Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was mad-keen on poker as a kid. It was like the snooker, pulling me into that same smokey atmosphere I loved.
We go out and have a drink occasionally. We're quite happy to go for a nice meal and go the theatre or something.
On my 50th birthday the Rolling Stones played at my party at Grosvenor House. That's not bad for a kid from Tooting.
If you're playing the best of 19, and it's 7-7 and there's only five frames left, you tend to take a few more chances.
I used to be jack the lad, I was out a lot, I was mainly waking up with hangovers at tournaments rather than preparing.
If Ding keeps performing the way he has been doing then it is inevitable the World Championship will go to his country.
I grew up in south London and spent most of my adolescence in the snooker halls of the area, turning professional at 17.
I could be in Spain, spending my time playing bad golf; financially I don't need to play snooker. I play because I love it.
Ronnie is a very clever winner. He will make sure that he does everything in his power to win the tournament. He is super-fit.
Because I could do things on the snooker table that no other player could do, I just had this sort of self-destruct button in me.
The worst problem I've probably had was the gambling - you can do your money in the bookies a lot quicker than you can do it in the pub.
Snooker's only popular in China now. Well China's OK to go to once or twice a year but to go and play six or seven tournaments there is too much.
The best match I ever played in was the U.K. championship final against John Parrot in 1992. I won 16-14 and I felt like I could pot anything from anywhere.
Most gamblers do it for ego. It's not about winning or losing, it's about challenging your ego and showing your mates you're fearless and will bet on anything.
Golf and snooker are similar. They are ball games that you don't have to be super fit for. It's not like boxing or football when, at 35, you are on your way home.
I have only prepared properly for the World Championship three or four times in my life. If I had gone about it professionally I would have won the title 10 times.
Not only did I have to face the great Steve Davis for 10 years, Stephen Hendry came along, who attacked the balls. He was such an incredible potter with self-belief.
Listen, I could have won the World Championship. Obviously if I had the chance to do it all again I would do things differently. But then would I have still wanted to play?
I mean what's the point of them becoming professional snooker players? If there's not much money in the game, if there's no guarantee of future tournaments, if no one knows what's going on.
It is like any sport. You practise thousands of times and you miss the simplest ball and you don't understand why. But that's why snooker is so special, because all of sudden you can lose everything.
Ronnie O'Sullivan, the greatest snooker player ever, will tell you that he doesn't practise. I'm not having that. I call him Roger, after Federer, because he's a genius. He doesn't like that nickname.
That's the hardest part of the game. You've got to stay focused. With golf, make a mistake and you get another shot straight away; but with snooker you could be five minutes before you get another chance.
The trouble started when I won the world amateur title in 1980, aged 18. People began talking about me as the next star of the game. But I also started to get recognised more and I wasn't prepared for it.
Northern Ireland as a whole is a great snooker country because of Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor and now of course there is Mark Allen. It's a hotbed of snooker and a place where our sport is always well supported.
Ronnie is the greatest player to have ever picked up a snooker cue. People have said that about me. But although I won 50 or so tournaments I never picked up the world championship. That was a little bit of a disappointment.
That period in the late Eighties and early Nineties was when I was playing my best snooker. My trouble was that I had so many bad habits that my preparation was terrible: people like Steve Davis or Dennis Taylor were model pros.
I love Belfast, because of the way that people here love their snooker. And I won my first professional tournament here in 1981. It was at the King's Hall and I beat Doug Mountjoy in the final. That victory will always be pretty special for me.
Within a day of wearing the insoles, my feet felt more comfortable, and a week later I was able to go for walks, play golf, and play football with my son, which I hadn't for years. The insole is sculpted to the foot and manipulates it into the correct position, preventing damage to the plantar fascia tissue.
From having no money and coming from a very proud working class family, it was tough. But then all of a sudden we had loads and loads of cash. I realised that this was a great opportunity to do what I love for a living. I was going to tournaments up and down the country and I was able to win anything from five to seven thousand pounds.