By Elliott West
Introduction
Anthony Harris is a former professional snooker player. A player who is best remembered for winning the English Amateur Championship in 1986, the same year that Chas and Dave’s song, ‘Snooker Loopy’ was released and Joe Johnson defeated Steve Davis 18-12 to claim the World Championship title. Now 53, Harris is Managing Director of Birmingham-based company Mainstream Print.
A Moment of Glory
The English Amateur Championship is the oldest and one of the most prestigious titles for any budding snooker player to win. Then only 18, Anthony travelled to the Library Theatre in Bradford, a venue that had a 360 seat capacity. Playing Geoff Grennan in the final, Anthony led the match 5-3 at the end of the first session but Grennan then came back at him to take the first three frames the following afternoon to take the lead 6-5. Geoff then went 7-6 up before Anthony won the last three frames of the session to lead 9-7.
The first frame of the final session contained a tactical battle on the yellow which between the two players, conceded 24 points. Eventually, Harris managed to take advantage with his brown to black clearance, making the difference between leading 10-7 and only 9-8. A strong performance by Harris ensued and he went on to lead 10-8. However, he had to go through some worrying times before lifting the title, including Grennan getting a snooker on the green with Harris falling into his snooker trap, striking the black instead of the pink.
However an in-off on the black with an attempted thin cut, proved to be Grennan’s fatal mistake and Anthony was able to capitalise, going 11-8 up in the match. Going four up with only five frames left to play, Harris only dropped another frame, winning the match after obtaining a required snooker and going to cross the finishing line with a 33 clearance.
This was a tremendous 13-9 victory for Anthony Harris and made him the third-youngest ever player to win the Amateur title in its then 70 years of existence. The other two players being Rex Williams when he won in 1951, aged 17 and Jimmy White, the youngest in 1979 when he was 16. Anthony Harris went to pair with Geoff Grennan for England in the World Amateur Championship in Invercargill, New Zealand the same year. Harris was defeated in Group 1 by Thailand’s Noppadon Noppachorn 4-2 but Grennan managed to get to the semi-finals, losing narrowly to the Welsh player, Kerry Jones 8-7.
Professional and Beyond
Turning professional in 1986, Harris did well in a couple of Pro-Ticket events, a qualifying event of which in 1985 led him to turn professional, defeating Tony Putnan 5-1 in the final. He also did well in Event 2 of this series, reaching the last 16, losing to Jon Wright 4-2 and in 1986 in Event 3, he reached the semi-finals, losing to Paul Cavney 4-0 and narrowly lost to Jim Chambers 4-3 the same year in Event 4.
From then on, his career largely consisted of the last 96 or 128 finishes but he did reach the last 32 of the 1989 English Professional Championship, having a walk over to the last 48, thanks to George Scott’s withdrawal from the tournament. He went on to defeat Tony Jones 5-3 before losing to Dean Reynolds 5-1. He also got to the last 64 of the non-ranking event, the 1990 Benson and Hedges Satellite Championship, defeated by David Roe 5-4 and reached the last 32 of the same tournament in 1991, losing to Willie Thorne 5-3.
Since retirement from the professional game, Anthony has taken part in several World Seniors matches including getting to round 2 of the 2015 and World Seniors Championships. He has also made several attempts to get back onto the professional tour via the Q School, sadly with no breakthrough to date. An avid Aston Villa fan, Anthony once had a job delivering the Yellow Pages.
