It’s presumably fairly widely accepted that there’s no set menu for dealing with grief. It’s very much an individual journey. There’s no road map for it, and even if there were, one could end up with repetitive strain injury from tearing up said document and doing a redraft of same.
One thing which only life experience will tell you is that there’s no guarantee you will react two bereavements, for example, in the same way. Whether they involve a relative of your own or not. But obviously more profound if the former is the case. Speaking from all too recent personal experience, I know my reaction to ma’s death has been completely different to when himself slipped away four years beforehand.
Whereas I talk to him every day and know he’s never more than a second from my thoughts, there are times when the mind can’t computate the fact that she’s gone at all. I know it’s only been 12 weeks, but still.
However, no matter what state your emotions might be in, or you think they might be in, there will be thunderbolt moments that will knock you sideways and you won’t see it coming or know how to react.
Which is about the only way I can describe how watching the UK Open Snooker Championship over the last week or so. A curious combination, I can sense you musing. Very true, but, as is often the case, one with personal reasoning behind it.
Just as with the situation with the parentals outlined above, memories of the maternal grandparents (those on the Boylan side had departed long before yours truly was airlifted into the world) are very much lopsided in favour of the grandfather rather than granny. I can see ‘Spud’ in my mind’s eye as if only chatting to him yesterday whereas recollections of his wife Nora are vague at best. So vivid are recollections of ‘Spud’ in fact that I can remember my brother carrying me in to see him laid out after he passed.
Which is how – in a very circumnavigated manner – we arrive at the meat in today’s sandwich. That is to say, how getting sucked into the entertainment value and useful in-fill to be had from perusing the action at the UK Open Snooker throughout the week just concluded. In ways, it has been like a throwback to a different era. But before getting into all that, one is reminded of the fact that ‘Spud’ passed from this life while watching the UK Open Championship of 1985.
That said, even outside of that occasion which will never be forgotten for obvious reasons, snooker has thrown up plenty of memories at the times of year when the action on the green cloth gets a bit higher up the media coverage priority list than is normally the case. Obviously, topping any such amalgam would have to be another certain sporting occurrence from 1985 – and one of the greatest Irish sporting moments of all time – when Dennis Taylor came out on top of a final frame slugfest against Steve Davis with both seeking to bury the black and claim the World Championship.
As is often the case in these situations, Taylor’s triumph undoubtedly sparked a new generation of cue chalkers to wrack up their balls. The pinnacle of which were undoubtedly Fergal O’Brien and Ken Doherty. The latter reaching the highest plateau the sport has to offer when usurping the hitherto considered almost unbeatable Stephen Hendry in the sport’s showcase at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield over the May Bank Holiday of 1997.
However, for whatever reason, there was no Taylor-esque bounce from Doherty’s day of deliverance, other than the aforementioned O’Brien and both Joe Swail and Meath’s Colm Gillchrist – whose snooker career most likely prevented him having one with the Meath footballers – to certain degrees. So in reality, it wasn’t until the last decade or so when Mark Allen began working his way up through the rankings in the WPBSA that a bit of Irish interest was properly re-ignited in affairs of the auditorium.
Albeit that has been something of a double edged sword sometimes too. Given that Allen has in no way been shy about courting controversy over the years. Has that impinged on his ability to clock up more titles? It would be hard not to conclude it hadn’t. And so, in such circumstances, even a passive snooker fan in these parts had to look elsewhere for heroes to latch onto.
Which is why yours truly will, in a roundabout sort of way, always be glad to have got a rotten bad dose of the ‘flu in the early weeks of 1995. We had just got ‘all the stations’ in at home – having just had the two RTE stations up to that point – and on one of the ‘new extras’ I happened upon live coverage of the International Open from Bournemouth. Wherein one, if not both, of John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan first really came to public attention. What a bonus that was to get out of being out sick for a week!
What wasn’t known in this seat until very recently was that the two icons must have graduated from the same youth tour or whatever it’s called within the sport because – a la Manchester United – there’s been a lot of talk of the “Class Of ’92” turning 50 collectively. Of course the difference between the two cases being that, where the footballers have long hung up the boots at this stage, the titans of the table are still creating a din in the arena of sere quietness.
Even though, highly ironically in view of the immediately preceding paragraphs, neither of the dynamic duo have been involved in the business end of the currently ensuing action. That is not to say by any means that the half century club are in any way fading out of the picture. In fact, the contrary would be far closer to the truth. That an infusion of other talent – comprised of the likes of Barry Hawkins and Kieren Wilson and Shaun Murphy and Mark Selby and Ding Junhui have made the sport the most competitive it has been in 30 to 40 years.
Yet in every era in every sport, there will one or a small cohort of practitioners thereof who will be a move or two ahead of the chasing pack.
In snooker terms, at this point in time, any reasonable appraisal of the bigger picture must conclude that Judd Trump and Mark Selby appear to have a bit of a start over those in pursuance of their current elevated status within the game.
Speaking of head starts, Leicester’s Selby got a hell of a one against his Bristolian opponent, opening up a 5-0 chasm which had been further excavated out to 7-2 between the afternoon and evening sessions at the Barbican arena in York.
Like any top sport though, when it comes to the final of one of the top tournaments therein, you can nearly be sure that it will be two of the finest exponents of the craft therein. Moreover, even if one of them does get a bit of a start on the other, you can be sure the trailing warrior will get their spell too.
It then becomes a matter of whether the one doing the chasing manages to avail of the opportunity when it does present itself. No problems on that score as the only palatable Trump in the world came with a rattle to rival any hooves that ever left a print on the Knavesmire.
Perhaps it was only the natural order of things that, havimg taken off like a five furlong sprinter, Selby’s fuel light eventually began to flash but in fairness to The Jester, there was no clowning around as he closed ott the job.
Leave a Reply