Snooker player John Virgo dies

 Snooker player John Virgo dies

It used to be the case that a love of snooker was the sign of a misspent youth, a waste of an afternoon or a sure sign that you could have been using your time far more productively. For some of us, it was never the easiest watch and only TV provided snooker with a glamour and personality that perhaps we should have done more to get excited about. But when snooker loses one of its greatest exponents, you begin to wonder why you didn't really take it as seriously as you should have done. 

John Virgo, one of the most cheerful and upbeat of all sportsman, possessed a charisma and charm that his contemporaries always valued in Virgo. Virgo was always a classical snooker player always sticking to the orthodox but then surprising everybody in the game with the flamboyant and unpredictable. Like most of his rivals, Virgo was always respectful of his opponents but ruthless when he needed to be. Long after he retired, Virgo was still bathing in past glories and always hungry for victory.

And the annoying stereotypes continued to haunt snooker. It was a pub game that was either played in your local watering hole or some atmospheric hall or leisure centre. Snooker had vast hordes of enthusiastic fans who followed Virgo everywhere. He was their spokesman, their rallying cry, their advocate and champion. He played snooker with a permanent smile on his face and none could question his unstinting commitment to the game or, as it's commonly referred to as a snooker. 

The lines are now blurred between snooker's divine right to be considered as a sport and those who still regard it with sneering disapproval. How can a spectacle that requires no physical exertion whatsoever, still attract hysterical praise and adulation from millions of people who can't get enough of it? But Virgo was markedly different, a humorous joker always laughing along with his captive audiences but also playing snooker with a meticulous attention to detail. 

After serving his apprenticeship in the pubs and clubs of Salford, Virgo rose to prominence and arrived shortly after snooker converted black and white TV coverage into resplendent colour. The BBC's Pot Black was compulsive viewing for a growing audience who were slowly developing a passion for the sport. The likes of Fred and Joe Davis were very much the pioneers just after the Second World War but then the 1970s knocked on snooker's door and a whole host of unknown men captured our hearts. 

There was Fred Davis, Steve Davis, Alex Hurricane Higgins, Eddie Charlton, Cliff Thorburn and, more recently the inimitable Ronnie O' Sullivan, another entertaining extrovert who sets his own rules and boundaries and frequently tests both. But everybody loves Ronnie because he's a national treasure and gets an enormous satisfaction out of beating one of his fierce rivals. 

But John Virgo won the 1979 UK Championship beating Welshman Terry Griffiths followed swiftly with four major titles and trophies. He took snooker to an even bigger fanbase and he did so with an impish chuckle and a complimentary word or two. Snooker revels in its immaculate suit, shirt and bow tie image because snooker has a measured precision about it, a cunning strategy and a thrilling simplicity that requires no explanation.

You sit down to watch the game and that green baize table is simply mesmeric and you are drawn helplessly into its web of  intrigue and mystery. My late and wonderful dad loved a good game of snooker and would insist on watching its changing moods and clever machinations. From the beginning frame of red balls to the striking and vivid blues, yellows, pinks, black, pink and red balls and 147s, snooker has always held us gripped. 

Now for the sceptics and cynics and naysayers, snooker is unbelievably boring, too slow for words and somehow demeaning to the intellect. But what do they know that we clearly do? Snooker is big money, highly lucrative, unquestionably prestigious, a millionaire's dream, the kind of financial windfall that the working man or woman could only dream of. 

In more recent times Virgo was chosen as the guest on a snooker related quiz show called Big Break. Introduced by comedian Jim Davidson, Virgo demonstrated all of the qualities that we'd always admired. He was the court jester, funny and gloriously facetious at times, quietly modest at times but never less than committed to the sport he'd honed his craft in during his early adolescence. John Virgo, we'll always remember that happy-go-lucky demeanour. Thankyou.