By Elliott West
Introduction
Born 1956 in Workshop, Danny Fowler is a former miner and later a dustman. Danny first started playing snooker for fun at the age of 15 and carried on until he was 20. After a brief hiatus, Fowler picked up his cue again and despite a purple patch as an amateur, turned professional in 1984. Danny was a dominant force but was hindered from true success by the looming presence of the Stephen Hendry era.
Life as a Professional
Fowler made a good start to his professional career with a great run in the 1984 International Open qualifiers. A blistering start that had Bob Chaperon, Roy Andrewartha and Dave Martin, losing at the hands of a whitewash, 5-0. Ironically though, the wind of success blew away when Danny met Dennis Taylor in the first round and became the victim of his own success, losing by the same score line, 0-5. This lad from Worksop, had to wait until the end of the season before he could shine again and this came in the qualifiers of the 1985 World Snooker Championship where he again punished his opponents with a 10-0 whitewash. John Hargreaves and Jim Donnelly were at the receiving end. His luck ran out though when he met John Parrott in the next qualifier losing, 2-10. A sweetener to the the defeat was that he rose to 55 in the rankings as a consequence of his previous wins.
His best season as a professional was the 1989-90 season when he reached the semi-finals of the Grand Prix and the Dubai Classic, losing 2-9 to Steve Davis and a tight match to Stephen Hendry, 4-5. However with joy always comes sadness and unfortunately Danny’s career will always be remembered for his disastrous clash with Stephen Hendry at the 1993 World Championship. The 1-10 defeat was so crushing because Fowler amassed only 191 points in the whole match with 60 being scored in the penultimate frame to avoid a whitewash. This record was held until 2019 when Luo Honghao lost to Shaun Murphy at the Crucible in which he only made 89 points.
Conclusion
Danny Fowler was a very good player but was a player that was constrained by Stephen Hendry from showing his full potential. A sportsman who had a high of 28 in the rankings in 1990, made an impressive highest break of 137 in the 1985 World Championship, 11 career centuries and career winnings of £221,236. However he was probably a player that was professional in the wrong era and unlike today, few tournaments existed for a larger chance of improvement. By the time Danny reached the 1996-97 season, he had plummeted to 114 in the rankings and this spelt the end of his professional career. He later became a courier for a company that sold maggots.
