“Del is a top man and a top coach. He knows me better than anyone.”
Ronnie O’Sullivan
Introduction
Behind every snooker great is a mastermind. One man who ticks all the boxes is the brilliant coach, Del Hill. A man who Jimmy White, Stephen Hendry and Mark Selby have sought the expertise of. Hill who has been likened to Jose Mourinho is a true snooker mechanic, tweaking players’ techniques at a remote farm in Friskney, Lincolnshire. A friend colossus who stands at 6ft 9in tall and who Ronnie O’Sullivan nicknamed Delvis after a night out at a Liverpool nightclub. If anyone knows expertise, Ronnie does. Del first met him when he was 16 and knew that he would become a Titan of the game. Del describes Ronnie as hard work but the greatest ever.
Hill, first stumbled across Ronnie at a pro-am in Bkackpool when he was coaching Graham Cripsey, the stunt motorcyclist who lost his thumb on the wall of death. Graham, then a professional, once ranked 34 in the world, dropped off and Ronnie asked Del to go with him. It was the start of a Road to Damascus moment where Hill found he had a talent. Being able to understand a player’s cue action within five minutes and helping them get through the ball. A coach who started at the top of the game and soon had Jimmy White and Tony Drago asking him for help.
The Craft
Del came from a poor background. The family didn’t have a lot but his father Jack was a gifted billiards player. He used to take his son to Neasden Snooker Club and played alongside the likes of Patsy Fagan and Neal Foulds. His parents divorced and his mother Elsie remarried. However, his stepfather was tragically crushed and killed by a downpipe on a building site.
It was then that Del decided to leave home at the age of 15 and did an apprenticeship, qualifying as a trained engineer. By the age of 17, he was living on the 13th floor of a block of flats in the rough end of Abbey Road. A flat that a mate helped him pay the rent for.
However, in 1978 Hill got an ex-council house through the man they called Dodgy Bob. A taxi driver who used to ferry Jimmy White and Tony Meo around to events as teenagers. He became a postman until an inoperable back injury forced him to retire in 1986. An injury that could have left him with a 4-1 chance of ending up in a wheelchair. A once keen golfer at Pinner Hill Golf Club with a handicap of 8.
Working His Magic
The couple decided to move with his post office pension to a secluded Lincolnshire farm. The farm became a calming influence for Hill, his wife and three sons. Despite his type-2 diabetes, Del was in his element. A farm that Hill has lovingly restored, turning a once-chicken shed that was used by the previous owner to store potatoes into a treasure trove of snooker memorabilia. A farm where the telephone rings off the hook with calls from far-flung countries such as Russia and India. Del has visited Thailand 24 times and shared many a private chat with Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Hendry over a cosy cup of tea in a crucial tournament. Turning a broken gun into a player with six bullets. A coach with an aim of making a player self-sufficient. Once who helped Graeme Dott win his World Championship title in 2006 after reaching the final two years earlier. A 500-1 outsider at the start of the tournament.
Hill’s proudest moment came at the end of a highly-successful spell as the coach of England’s amateur squad, in which they won the Prince of Wales Shield five years consecutively between 2007 and 2011. He says: “In the bar, with the karaoke on, the whole team were singing ‘you’re simply the best’. I was goose-pimply.”
