BAIZE OF GLORY
Legends Hendry and White renew one of the great rivalries of the 90s as they do battle again tomorrow
IN the 1990s, you were either Oasis or Blur, Coronation Street or EastEnders, Stephen Hendry or Jimmy White...
Hendry was the stony-faced Scot loved by the snooker purists, White the Cockney cavalier who found support in the smoky clubs and betting shops from where he came.
The big occasion suited Hendry rather better than it suited White.
Four times they met in World Championship finals between 1990 and 1994 – and four times Hendry won.
Over the next couple of days, sports fans – not just snooker fans – will ask a question that has not been asked for more than two decades.
Who won the big match?
Hendry or White?
Because tomorrow night, Hendry and White meet in the first qualifying round of the World Championship at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield over the best of 11 frames.
The winner will still have to get through three more games just to reach the Crucible and, once there, there are five more to be won before a champion is crowned.
These days the target is just to get to the Crucible and the lowered expectation is good for White, whose nerve failed him in the 1994 final when he snatched at a straightforward black off its spot in the deciding 35th frame.
Hendry mopped up for the fourth of his seven world titles, while White is resigned to never lifting the trophy.
Tomorrow’s match won’t decide who is the world’s best, but there is a joy to this reunion.
This is not snooker’s equivalent of a pair of old prizefighters dragging themselves out of retirement for one
last pay day. White and Hendry still play snooker because they love it.
Snooker has been White’s life for really rather longer than it should have been – ever since a taxi driver known as ‘Dodgy Bob’ convinced the 13-year-old ‘Whirlwind’ his days would be better spent playing snooker for money rather than going to school.
So little time did White spend at school that after he became famous, he struggled to give fans his autograph.
“As long as I can hold a cue and don’t have any problems with my eyes, I will carry on,” White once said. And coach Steve Feeney says Hendry is playing with a smile – and playing well.
“Can Stephen win another world title? I believe he can,” he said.
“People may think I’m stupid, but I said the same about Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams and Stuart Bingham – and I was right about them.”
Hendry made a century break in his comeback match, a 4-1 loss to Matt Selt in the Gibraltar Open.
But White’s form is better. Only three weeks ago, he made a break of 140 – his best for 11 years – in a World Snooker Tour Pro Series group match.
His skills had been sharpened by playing money matches... against Hendry.