Back in the day, to use that annoying phrase, snooker on the internet was represented by two websites: www snooker, run by Hermund Ardalen and still going, and Global Snooker Centre, which was the brainchild of Janie Watkins.
Both of these came long before worldsnooker.com, before TSN/110sport, before all the forums and before this blog.
Janie is leaving Global Snooker to work for Paul Mount and his stable of players based at the new South West Snooker Academy in Gloucester.
I would like to place on record my personal thanks for her many efforts in keeping the website updated on all manner of events over the years.
Where would we have been without it?
Her diligence and dedication has allowed many, many thousands of snooker fans around the world to keep up to date with the shifting sands of results, frame scores, breaks etc and she has put in more hours than is either natural or desirable to provide this service.
In my opinion, global-snooker.com is the best snooker website out there. I’m sure its owners will ensure it continues in that vein.
Meanwhile, I wish Janie well in her new role.
43 comments:
ta Janie
Very sad.
I have never found the opportunity to chat with Janie, either via e-mails or forums or blogs, much less to talk to her, from what I heard or read she always was very kind and accomodating person.
As almost every snooker fan I am very well aware of what we all owe to her and to great job she's done over the years, the time she spent to keep us all informed, up-to-date, and thus happy.
Global Snooker has been a great website and hopefully it will be able to live to its name and continue to provide top-level coverage for years to come.
I, too, would like to wish Janie all the best in her new role & life; passion, happiness & health that will be necessary, as they were while at Global Snooker; and thank her very much for all those exciting moments while browsing through Global Snooker website over the past years.
Just as you saying this, global-snooker.com already made a mistake as it was Gould through instead of Hawkins.
Good luck in your new position Janie.
Global have been a very useful site no doubt. I have always liked their live scoring and in running updates on rankings, which sadly, they no longer do.
Pro snooker however, are updating in running and currently include results from the Shanghai qualifiers.
Apparantly WS have spotted an anomaly in the rankings and are to rectify it soon.
Wonder what that is.
What makes you so sure that Global Snooker will continue in that vein, and maintain it's high reputation without Janie?
I would be very surprised if it does!
"Blush"
Thank you Dave.
It seems a long time ago to 1996 when I started looking for snooker on the net and all I could find was Hermund "God of the net" and www snooker.
at the moment Globalsnooker is nothing without janie watkin
they got Hawkins beating Gould last night 5-3 Gould won 5-4 they got no frame scores and today Hour and a half in to the PTC no scores.
with no live scoring and hopelessness of the WSA Website the PTC is now a non event for fans.
but i wish janie the best in her new Job YOUR MISSED SO MUCH ALREADY.
Is that why Global seems to be struggling a bit at the mo as Janie has already left? Good luck with your new venture Janie, the Southwest Snooker Academy looks great, hope to pop there again soon.
From my own entirely selfish point of view this is a shame because the updates were excellent.
However, it isn't Global Snooker's job to provide these, it's the tournament promoter's.
If World Snooker can't be bothered then it shows what a long way the sport has to go.
There's nothing to stop worldsnooker.com running frame by frame updates on their front page, even if live scoring isn't working
I've been saying this for years!
Ja, ich bin der englischen Sprache mächtig, dennoch schreibe ich hier in meiner Muttersprache, damit deutlich wird, dass Janies Service weltweit Anklang fand und rege genutzt wurde. Ich wünsche mir hier noch viele, viele Kommentare in spanisch, polnisch, französich, valonisch, kantonesisch ... what ever ;-) ... um Janie ein weltweites Echo zu geben.
Dear Janie,
thanks for your many efforts in keeping Snooker up to date over the years and good luck in your new position.
Kahlbutz from Germany
dave any news on when live scoring will be back on the world snooker site yet?
Snooker © The Fine Art Method
A secret is wasted if not shared
Dear Mary Elil @ 5:43pm Hi Dave!
Thanks for the posts Dave you have been very brave with your “Open Door” policy on “Everything Snooker”. My dear friend Mary Eli keeps talking angrily in the plural tense as if speaking for hundreds when he just means “Ian” and maybe John, Janet and Craig.
Congratulations Dave to our friend Janie Watkins! The lass has obviously been “Head Hunted” successfully by “The Paul Mount Academy”.
A very shrewd move Dave by Mr Mount combining “Snooker Know How” in female employment. Maybe in time Dave this will lead to more girls being attracted to the game
Plus registering the first club worldwide to offer women the snooker art in advance coaching. Good Luck Janie. Mr Hey You
well said dave.dont world snooker have any regard to the snooker following public.they are a disgrace.
Hi Dave/Janie,
Funny that the very day this is announced, Global aren't showing any scores from the PTC this morning. Coincidence?
Janie,what is your role at the new place - press?
Dave, on another note, you didn't mention the wonderful 'Snooki' from Snookernet.com! Top website, before every snooker media person going sold their soul and went to cuemasters.
Truly understand. In this sport, money does talk when it comes to journalism, unlike any other sport I know...
Thanks, Joe
global-snooker.com without Janie is horrible!
btw...where are the scores for PTC 3, huh? pffff...
It seems that worldsnooker.com is working at the moment, but global-snooker.com had more elaborate results.I`m going to miss them so much :( And Janie!
Thanks for everything and good luck, Janie!! GS is already struggling without you.
Very poor we don't even know the 9am results on this first day of the PTC over five hours later!!
Surely they should have kept some kind of scoring system available while they were working on a new one, especially at a time while spectators are not allowed into qualifying matches (and no immediate prospect of them being able to do so, apart from perhaps the UK and the Worlds).
Not really sure why they couldn't allow a few in, as isn't the setup similar to how the Masters qualifying in the Academy was run in previous years when there was indeed some room for a few to watch.
Excellent job Janie, wish I had found the site sooner.
Joe - You've reminded me of Snooki - I worked on the snookernet site back in 1999 - sadly it didn't last as it had some great features.
I've sold my soul to many over the years but the TSN website wasn't one of them: it was a great site, good fun and they did stuff way ahead of its time, most of which still hasn't been replicated
I spoke to Janie once, and I can tell you her tongue is as sharp as her mind! I don't imagine Global had much money to run its operations but it certainly didn't show. I virtually ignore the official site and head straight for Global. Barry Hearn missed a trick - he should have got in there first and hired the Global team!
Thankyou for your all your hard work Janie.
Janie - So Paul Mount beat off stiff competition from Stelios,
Tony Drago & Mr Hey You,for your services !
Good luck with your new venture Janie.
Though,I am sure you will still
continue to contribute to the
SS Blog - maybe more than ever !
Global has been so poor today, I guess we'll all miss Janie more than we realise. Janie, goodbye and good luck!!
Alpha
I remember sitting in the computer room at school, at college and at university over the last decade or so and when I think about that period of time and how long GSC was basically the only snooker site worth going on (well, bar WWW but I didn't know about that at the time!), it makes you realise all of the effort that went into it.
Re: kildare cueman and the rankings issue, my rankings really are based on the way that Global did them for years long before I put my piddly little blog together so Janie can even take the credit for that!
I'm sure that On-Q will be all the better for having her too, and I liked them already anyway.
Hey,
I had loads of e-mail conversations with Janie, it must be 13 years ago when alt.sport.snooker had just kicked off. What I discovered was what an intelligent, funny and self-indisposed lass she was(and is!). The "Global snooker" name is one I'll never forget. The newsgroup and website have always been superbly run by Janie, and lets not forget her anonymous articles for SnookerHeed which me and P Prescott well appreciated!!!!!:-)
Good luck, Pet!!
Mat Wilson
I do hope Global wasn't that bad today cos it was me doing the updates! Albeit not from Sheffield.
Whey Aye Mat! Snookerheed - legendary!!
How could we ever forget "Snooker Scne - the Movie" or "The Griffiths Bin Bag Lunacy" Maybe we should get Dave to re-run some Snookerheed classics!!
Congratulations to Barry Hawkins on his 147 tonight. Great effort.
Snookerheed remains one of the funniest things I've ever read
Yes but you do have a warped sense of humour Dave!!
Do you think someone should tell World Snooker that Barry had a max tonight?!
All the Best Janie in your new venture, I'm sure you'll be happy there and if it's what you want you more than deserve it for the efforts you've made over the years.
Snookerbacker
who u calling Mary Eli u eccentric old fool. 11 57 .
thanks for keeping me in touch with all the qualifiers and rankings over the years. you ensured global snooker was a "bentley", whilst world snooker was a "skoda"! might get to say thanks personally one day as my mate has signed with paul. good luck for the future and once again, many thanks.
Using the Bentley and Skoda analogy that would mean the early TSN/110 was Concorde - nothing like it since.
Good luck Janie
what made the old tsn so good?
In my unbiased opinion: the content, video interviews, live streaming and general irreverence
could you expand please?
Good luck to Janie in her new role. She's a great ambassador for snooker and has worked very hard indeed for many years in all sorts of capacities. Incredibly, we've never met in person despite both living in Wales.
Running a decent snooker website is hard work and requires a lot of effort. The old TSN website was good fun, and I can still remember watching the action from Scotland via a grainy image though my 56k modem all those years ago, with Ruth and Phil giving us studio presentation.
My website (which I half-own) has been both fun and controversial in its relatively short life, and I openly admit I'll need more help if I'm fulfil my ambitions for it. Unfortunately the need to earn a living sometimes gets in the way of me doing as much as I'd like.
Janie- all the best with your new job.
Snooker © The Fine Art Method
A secret is wasted if not shared.
Dear Mr SupremeSnooker @ 9:19.Hello Dave
How are you both! I recall Sir an article by Supreme S on the value in “Being in the Right Place” etc on life’s opportunities or is it “Operchancities”.
Personally I lost mine Sir when “Passing Through” a bombed bank near the River Xanton a few years back without realising the waste paper we were trod ding was (For a Change) real live currency.
Some people get second chances Mr S! My “Operchancity” will positively come again with “Snooker The Fine Art Method” as a copyright on coaching snooker is “Unique” and near enough for ever. Mr Hey You
Global Snooker is in disarray.
nothing happening there sorry but this is very poor.
9.19, i hope you contacted global directly to complain
if not then id imagine thats = to going into burger king and moaning at people who are in there who sometimes go in mcdonalds about mcdonalds burgers.
or complaining that hey you is off topic continually
Janie you will be greatly missed. You know how much I have relied on Global and before that, Snookernet, to provide me with the information for my own website.
I only hope I will still be able to get the same info but sadly we are already seeing a drop off in reliabilty - no knock out results for the World Under-21 (or at least no working link to them), no regularly updated century list for PTC3 etc.
Luckily Janie has arranged for me to get info direct - bless you for that Janie.
We all wish her well in her new venture. She is a true pioneer of snooker on the web and all fans owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.
chris, without trying to be cheeky or ignorant, i do not owe janie a thing.
i am thankful for the effort she has put in for the sport i love, but thats that. no grovelling. the lady done very well.
Interesting comments re TSN/110 - I thought Janie was headed back there but obviously they've run out of money - again. They should have cornered the market years ago. Instead they have cornered the market in false dawns and false promises, despite having had some really capable people working for them over the years, you included David!
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