The Daily Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 41

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MONDAY, APRIL 14, 1997 S9 SPORT 9: FEATURE COMMENT who went from misspent youth to world champion finally calls time on in Crucible spotlight Master The meticulous Terry Griffiths comes out of retirement for one last shot at The Crucible Picture: PHIL SHEPHARD-LEWIS ROBERT PHILIP ON MONDAY make most of it. Today, wherever you put the white ball, if they can see a red they tend to go for it. Percentages don't really come into it True, standards have risen, but while there are hundreds of players the latest rankings go all capable of making a century breakay down to Barry Zee at 628th the modern pimple-chinned professional appears more preoccupied with becoming a millionaire than honouring snooker's working man's club tradition. was considered when I turned pro at 30. Ray Reardon was 36.

Now anyone can pay their £500 and enter any tournament. Those of us who came in during the late Seventies -Dennis Taylor, John Virgo, Willie Thorne, Steve Davis and myselfwere brought up on exhibition play. When I started there were only two tournaments, you had to be an entertainer. You travelled round the country like a comedian on the nightclub circuit. And I don't have to tell you what sort of reception you sometimes got late at night when went up to do your trick-shots.

You had to make the people in the room feel part of the show and that's why I feel the personalities haven't come through in recent years. All the younger lads are straight tournament players, they Llanelli boy who Griffiths career 'N a profession glamorised by the Hurricane, the Whirlwind and the Tornado, Terry Griffiths was the Watchmaker. Whereas Alex Higgins raced through his appointments as though he had a lunch date with Demi Moore each frame rattled slapdash scrawl Griffiths was always happy to work late if there was an urgent job to be finished. Thus would he approach every shot like a dedicated craftsman bent over a priceless timepiece; an infinitesimal adjustment here, the merest tweak there, one final examination of the mechanism from the other side of the table, and then, with a gentle sigh signifying another monumental decision made, would. slowly.

into. waistcoat. chalk. His 1979 Embassy World Championship semi-final against Australian Eddie Charlton went on for years; governments fell, Bjorn Borg won five Wimbledons, the mini-skirt came and went and (hiphip-hooray) came back again yet every time we checked up on proceedings at the Crucible Theatre, there was the Watchmaker painstakinly fixing the unfixable. Outsteadying Steady Eddie.

He won the title that year did Griffiths the Cueman (previous occupations: apprentice blacksmith, bus conductor and postman), a mere five months after turning professional at the precocious for those days- age of 30. An ordinary Joe who, seemed, had wandered in off the street to supplant the mighty Ray Reardon, he won the hearts of the nation while losing eight ounces short of a stone in weight during the two weeks. 'That's what The Crucible takes out of you," muses Griffiths, whose opponent in the final qualifying round of this year's world championship (Alfie Burden) was two years of age when the Welshman beat Perrie Mans, Higgins, Charlton and Dennis Taylor during his triumphant debut in Sheffield those 18 Aprils past. "The pressure is unbelievable. There's nowhere like it.

I suppose it's been said many times before but, to a snooker player, The Crucible is right up there with Wembley, Wimbledon or St Andrews." Only a Welshman can say "The and make a chunk of Yorkshire concrete sound as romantic as Milan's La Scala. And so, exactly a year after he retired following his 13-8 defeat to Steve Davis in the second round, the old champion is returning to The Crucible this week to bid one last, fond farewell. "It's where it all began against Perrie Mans do I remember that first match? Good God alive, I could describe every shot so it will be nice to finish there. I hadn't played a competitive match since losing to 12 months ago, which is why everyone told me I'd no chance of qualifying. But come Saturday and there I'll be.

I've been given a tough draw (fellow Welshman and world No 3 Mark Williams, who crushed Stephen Hendry 9-2 recently) but I'm unnaturally relaxed about the whole thing. Normally I wouldn't be great to live with my missus would tell you that for at least a month before The Crucible. This time I'm looking at my diary and thinking 'Oh, yes, The Crucible. I mustn't forget that'. And that could make me dangerous." A glance through the latest world rankings explains why Griffiths was persuaded into walking away while still among the game's elite and ranked 23.

Others have been less durable: Jimmy White (21), Dennis Taylor (30), Joe Johnson (50), Tony Knowles (72), Doug Mountjoy (92) and, saddest of all, The Hurricane (152). "I played Alex Higgins many times his heyday and he was a wonderful opponent, just wonderful. He created the type of atmosphere in which your bloody hair would stand up. When you played against him you were never, ever comfortable because he could do anything. For three or four frames you wouldn't get near the table, then for the next three or four frames he was worse than any club player you'd ever seen.

thing he was never given much credit for is how well he competed. That was overshadowed by the whole 'Hurricane' thing. Because of the shots he'd bring off, people never really realised just how hard a competitor Higgins was he was like an animal. It's sad to see him now. I watched him playing Ken Doherty a few years ago at The Crucible and he was 4-0 behind.

I couldn't watch it, I walked wasn't right to see a great, great player on that kind of stage unable to pot a simple black off its spot. I thought never, ever want to be playing if I'm like Instead of accepting an inexorable slide down the rankings, therefore, Griffiths untied his bow tie to become director of coaching to the World Professional Billiards Snooker Association until the onset of The Crucible started the competitive juices juices', I like flowing anew. "The most difficult thing to do is admit that you're not good enough anymore to compete. I promised myself I wouldn't do that which is why I finished when I was still more or less in the top 16." the qualifying tournament in Telford. Griffiths admits he was out of breath climbing the stairs to the dressing-rooms while his fellow-competitors "some of them looked about 12 or 13" flew past him taking the steps three at a time.

'And that's way they play now the modern way at 100mph. All-out aggression, running round the table the balls in from everywhere. In the old way of playing you forced a mistake from your opponent then tried to don't do shows anymore. That's why beating Perrie Mans all those years ago was so important to me. Being seen on TV in exhibition work for a year.

Winning the world championship was like winning the National Lottery. A side to the game has been lost, and that's a Though he lives but a mile from where he was born in Llanelli, Terry Griffiths inhabits a different world thanks to his prowess with a wooden cue; as the wild child of a tin-mine worker he was expelled from school for truancy and was twice placed on probation for petty theft. "Pinching Dinky toys from my friend's house because I didn't have any and breaking into the Llanelli rugby club canteen actually it was a shed where I spent all my youth because I wanted a glass of pop. I suppose it was the classic misspent youth until I took up snooker at 13. It took me off the streets and changed my life because I spent all my spare hours -which was a lot at the local club." 'Snowy' Griffiths became a teenage legend in Llanelli where, as a sort of fledgling Bilko, he separated many a miner from his wages.

"I was a good player anyway, but because I was so young I used to be given a handicap so I was virtually unbeatable. It was a good grounding that was for me, because I didn't have no money except the two shillings I got as a paper-boy. I became notorious, a a a a a a 0. 1979 every his day Griffiths, return for 17 from as years, he had Sheffield went for done in a game of snooker. "I went into my local club a and did what I always did -put my name on the board.

And someone goes: 'Look at this, boys, the world champion here has put his name on the board. Well, I'm not coming off the table to let the world champion on'. And it just went through my heart. I never went to the club again although it's in my own town. Some of changed towards Alliss proves a calming influence HE greens were fast at Augusta last week but coverage.

they were The no match for network the television responsible for the pictures BBC cannoned American, breathlessly from hole to hole, eager for action, in much the way that golfer's do not. Sometimes you would arrive at a green to find a ball already rolling and then flick away again as it came to rest. Only the calm, reassuring presence of Peter Alliss stood between the viewer and terminal dizziness. Unfazed by these strobing pictures, the 'Voice of Golf' dedicated a portion of the coverage to some friends in Scotland who would be "having a shandy or something at this late The commentator as midnight DJ, One sensed also a tendency of the coverage to edit harshly in favour of success the great shots, the leading players when, for many watching, there would have been not just drama but also deep, personal consolation available in seeing a the greats mess up. It wasn't mere spitefulness that made one long to see John Huston, one of the early leaders, take a 10.

or to watch Faldo blowing it on the second day. Arnold Palmer's rounds of 89 and 87, 32 over par, were surely worth more than just the occasional glance. But the coverage tidied the accidents away and left them to our imaginations. No such haste or squeamishness A Golfer's Travels (BBC2, Friday), where Alliss was to be seen getting down to some real work: visiting a -only golf course near Santa Fe and having a quick round with Gene Hackman. One somehow feels that, when the brief for this series HEROES VILLAINS Sue Mott Sports feature writer of the year you.

HIS is On unashamedly a personal behalf of chaise- thank- my bound (especially yesterday) self and the other 58,372,999 people in Britain who failed to run the London Marathon, a huge debt gratitude is owed to Kenneth Cooper, the American fitness guru who popularised aerobics, jogging and similar society. He has recanted, the hero. Marathons are bad for you, he now says. Intense exercise can lead to a greater risk of cancers, heart disease and strokes. And that is without being dressed up as a fluffy bunny at the same time.

Somehow, instinctively, we knew this. Those of us whose heart rate surges only to caffeine have always had an aversion to cheering the runners the elite, the foolhardy, the rhinos, Jeremy Bates as they staggered down The Mall in such obvious distress. As the Tory right wing would say about the poor they should not be encouraged in their vice. So with Cooper's brave retraction ringing in our ears, we could watch in detached sorrow as both the men's and women's races finished with death-defying sprints for the line in front of Buckingham Palace, where any curtaintwitching was entirely the responsibility of the maids. The Queen, the mistress of serene progress, has probably never jogged a step in her life.

Hence, incidentally, the longevity of the family. The victorious woman, Joyce Chepchumba of Kenya, crossed the line a second before Liz McColgan and threw up. McColgan's husband, Peter, said that despite his wife's achievement of a personal best and almost winning for the second successive year, Liz was not overjoyed but The male Olympic marathon champion, Josiah Thugwane, came third, felt the cold and is a Liverpool supporter. Can someone explain where the pleasure is? The St John Ambulance men are still counting. Last year so many drop-outs and breakdowns were taken to St Thomas's Hospital, it qualified as "a major medical One hopes the new advice is heeded.

Cooper, the author of 13 books, on million exercise copies in which 41 coun- have tries, now claims the best way to health is to walk the dog three times a week. Which is great news. I haven't got a dog. OWN states where in of the racism America, southern runs deeper than the azalea roots at Augusta, the professional comTiger Woods must viewed in some quarters as a calamity. Until this boy, Eldrick, came along with his $60 million deals and 350-yard drives, there were three things you could guarantee about the Masters champion.

That he would be great, that he would be tough and that he would be white. But when Tiger carried a ninestroke lead into the final round at Augusta yesterday, one of those inviolate principles looked seriously imperilled. A long-perpetuated evil was doomed. The villainous minds that could only envisage a green jacket on Caucasian shoulders are having to surrender to the inevitable. There may be a Master, but no master race.

Woods is a racial amalgam. Part-Thai, part-Chinese, partCherokee, part-Afro-American. In America, that makes him black. Once that would also have made him a caddie. Now it transforms him, according father, Earl, into "The Chosen One.

He'll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just getting a taste of his power." It is the contention of the former Lieutenant Colonel (two tours of duty in Vietnam), that his 21-year-old son will transcend the game of golf and make the world finer, more humanitarian, place to live. His mother, Tida, a Buddhist, calls him "the Universal Golf calls him a godsend in a different respect.

With ratings falling, Ballesteros fallible, Palmer fading and Faldo Faldo, the Tiger factor may be allimportant in persuading the cameras, the sponsors, and so the money to stick around. One cannot imagine the professionals who putt in his wake are overburdened with burning gratitude, but their accountants be happy. The only real losers are what remains of the Ku Klux Klan. His very existence gives the lie to prejudice. Elitism, ageism, racism fall at his Nike-shod feet.

If only he'd been born a woman, sexism could have gone the same way. But Tigress Woods We're still waiting. me in a day and I couldn't accept that, see? Five hundred wrinkles apart, I've never changed. My life changed -overnight appearing on This Is Life and the Morecambe Wise Show -but I'm the same person now as I was in Twelve months after becoming world champion at the first attempt, Griffiths lost in the opening round to Steve Davis. For the next five years, the Welshman was clearly the second best player in the world but the game's glittering prizes (a thrilling 16-15 victory over Higgins in the 1982 UK Championships at Preston, notwithstanding) tended to evade him.

"I must have played and lost 3,000 finals to Steve. When you get seat at The Crucible which you do when you play someone like Davis or Hendry- -it's humiliating. "I've felt the humiliation of defeat and the elation of victory, and it's a funny thing they're very close together. You know when you enter The Crucible there are times when you are going to be so frightened you can hardly stand up and walk across to the table. But if you can get through that, losing can be even more rewarding than winning.

There's an awesome beauty in defeat. people say bloody mad talking about 'beauty in defeat', but there's not that much beauty in winning either. Once you've won, you're left standing there with a cue in your hand and it's all dead. There's a huge anti-climax. I feel, as a person, that the defeats have served to strengthen Terry Griffiths will savour the beauty of defeat for the very last time in Sheffield either against Mark Williams in the first round or, should he pull off one final surprise, Stephen Hendry the next take his leave in the time-honoured fashion of the true champion: with decency, dignity and sensitivity.

He is, as one of the regulars in the Terry Griffiths Matchroom snooker club in Llanelli noted, prince came up, the 'Voice of Golf' probably didn't have to spend a lot of time overcoming his natural reluctance before agreeing to get involved. It's possible that we will look back on A Golfer's Travels as a seminal moment in TV his- tory. What programme has there been which, within half an hour, could find a link between Dan Quayle, astronaut Admiral Alan Shepard and a tricky par-three over red rocks in Arizona? Quayle, it turns out, knows one end of a club from the other and there are many who, on the evidence of his political career, wouldn't have banked on that. And Shepard, of course, is famous for playing the first golf shot on the moon, which he described as "a beautiful, quiet not to mention one in which there's rarely any problem with slow players up ahead. Alliss never reaches for his putter in silence.

He reaches for his putter and says: "Come on, old trusty blade. You've served me well for many a year This may well be the single most important lesson A Golfer's Travels teaches us: it's not your putter that counts, it's your patter. The is currently serving us The Crucible 21 Years in the Frame, a documentary tribute to the home of snooker (BBC2, Friday) and a tribute SPORT ON TELEVISION GILES SMITH to the sport's golden days: days when a victory for Dennis Taylor had people dancing in the streets and hooting their car horns, South (in Taylor's hometown, at any rate) and, above all, when the BBC didn't need three documentary tributes to whip up a broad public enthusiasm for a forthcoming world championship. This week's programme was spent mostly in the company of Steve Davis who, in his glory, was as David Vine reminded us gingerhaired magician, the Davis virtually made the sport his own 1980s, but he paid a high price for that fame: archive footage showed him appearing on what looked like a Saturday evening light entertainment show, duetting on Stand By Me with Leo Sayer. "You don't get a second chapter in fairy tales," concluded Vine, a literary contention which had me scrambling, unsuccessfully, for my of Grimm.

Still, I guess one knew what he meant. ONGRATULATIONS to ITV who, in Argentina to cover their third grand prix, I were for the first time this season given a paddock-side studio emplacement which wasn't under flightpath of arriving and departing helicopters. Tony Jardine celebrated by pressing himself up in his chair and hitching his legs aloft to demonstrate the virtually prone position which Formula One cars must be driven. Jim Rosenthal and Simon Taylor could only look on with what might have been respect, mild embarrassment or perhaps an anxiety for their shins. During Saturday's qualifying session, Martin Brundle turned in the tidiest performance.

He can spot from pictures when a car is lapping a second slower than the target time and talk you through why. This is no mean skill and one which he could probably indulge further if he wasn't also having to pick up the pieces left by an increasingly erratic Murray Walker. "David Coulthard getting all out of shape!" Walker shouted as we watched a McLaren spin in the dust. "That's Hakkinen," prompted Brundle, who had moments before informed us that, contrary to Walker's excited outburst, Michael Schumacher had not just undercut Jacques Villeneuve for pole, but was adrift of him. It's team-work of a sort Walker flies up straights, Brundle provides the downforce at the corners but you wouldn't see Frank Williams settling for it.

Still, bless Jim Rosenthal, who continued to develop his new role as TV's Mr Cool this weekend by referring to Buenos Aires as BA. Jim also ran through the timings of yesterday's coverage for us. "Highlights live at he said. Live highlights: now that really would be a television first..