Abby Brammell

By Ivan Speck

Yesterday's man: White struggles in the soulless surroundings


The Crucible Theatre, dripping in folklore, lies 2.3 miles across the city of Sheffield. It might as well be on a different continent to the Badminton Hall of the English Institute of Sport.

Here, six snooker tables lie side by side, separated by bland, grey-walled partitions and watched over by a public gallery of 300 soft-cushioned seats.

It is a padded cell from which only 16 out of 108 players emerge, qualifiers for snooker's World Championship.

For the rest, the cell hems in their dreams, then dissolves them into its makeshift walls until they fade from view.

Jimmy White and John Parrott found themselves fighting for the freedom to dream on yesterday. Attempting to qualify for the Crucible humbles a man, stripping him of his dignity and laying him open to humiliation.

When you have ruled the snooker world, either by capturing hearts and minds - in White's case - or by holding the trophy aloft - as Parrott did in 1991 - and still subject yourself to this ordeal, admiration from those in the public gallery dovetails with pity.

When the prize on offer is not just one more match in the Crucible but your very right to play professional snooker at all, the pity begins to fuse with sadness, notwithstanding the fact that snooker's great champions feel it their duty to give back to the game.


Former World Champion: John Parrott won the Crucible title in 1991


As they began yesterday, Parrott stood 64th in the provisional rankings upon which next year's tour entry list will be based, White one place below him. Defeat for White would leave him begging for a wildcard to compete in the 2010-11 season, while Parrott's 10-6 defeat by Chinese teenager Anda Zhang leaves him at the mercy of other results.

Parrott, 45 and with a career as a BBC commentator on the game assured, said: 'If I'm off the tour, it's fairly certain that I'll retire. I certainly won't be playing any lower down. If I lose my card, that's me gone. I still have the utmost respect for the game. I've just lost in the World Championship and I'm not going to spit the dummy out. But I don't enjoy the hours of practice any more.

'My children got all my old trophies out downstairs and put them on the cabinet. I can look back and say I was UK, European and world champion all at the same time, so if you can find anywhere else to be a champion, let me know.'


In the jungle: White finished third in last year's 'I'm a celebrity'


Not that prize money is any longer an issue for either man, but the winner of these second-round matches is guaranteed £4,600. The loser gets nothing. Such throat-tightening pressure is perhaps the reason why World Snooker make the wearing of bow-ties optional in the qualifiers.

It was into this soulless arena that White - six times a World Championship finalist, never a winner - stepped yesterday at 10am. Not with a fanfare or a bellowed introduction of 'The Whirlwind of Old London Town' but unannounced save for a generic announcement of 12 players and six referees across six tables.

The 114 spectators clapped politely. Bizarrely, White's match against Mark Boyle was officiated by Michaela Tabb - a bit like football's top referee Howard Webb taking charge of an FA Cup fourth qualifying round fixture.

Then again, the play at times resembled such a standard. After 10 minutes, White led 9-0 in points. Less whirlwind, more of a light breeze. The frustrations for former greats is that the talent still lies within, it just doesn't come out as often.

The third frame, in which the lad who played truant at school in Tooting to hone his snooker game, was a case in point, a smooth, effortless 137 total clearance.

What followed from 3-0 ahead were six scratchy frames, of which four were lost to 28-year-old Boyle, a part-time postman from Glasgow whose own provisional ranking is 90 and who has won just one ranking match all season, in a qualifying event. White's relationship with the public was evident in the warmth wafting down upon him from the viewing gallery.

Last autumn the love for him was proven in the celebrity jungle. Yesterday he was thrust into a less forgiving world, uncertain what the future may hold for him.


source: dailymail