by elliott west
Snooker is wonderful at tournament level but never forget the good old exhibition. Yesterday I traveled down to Eastbourne to watch my friend Ken Doherty play in a exhibition at the Fisherman’s snooker club on the seafront. Ken has done his radio show in Dublin in the morning and then got on a plane and traveled across the Irish Sea to sunny Sussex to play for one night only in front of a packed local crowd. As he walked down the street people were recognising him and calling out his name.
The event itself was great with various people playing Ken. Ken beat them all bar one, but maybe his secret weapon was his jokes and recollection of years gone by. The thing about Ken is he is a entertainer as well as a snooker player and loves to engage with the audience. When they react he gets a twinkle in his eye. Even, myself who knows so much about snooker was educated on some of the backstage carry-ons and it had a positive effect of bringing the house down with laughter.
With the crowd roaring away next door watching the Championship final, our snooker room seemed to get hotter even though the air conditioning was on but maybe that was because the atmosphere was tense as you could see how much both Ken and his challengers wanted to win. The frames kept stacking up to Ken until one worthy opponent managed to unseat Mr. Doherty for a while with some fabulous breaks. This shows that even a champion is fallible and Ken did what any great sportsman would do and congratulated him.
After various auctions and raffles everyone seemed to have experienced or was taking home a fragment of snooker and those who knew nothing about it, had a master class from Crafty Ken. His Q&A at the end revealed a great insight into the life of Alex Higgins, winning the World Championship in 1997, the life of Paul Hunter and who he considered to be the greatest player to ever have graced the baize. The clue to the answer has Ronnie in the title.
The evening ended in the bar with myself, Ken and my mate Colin Phillips sat in the bar area. One of Ken’s friends produced a guitar and so we were entertained with various songs from Sweet Caroline or a request or two. We said our goodbyes to the club in the wee hours and took a short walk along the seafront road. As we walked, we chatted and it felt like the film The Three Amigos, minus the cue case Ken was carrying. A wonderful time was had by all and was so great to catch up with my pals Colin and Ken again. A fabulous venue in a fantastic town, great weather and thanks to Colin for all his continuous hard work to bring these snooker events to life. Never easy but you always do us proud!
