By Elliott West
“She’s one of those referees, it’s apparent she’s got what you need, quiet efficiency”.
Phil Yates
Introduction
Lyu Xilin or Queenie Lyu as she is known amongst the snooker community is fast becoming a familiar face on the snooker circuit. The wife of the famous Chinese snooker referee Deng Shihao, Queenie is currently appearing at the Johnstone’s Paint Tour Championship. A lady who is not phased by the drama of the green baize and has a calming influence and can keep control at all times. Those who haven’t come across this Chinese referee yet, just have to research her snooker portfolio to date. She has already refereed the semi-finals of the 2014 International Championship, and the semi-finals of the 2016 Shanghai Masters, and went to Thailand to referee the Six-Red Ball World Championship. At the 2015 Players Championship held in Thailand, Lu Xilin became the only Chinese referee. She refereed her first-ranking final at the 2019 World Snooker International Championship and her second was at the 2023 World Snooker International Championship where she witnessed Zhang Anda get a 147 break. Her first maximum break as a professional referee.
Rising Stars
Queenie joins a growing band of female Chinese snooker referees. This lady herself juggles being the mother of a young daughter with the heavy workload and hours that being a snooker referee entails. With long hours spent on your feet and plenty of early starts and late finishes, this job is not for the faint-hearted but even her daughter is getting a taste for the bug that her parents do so well. Maybe she will take over the mantle from her parents in the future. Queenie has joined the regular faces of Zhu Ying and Li An on the tour. A welcome addition to a group of women who are just brilliant at what they do and give the men a run for their money.
I was once told by a German referee in Berlin that being a snooker referee is not just a job but a passion. I couldn’t agree more. Unlike the potential earnings for top professional snooker players, snooker referees earn frankly next to nothing for what they do. Yes, their profiles are raised with social media and media exposure but when the lights go out and the balls have been replaced in their case, they just fade back into the background of an ordinary day. In reality, their jobs are just as hard as a snooker player’s. They have to keep deep concentration at all times, keep score and have the rule book stored in their brain. Ready to pull out a rule when it needs implementing, controlling the audience and remembering exactly where the balls land in case there is a foul, a miss or both.
Aided by the keen eye of a second referee as a marker at the back of the snooker stage, these Chinese ladies are aided by the advanced technology of VT, Hawkeye and the more advanced technology in China that tracks the balls. With China now firmly out of the grip of COVID-19, a multitude of tournaments and exhibitions have emerged and drawn a hungry Chinese audience to watch the brilliance that snooker constantly produces. Queenie is one of the people at the centre of this snooker furore where mobile phone message alerts still ring out across the auditorium and people are employed to walk around with placards advising the audience to have their phones on silent. A message that all too often falls on deaf ears.
This is a challenging role for Queenie and her other female Chinese colleagues. They must call out rule-breaking in the crowd and press the ejection button if they have to. Plenty choose to leave the arena for a toilet break at an inopportune moment or start walking about when the player is down on the shot. A stern look and a vocal warning are sometimes all it needs to stop the disruption but faced with a sea of faces, it is often difficult to find the culprit in question at first. Yet their decisions are rarely wrong and their work gets the utmost respect from fans and players alike. This a clear example of the brilliance of equality and inclusion in action and long may it rule the snooker stage!