THE CRUCIBLE – SNOOKER’S THEATRE OF DREAMS
SHAKESPEARE, CHEKHOV and Ibsen... The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield has played host to some of the greatest plays ever written.
But while it has carved out a reputation for being one of the country’s most innovative stages, it has also witnessed drama of an altogether different, and sometimes no less gripping, kind.
For the past 40 years it has played host to the Snooker World Championship as legends of the game such as Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan have bid to be crowned master of the green baize. During that time it has witnessed some titanic matches including the momentous 1985 “black-ball final” between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis and the fabled 1982 semi-final between a young Jimmy White and his boyhood idol Alex Higgins.
Now, snooker writer Hector Nunns has re-examined some of these epic sporting duels in his new book –
Today, the Crucible is known the world over as the unofficial “home of snooker” but it was a stroke of fortune that brought the two together.
The 1976 Snooker World Championship had been held at Wythenshawe Forum in Manchester but it hadn’t been a great success and Nunns recalls how promoter Mike Watterson then stumbled across the Crucible with the help of his wife Carole.
“He was looking for a venue so he could make a pitch to stage the world championship and his wife happened to have been to see a play at the Crucible and she said to him afterwards ‘I think I’ve seen the perfect venue for snooker.’ He went to have a look at it and it went from there”.
Just a month before the first world championships were held there in 1977 a young Alan Rickman and Ruby Wax had starred in a production of
and there was no guarantee that the Crucible would work as a snooker venue.
“There were some worries that there wasn’t quite enough space to have a table either side of the screen and enough room for the players to play their shots, but the stage manager was a bit creative and came up with a bit of extra space by doing something to the stage and that enabled them to have the two tables which was the set-up they wanted,” says Nunns.
Up to this point the tournament had been held at a few different venues. “These were small exhibition rooms or large working men’s clubs, so a theatre was quite novel. There were a few nerves around, there were concerns about how the players would like it and whether fans would turn up in good numbers.”
As it turned out the event was successful and so began a romance between the venue and snooker that continues to this day.
In recent years there have been calls for the tournament to be held elsewhere reflecting the sport’s global appeal. However, World Snooker and Sheffield Council struck a deal last year keeping the blue riband event in South Yorkshire for at least another decade, much to the relief and delight of fans and players. “If you ask could Barry Hearn probably get more money from staging the World Championship somewhere else? Then the answer is probably ‘yes,’” says Nunns.
“He has always said it’s like a great British institution and a great Sheffield and Yorkshire institution and he doesn’t want to tinker with the length of the matches or the venue. The Crucible is a bit like Augusta (home of the US Masters in golf ) rather than an Open that moves to different places.”
It only has a capacity of around 980, so what makes the Crucible such a special venue? “It’s steeped in the history of the sport and people have grown up watching the great matches that have been played there.
“There’s no seat in the Crucible where you don’t have a good view. It’s not like the old Wembley conference centre where if you were sat at the back you could hardly see the balls.
“It’s shaped like an amphitheatre it’s a real gladiatorial arena and lends itself to that one-to-one combat and it generates an incredible atmosphere,” he says.
“It’s slightly eccentric in that it doesn’t feel like a major sporting venue. From the players point of view perhaps the changing rooms aren’t as big as they get elsewhere but they don’t mind because of the magic created in the arena. Any minor shortcomings are made up for by the awe and tradition of the place.”
Nunns has chosen 19 great matches from the past four decades for his book but concedes it was hard to leave some out. “Barry Hearn described this as a pub argument waiting to happen and he’s probably right because it depends who your favourite player is and the type of match you enjoy.”
Arguably the single most famous match in Crucible history is the 1985 final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, with the latter winning in dramatic fashion. “It finished at twenty past midnight and was watched by 18.5 million people. If I’d left that one out there would have probably been a riot among the snooker fraternity,” says Nunns.
“It wasn’t actually a very high quality match because there were no centuries. But some of the mistakes created drama on a scale probably not seen before and the fact that it came down to the very last frame and the very last ball only enhanced that.”
There have been mavericks like Alex Higgins and Bill Werbeniuk that have entertained the crowds over the years, and the Crucible has also seen the occasional underdog