ROCKET: DAD’S JAIL TIME LEFT ME SNOOKERED
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN believes his dad’s prison sentence nearly derailed his career.
Ronnie Senior was jailed in 1992 for murder and released 18 years later.
And the Rocket revealed: “He was a big, driving force behind me, he kept me on the straight and narrow.
“It was teamwork, and to not have him there was tough. From 1995 to 2000, I won a few tournaments, but I was never really consistent as much as I should have been.
“I wasted probably five years of my career, messing about, really.
“Once I’d won the UK Championship, my first ranking title, there was a monkey off my back. But Dad was away and when he went away it took a year for me to get my head around accepting that he wasn’t going to be around.
“When I won that tournament, I devoted that win to him and thought if I never won another tournament, it would be fine. But, in a way, my intensity level
WHEN Charley Davison gave birth to her first child eight years ago, she doubted she would ever box again.
The Lowestoft fighter was stepping away from the ring aged 19 to become a parent.
She didn’t think she’d have enough time to enjoy her sport as a hobby, let alone compete again for medals at European and world level as an amateur.
When her second and third children arrived two and four years later, those hopes receded further still.
But now Davison is back and stands just one fight away from securing her place on the Great Britain squad heading to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Supermum Davison, who first boxed aged eight, recalled: “When I had my eldest, I just didn’t expect to come back.
“I always had it in my mind that I wanted to, though I thought how hard it would be juggling children and sport.
“But I seem to enjoy boxing more now than I did before I had my children.
“It’s a way of de-stressing – when I’m training, that’s where I block everything else out and just enjoy what I’m doing.
“I was told when I had my eldest that I wouldn’t be able to go back to boxing.
“But there’s always life after having children.
“People go back to their jobs and, yes, this is sport, but it’s just about how you cope with it.
“My motivation is my children – they have driven me to come back.
“I want to give them a good outlook on life, and want them to be able to dropped a little bit, I started enjoying myself a bit too much, thinking that I’d made it when really I hadn’t – it was just one tournament.
“I think it would have been a lot different with my dad around.”
And five-time world champion O’Sullivan believes that he could even have bettered Stephen Hendry’s record of seven world titles if he had not lost his way during those years.
“I think I’d have won the World Championships a lot earlier and won plenty more tournaments,” said O’Sullivan (left). “Absolutely, 100 per cent, it would have been different.
“But it was what it was. That was unfortunate for me and for him. Things could have been so much better.
“I certainly would have enjoyed my look at life from a different perspective.”
Davison made a tentative return to training in 2017, then stepped that up, and in 2018 missed out on the English title at 57kg.
That loss gave her the drive to try again and she become 54kg national champion last year.
Success there brought an invitation to a series of assessment days from the GB selectors, which in turn led to the chance to train with the squad in Sheffield from Monday to Thursday every week, meaning time away from her family.
That sacrifice won a shot at qualification for Tokyo and – after beating Carly McNaul, the 2018 Commonwealth Games flyweight silver medallist – Davison now needs to win only one more fight when qualifying resumes to reach the Olympics at 51kg.
Davison was obviously disappointed when the outbreak of coronavirus halted the qualifiers.
But she added: “When I sat down and thought about it, I said, ‘I’ve only been up there three or four months and I’ve gained so much from strength and conditioning and good sparring, so just imagine what a year’s worth of all that training will do?’.
“Some people have been on the programme for a long time so I’m not sure how much better they are going to get, whereas I’ve improved so much already that in a year I’ll be so much better, mentally and physically stronger.
“If you want something that much you will do anything to get it
“The Games have been my dream since I was a little girl – I’ve always wanted to be an Olympic gold medallist.” career a lot more having him around rather than not having him around.”
This year’s World Championship has been rescheduled to run from July 31 to August 16 at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.
And O’Sullivan, 44, who last won a world title in 2013, said: “I think I’ll give it one good crack and maybe next year or the year after I might play some more and then, by the time I’m 50, call it a day.
“At some point that has to happen, I can’t go on for ever.
“It would look stupid to keep playing and playing. I love doing the exhibitions and stuff like that, but, if I can get another four or five years out of my snooker career, that’s great.
“Obviously, I’d like to do the exhibitions, but then look to do stuff away from snooker.”