RONNIE RECORD
O’Sullivan joins Davis on six UK titles... so why the BBC snub?
ASHORT memo to the people behind the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award: Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Too late for this year’s jamboree, alas, but arguably the greatest snooker player the world has seen had his own special celebration a week early, a provincial theatre his stage, as he won the UK Championship title for a sixth time.
Arguably? Well, let us judge him by the company he now keeps, for by beating Shaun Murphy 10-5 at the York Barbican, he joins Steve Davis as a record six-time winner of this tournament and equals the 18 major titles won by Stephen Hendry.
Davis, an icon of Eighties sport and a Sports Personality winner in 1988, and Hendry, his machinelike successor, perhaps come closest to challenging O’Sullivan for the acronym GOAT – Greatest Of All Time.
Where he can beat them hands down is in personality. Though he is a rapscallion and rebel, O’Sullivan sells snooker like nobody since Alex Higgins, the game’s original James Dean.
There were times when O’Sullivan floated around the table as if he had the cue ball on a piece of string. And, it should be noted, until Murphy collapsed under the sheer inevitability of his opponent’s force, he played some very fine snooker indeed.
To the victor went the £170,000 prize; to the loser a compensatory £75,000. But there was more than moolah at stake here. For the romantic was the memory of O’Sullivan winning this event way back in 1993 as a new arrival with stardust in his hands.
He was just 17 years and 11 months old then, and this was his first ranking title. Back then he told himself: ‘I was buzzing. I thought, I want more of this, that brilliant feeling of a packed house, sweating with tension and nearly everyone rooting for me.’
So it was here again, the people’s champion. The noisy among the throng huddling from the winter chill drowned out the master of ceremonies with their hollering and cheering for Ronnie as he was introduced. Which is no mean feat because Rob Walker goes at the announcing like a town crier with his pants on fire.
O’Sullivan is now a veteran of 42 and greying on his sideburns. ‘I’m old enough to be most people’s dad on the tour,’ he joked when it was all over. He was asked how he compared the young and the old Ronnie. ‘ We aren’t so much different,’ he said. ‘I still try give it my all and attack the game the way I think it should be played. I love competing.’
O’Sullivan may be in the autumn of his career and we must be careful that we appreciate him while we still can. As snooker supremo Barry Hearn once observed, he would take a hundred Ronnies for all his occasional bellyaching.
Perhaps the five-frame margin was a touch harsh on Murphy, for it was a thrilling duel until O’Sullivan moved through the gears, winning the last five frames. ‘ To equal Steve Davis is a phenomenal achievement,’ said Murphy, before adding: ‘He is the greatest ever. The standard is higher than it has ever been. The better man by far won today.’
They were gracious comments given the two protagonists have hardly been bosom pals, Murphy being a critic of O’Sullivan’s outspokenness. The losing finalist has apologised in the last few weeks, saying now he understands the pressure celebrity places on potting supermen, and they have made up. O’Sullivan was phlegmatic after winning. He said he was ‘over the moon’ but he uttered the words with a Steven Gerrard- like grimace. ‘The records are great. To equal it... I tried my best all week.’
After a close, absorbing afternoon session left them locked on 4-4, O’Sullivan was the more clinical in the brief evening riot. In less than two hours, it was all over. In that session alone O’Sullivan knocked in two centuries, to go with one earlier.
‘It was all right,’ said O’Sullivan, modestly. ‘I just did a job.’