I once borrowed £200K to fund my gambling addiction.. but I never backed a winner like my lovely wife
SNOOKER ACE
IT’S been 38 years since John Virgo won the UK Snooker Championship but his memories of the big day are as vivid as his trademark waistcoats. After beating Terry Griffiths in the tiebreaker 27th frame of a thrilling final, JV shot to sporting glory and a spin-off career in showbiz. So, was Preston 1979 the most magical moment of his career?
“Worst day of my life,” says John, 71, in his deep Salford growl. “They’d changed the time of the final without telling me and I was six miles away in my hotel.
“I arrived, panicking, 25 minutes late, got penalised two frames and the crowd booed me. I was shaking so much I don’t know how I played.
“And, to top it all, the BBC cameramen were out on strike. So, instead of winning live on Grandstand, there’s no footage of me lifting the trophy in glory.”
Blimey – and Jimmy White says his old pal’s reputation for being “a bit grumpy” is unfair?
But then I see the glint in John’s eye and hear the throaty laugh. “OK, it could have been worse,” he smiles. “Let’s say it was the best and worst day of my life.”
The snooker legend has had many more big breaks and crushing blows in his colourful life and career, including two failed marriages and a gambling addiction, as he explains in his highly entertaining new autobiography.
Called Say Goodnight, JV (comic Jim Davidson’s line from their hit TV show Big Break) the book recounts his child- hood in post-war Salford, where he inherited his father’s love of horseracing, and his years as a teenage hustler in local snooker clubs. He turned pro in 1976 and three years later reached the semi-final of the World Championship, before going on to become UK champ.
John talks candidly about his marriages (he has a son from the first and a daughter from the second), blaming himself for both breakdowns.
Speaking from his home in Cobham, Surrey, John reveals that as his tournament earnings slumped, he began to gamble heavily. He once lost £10,000 on the horses in a fortnight and, over six years in the late ’80s, borrowed more than £200,000 against his mortgage.
John, who famously supported his friend and colleague Willie Thorne during his own very public battle with betting, says: “It was a vicious circle. I was doing commentary for the BBC and had exhibition work but if you’re not winning you are not earning as much. And when you’re seen as a successful sportsman, people assume you’re earning a good living.
“There was pressure on me to have the newest car, a more expensive holiday. It was all about keeping up appearances. When the results weren’t coming on the snooker table, I tried to supplement things by gambling on horses even more. I went through a period when I was addicted to gambling. “It was a compulsion that I struggled to get to grips with. By 1990, it was in danger of ruining my life. “I was borrowing against the mortgage just to keep up the pretence that I was successful. Looking back, I see it was crazy. I think a lot of players may have had issues with gambling. “You are brought up in that environment – hustling in the snooker clubs to earn a few quid and, if there was no one to play, you’d go in the bookies. Willie
is a dear friend and we were both victims of trying to keep pace with the leading lights in the game and living the lifestyle.
“But I never gambled to the same extent. I stopped when I realised I was living beyond my means.
“I rarely bet these days. I did back the Grand National winner though. But Willie wouldn’t stop betting until there was nothing left to bet on. He once had a bet at an airport luggage carousel. He bet a guy 50 quid that his bag was going to come off first.
“Once, Willie came in wearing this immaculate suit and tie and I said, ‘I thought you were skint?’. He went, ‘Always paint the shop window’. That was Willie. He wanted to walk the
walk and live the lifestyle, and to do that he risked everything.” Willie, 63, was declared bankrupt last year, after borrowing from friends to fund the addiction that saw him wager £20,000 on a single race.
Willie has also suffered from prostate cancer and depression. Earlier this month, he revealed he had been axed from the BBC commentary team for two out of his three events.
John says: “He rang me up and said, ‘I can’t believe it, they’ve sacked me’.
“So I said, ‘Willie, they’ve sacked me too’, because they have dropped me from the UK championships and I’m only doing the masters and the world.
“I’m not delighted but they just want to change the commentary system. The game moves on. At the end of the day, life is a gamble, isn’t it? A lot of it is sheer luck.
“I wanted to win the ultimate, the World Championship, but I didn’t as my career was cut short.”
John says his greatest regret is the time he wasted playing politics, as a board member and later chairman of the world governing body, the WPBSA.
It’s that which he believes cut short his career and left him wondering what to do after snooker.
John says: “Then I got a phone call asking me if I wanted to do a TV show with Jim Davidson.” Big Break, which ran from 1991-2002, resurrected Jim’s career and gave John a whole new one in light entertainment. He says: “He was a cockney Tory and I was a northern socialist but we had a chemistry that made it work. The viewing figures were amazing and we peaked at almost 14 million. People were gutted when it ended.”
The success of Big Break led to other breaks for John – his own range of waistcoats, books and apps of his trick shots, and panto appearances.
But he says his luckiest moment was finally getting a date with the attractive friend of a friend he had known for two decades – publishing executive, Rosie Ries.
He says: “A mate tried to set us up years ago but then his girlfriend said she wouldn’t be interested in me. I was so frightened of a knock-back, I didn’t ask her for out for 22 years. By then I’d lived on my own for five years and I needed that time to re-centre myself.
“But eventually we went on a date. I used my wit, charm and repartee on her and, blow me down, two months later we got engaged.
“It will be our eighth wedding anniversary in February and it’s been absolutely wonderful.”
Now that big day must have been magical, surely JV? His eyes twinkle as he says: “Best day of my life.”
Say Goodnight, JV by John Virgo, published by John Blake Books, is on sale from November 2, priced £18.99.