Right on cue Snooker legends Jimm Jimmy and Ronnie go fac face to face
O’sullivan and White meet to talk about the glory days and swapping cues for microphones ‘When Jimmy and Alex Higgins played it was pure snooker. Other people sort of ruined that organic feeling’
Alan Tyers What are your first memories of each other? Ronnie O’sullivan I loved Jimmy’s flair, the way he played the game. All the other players, they were all cueing up like this [O’sullivan mimes a doddery, arthritic cue action], but Jimmy had style. When Jimmy and Alex Higgins played, it was pure snooker. And I think other people sort of destroyed that organic feeling, you know? They try and coach it out of themselves in some sort of way, become like robots. Jimmy brought rock ’n’ roll to snooker.
Jimmy White I’d heard about him when he was a young kid. I played him at Norbreck Castle [in Blackpool] when he was a teenager. I won the first game and lost the next five. I was, you know, a sort of on-the-road person then and I wasn’t really playing. But I knew at the time he was great for snooker. He combined my attacking and Steve Davis’s defence.
RO Talking about combining, Stephen Hendry had that quality like he was half-robot, half-human, I call him a hybrid [ White laughs]. You need that to be a prolific winner, but if the sport only had that sort of players would it be as entertaining? Probably not. But Jimmy, Jimmy would just turn up in his suit, bring excitement to a whole place. He’s unique.
[ White pulls a large wad of money from his pocket and jokingly passes it to O’sullivan by way of payment for the testimonial]. AT And what about your friendship off the table? JW We are similar sort of people. We like to go out, have a good time. RO I showed him the ropes. JW I don’t go out all that much any more, I enjoy the normal things in life, but we have a bit of fun occasionally.
AT What would you change about your careers, knowing what you know now?
JW 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? What I should have done is prepared better.
RO I would have changed a few things, too. There was a period from about 19 to 25 when I just got absolutely hammered. Skunked myself to death. And that was a coping mechanism for me. Because I think my dad going away when I was 16 kind of hit me but didn’t really hit me. And it took time for that to sink in. Once it did, I needed a release. If I had found the release in doing triathlons I would have been Olympic champion by now probably. Once I get stuck into something I take it to its limits. And them six years, if I could change them, I would.
JW Talent, it can become a trap. Back in the day, when there weren’t so many good players, sometimes you’d win, and you might be laughing with your mates, thinking “oh, I have won that and the only practice I have done is in the tournament”. And you get big-headed. But the game’s bigger than anyone.
AT Did you ever think you’d be doing punditry, like you are now? RO I could never watch a game of snooker before.
JW Yeah! And now we’re like “here, this is good”. And we’re not gambling!
AT What’s it like, commenting about people you know really well?
RO After Anthony Hamilton won his first tournament, it was like ‘He’s my mate, I grew up with him.’
JW And the tournament before, Hamilton had lost in the worst way.
RO Yeah, he like touched the white. Feathered it, lost the semi. It was so bad. And if he’d went out and hanged himself you’d have gone, “Yeah, I get it”.
JW Yeah.
RO For a snooker player, you know, I get it. You’d want to check on him that night. You don’t know what to say, and then the next month he is wining the German Open. He is a journeyman but he is a class act.
JW And he was cueing beautiful. Like a top-four player. So, we’ve enjoyed that. I got such a buzz being there. People come to you for advice. Like your pal Liang Wenbo, Ronnie.
RO I am giving him the diluted version of what I have been getting from [his psychiatrist] Steve Peters. And I know it works, so I pass it on – you need to switch off your emotions, because you cannot control your form. All you can control is your mind. AT What about the future? RO A lot of sportsmen, when they are not doing their sport they lose their identity. I think it’s important to try and pre-empt that so, you know … I don’t want to let snooker kill me. I wanted snooker to be everything that I wanted to do, but then what else do I do with my time? I think I will always play snooker, but I think there will come a point where no matter how good you think you are, you are not going to get the buzz if you are not …
JW Producing.
RO Yeah, producing.
JW So you are weaning yourself off.
RO Yeah
JW That’s smart. You have to look at people that’s gone before you. RO You cannot think ‘Oh this is not going to happen to me’. You’re not invincible. We are all human. We all need purpose in life.”