By Elliott West
Introduction
Nestled in one of the rooms just outside the main arena in the Crucible during the Seventeen days of the World Championship for many years, the Heritage Room housed some of the trues treasures from the history of billiards and snooker. Devised and created by Roger Lee, the exhibits attracted players and fans from far and wide. The Heritage Room ran at multiple sites and at the Crucible between 1996 and 2005 and was conceived to embrace the modern game by remembering where the game came from and celebrating those who made this progression possible.
The Innovator
Roger Lee (Reynolds), previously famous for his light entertainment impressionist act, the Brother Lees and a dear friend of the late John Spencer, was and is an avid collector of memorabilia from billiards and snooker. Whether it be an antique scoreboard, a table from yesteryear, or a snooker match that hadn’t been aired for years, Roger is bound to have it or something similar in his vast collection. He has also written many books about various types of cue sports and has released DVDs as well. Later to Director of Lees Leisure and the owner of two snooker clubs, Virgo’s snooker club in Holt and Broadland Snooker Centre in Norwich, a former North Norfolk billiards champion, his installation of the Heritage Room at the Crucible in 1996 was a stroke of genius and a highly successful project. An idea conceived by John Spencer, who asked Roger to help bring it about.
An Aladdin’s Cave
The Heritage Room was a treasure-trove of cue sports memorabilia. Its significance is highlighted in the BBC piece that I have included in this blog where John Pulman and Ray Reardon revel over an antique snooker scoreboard, helping bring memories of their days together in the sport or John Spencer holding the trophy aloft that he first won at the World Championship in 1969. The room housed many of the trophies of yesteryear, including the Daily Mail Gold Cup won by Alec Brown in 1939 at Thurston’s Hall after defeating Sidney Smith and some great photographs and pictures of Joe Davis, including a bust of the great man. The room also had an eight-sided billiards table and a MIP table, not full-sized, where billiards or snooker could be practiced with the aid of two marked ‘Ds’ on the table.
A fascinating piece of history was also there, the cue pen, used by Alec Brown in 1938, a pen that the player used a protest to a referee decision during his match, tapping the cue-ball wit a pen he produced from his pocket. This led to a rule change, meaning that every cue in future, had to be least three feet long.
The room also had the various types of snooker balls used over the years up until the modern era, a ball that began life in an ivory version and led to the killing of over twelve thousand elephants each year to produce.
The room has been graced by the likes of a very young Judd Trump and Michael White with David Vine and Dougie Donnelly popping in for World Championship presentations for the BBC. Whether it was Stephen Hendry popping in to look at some of the exhibits or Dennis Taylor practicing a shot on one of the tables, this truly was a treasure trove of artifacts. A place where you could be momentarily cast back in time and experience some of the key moments from the history of billiards and snooker. Sadly the Heritage Room is no more and was replaced in 2006 for the World Championship by corporate hospitality for the tournament sponsors.
