By Elliott West
Introduction
Everyone had heard of the Crucible curse but probably less of the cue curse. This was a curse that dogged Stephen Hendry during his career and involved the two snooker cues that he played with during his pomp years. Both were stolen and only the latter made its way back to the owner’s possession. Losing a snooker cue for a snooker player is like cutting off your right hand, leaving the player rudderless and left to his own devices in the snooker wilderness. A dark cloud that Hendry had momentarily loomed over the Scot’s head until he was able to navigate himself back to certainty.
The Nightmare Scenario
Disaster first struck for Stephen when the first cue that he had only had for four months, a John Spencer cue which cost him about £50 was stolen from the back of his Dad’s van at the rear of his fruit shop. A cue that weighed 17-18 ounces and had a 10-millimetre tip. With the discovery trail cold and no chance of a happy reunion, Hendry had to put his hand in his pocket and purchase another cue.
The second cue, a Rex Williams Connoisseur, a piece of snooker equipment that he picked out from a display case at the Classic Snooker Centre in Dunfermline survived the course of time but not before there was a massive bump in the road. Made of maple wood, the one-piece cue certainly wasn’t made of the best wood but it served its purpose. However many of his snooker colleagues snubbed the cue, critical of this choice, describing it as the worse piece of wood they had ever seen. A choosing that was unusual as most players bought two-piece cues and the odd player that did play with one such as Steve Davis, soon ditched it for the more practical choice.
With this food for thought, Hendry came to the conclusion that he should convert this cue into a two-piece version, largely due to the cue having a large bend in its shape and the more practical solution of making it easier to carry around in its case. Sadly though, Stephen didn’t have the courage to execute his plan. His reasoning being that it was a risky decision, changing the feel as the snooker implement was entrusted with additional joints in the cue.
With this dilemma thrown on the back burner, the Scot couldn’t contemplate what was about to land on his doorstep. Whilst practicing at the Ramada Hotel in Reading, Stephen had his cue stolen. The theft occurred when Hendry left his cue unattended to go to the bar for a soft drink. An absence that only lasted several minutes but on his return, the cue was nowhere to be seen.
Initially, Stephen thought it was a prank, possibly one of John Carroll’s pranks and decided to go looking for him. However, this search led to the penny dropping and sending Hendry into a blind panic when he realised that a theft had occurred and panic stations set their wheels in motion.
Now realising that the cue had been stolen, Stephen had to resort to Plan B and had to make a phone call for his other cue that had the same dimensions, to be flown down from Scotland. However, anyone who plays snooker will know that no cue plays the same way and when it did turn up, the replacement cursed the Scot, not allowing him to make more than a 16 break.
The cue ended up going missing for over a day and led to a £10,000 reward having to be paid for its return, stumped up by Stephen’s then manager, Ian Doyle. It was a painful lesson for Hendry and a mistake that he never made again in his career, keeping his cue in close eye contact for thereon. A scenario that had completely the opposite ending to when he once left his cue in his car overnight in Queensferry and forgot to lock the car but it was still there when he returned. It has a happy ending but a story that could have quite easily had a sting in its tail. Perhaps not the best occurrences for his manager to have to deal with, who was to have been known to have to turn the car around when Stephen had accidentally left his cue at home on the way to a crucial tournament.
