one man left standing from the field of 32 who start out.
This is what the whole snooker year is based around. This is what people look forward to. This is what really matters.
Soon, the talking will be done. The predictions will be made and it will be time only for action.
And I for one can’t wait.
12 comments:
I can't wait either Dave 1 more sleep lol, bring it on.
A cracking post, that encapsulates why this Championship is not only snookers big moment, but the only event that really transcends the sport. Plus I thought I bet write something nice about Dave incase I need to ask about info over something! Also I would like to say I fancy Ronnie to beat Murphy in final, but my outsider is Mark Williams if you can call someone like him an outsider.
if either or indeed both Murphy and O'Sullivan get to the final i fancy Murphy to win easily
Like you said about Steve Davis in the podcast, it's just like Christmas, basically every night this week I've thought "ooh only three sleeps to go to the Worlds" or something like that. Sad really but I don't care, always my favourite fortnight of the year.
Yeah I agree Jamie, Williams is my shout from the one half and John Higgins from the other. Williams at 5/1 for his quarter is worth a ton.
It starts at 10am in the morning tomorrow: Ronnie vs Bingham & King vs McLeod. One of the best times of the year, for me.
I'm sitting here in tears. Very well said! Very well!
Hey,
I've made some negative posts these last few months and I feel the atmosphere around snooker hasn't been the best of late....BUT I absolutely love the World Championship and everything associated with it. I'll have Freeview on 12 hours a day for the next fortnight and probably put on 2 stone but who cares!!!
Fat Mat Wilson
I think we're in for a treat this year. One of the great things about modern snooker is that every single player taking part in the tournament is capable of winning it, bar none!
I'm not even prepared to write off big outsiders like Steve Davis. His safety game is still among the best around, and although his long potting isn't too great these days, he's still a tough competitor.
My tip? I'm going go for Marco Fu, but he faces a tough first round match against Joe Swail.
We'll be keeping you updated on the website as much as possible. I have a busy few weeks with work so I can't always go into as much depth as I'd like with reports etc..
If there are any young wannabe journalists reading this who fancy doing some reports for us, please make yourself known to me. I'm afraid I can't pay you- we're still a relatively new website and there's a way to go before we're a viable operation.
Marcus
It's the best two weeks of the year bar none, we all know that. I for one would like to be the first to thank Fred Done and BetFred for securing this great event (despite the efforts of World Snooker to jeopardise it) and already doing a fine job of getting it into the daily mewspapers. Whatever you may think about the bookies, THANK YOU FRED! (and I'm a Liverpool fan)
I expected to find more changes when I arrived but everything is sort of the same, except new carpet upstairs, a horrible new frontage to the building and - shock, horror, former world champion Terry Griffiths informs me that they've changed the dressing rooms, which he describes as sacriledge!!
The players lounge has moved into what used to be the Heritage room and everything is turning Betfred Blue - some frantic last minute covering over of old 888 banners that were still lurking round the building!
thanks for that comment janie
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