By Elliott West
“Yes, everyone seemed to enjoy it. In fact, for the next week, everybody was coming up to me to say what a great match it had been. You might say what a great match it had been. You might say that I got all the glory but only half the prize money. That’s show business, I suppose”.
John Spencer
Introduction
Held in the plush surroundings of the Piccadilly Hotel in London, the Norwich Union Open or as Ted Lowe named it, the Norwich Union World Open, was a highly touted event held in 1973 and 1974. An invitational tournament, the event was open to professionals and amateurs and was made up of 16 players. With a total prize fund of £3,500 and a winner’s share of £1,000 in 1973, the prize fund broke down in the following order:
Winner: £1,000
Runner-up: £500
Third place: £300
Fourth place: £200
Quarter-final: £125
Last 16: £75
Last 24: £50
Total: £3,500
Draw
First Round (Best of 7 frames)
John Dunning v Jim Meadowcroft 4-0
Jonathan Barron v Ron Gross 4-2
Dennis Taylor v Alwyn Lloyd 4-1
Pat Houlihan v John Virgo 4-3
David Taylor v Jack Karnehm 4-2
Arvid Savur v David Greaves 4-2
Chris Ross v Marcus Owen 4-3
Sid Hood v Jackie Rea 4-0
Second Round ( Best of 7 frames)
John Spencer v John Dunning 4-3
Ray Edmonds v Jonathan Barron 4-3
Alex Higgins v Dennis Taylor 4-3
Cliff Thorburn v Pat Houlihan 4-0
John Pulman v David Taylor 4-3
Graham Miles v Arvind Savur 4-1
Eddie Charlton v Chris Ross 4-0
Sid Hood v Manuel Francisco 4-3
Quarter- Finals (Best of 7 frames)
John Spencer v Ray Edmonds 4-0
Alex Higgins v Cliff Thorburn 4-2
John Pulman v Graham Miles 4-3
Eddie Charlton v Sid Hood 4-0
Semi-Finals (Best of 15 frames)
John Spencer v Alex Higgins 8-2
John Pulman v Eddie Charlton 8-3
Play-off for third place
Eddie Charlton v Alex Higgins 8-5
The Final
John Spencer v John Pulman 8-7
The Tournament
First Round
The English amateur international,Sid Hood produced an impressive win over Irish professional Jack Rea. This emphatic 4-0 win was tinged with sadness as Rea had been rumoured to have suffered a heart attack several weeks earlier and went into competition, suffering from an attack of gout.
This round also produced several close finishes. The first being between Scotland’s Chris Ross and Wales’s Marcus Owen. Ross went 3-0 down in the match to Owen, losing all three frames on the pink and black. Ross however fought back and won the match 4-3 on the final black.
The black seemed to be the themed ball of the day as was shown in the match between Pat Houlihan and John Virgo. Houlihan won the match 4-3, victorious due to potting the final black. The doubters were silenced when John Dunning faced Jim Meadowcroft. Dunning showed his star qualities despite being underrated prior to the start of this match and silenced the stylish Meadowcroft 4-2.
Second Round
One of the top eight seeds from South Africa, Mannie Francisco fell at the first hurdle, despite leading Sid Hood in his match. It was a painful way to lose, seeing his lead ebb away and then having to endure defeat, losing the match on the black. Hood who was described as a prickly customer, had a habit of winning a match on the precipice of defeat and took advantage of Francisco’s Achilles’ heel, a psychological weakness of finishing off a match from a winning position.
In the end, Hood eked out the match on the final colours, potting a killer blue after the South African missed the simplest of yellows with green and brown also in potable positions which would have given him frame and match.
Graham Miles was in no mood for a loss as he squared up to India’s Arvind Savur. Nicknamed ‘The Tornado’, Savur failed to live up to expectations, unable to repeat his blistering performance against David Greaves in the first round, potting balls off the lampshades in his 4-2 victory. In the end, a relieved Graham easily won the match 4-1.
Ray Edmonds met his old foe, Jonathan Barron in the second round and carried on the trend of close finishes with his opponent. The first four frames produced some magical snooker. Edmonds took the fourth frame to share the first part of the match 2-2 with a 27 clearance. Barron made the highest break of the match with a 44 break to level the match again to 3-3 but Edmonds comfortably won the decider to close out the match 4-3.
Dennis Taylor in his match against Alex Higgins could easily have beaten the ‘Hurricane’, winning the first frame and 30 ahead in the second frame, he attempted a reckless red, which rebounded off the intended pocket jaws and consequently opened two reds as a result, allowing Higgins a relatively easy start.
Higgins surged as a result of Taylor’s error and went 2-1 and then 3-2 ahead in the match but Dennis didn’t go out of the match without a fight, pulling the game back to 2-2 and then 3-3 before Alex won the decider to win the match 4-3.
John Spencer in his Mach against John Dunning trailed 1-2 and missed some really easy balls in the interim. Although ahead, Dunning struggled, exposing his weaker game, not being able to compete with the range of shots that the professionals could produce. Although he took the match to a decider at 3-3, Spencer nailed the Yorkshireman with a 46 break in the decider.
David Taylor, the ‘Silver Fox’, had every opportunity to beat the eight times World Champion, John Pulman. The Devonian, Pulman led the match 3-1 but Taylor pulled the match back to 3-3 and had a clear opportunity to win the deciding frame. However David missed an easy green but somehow fluked it into the pocket, leaving himself a straightforward brown. Taylor missed and allowed the former World Champion to progress uneasily into the quarter-finals with a 4-3 win.
Quarter-Finals
Pulman seemed to have learned from his mistakes when he faced Graham Miles in his next match. Regaining the art of winning, John managed to withstand the blistering form of the Midlander Miles. Graham had led the match 3-1 with a 35 point lead in the fifth frame. However John pulled the match out of the fire and won the match 4-3.
John Spencer quickly finished off Ray Edmonds despite two close frames that could have easily favoured his opponent. In the end Spencer inflicted a blistering 4-0 whitewash over Edmonds. This trend was repeated with more ease in Eddie Charlton’s draw with Sid Hood, comfortably beating his rival 4-0.
Cliff Thorburn was 0-2 in his match against Alex Higgins but brought the game back to 2-2. However the Canadian’s concentration floundered in the fifth frame and the Irishman took advantage of his opponent’s lapse of concentration and won the sixth frame and the match on the final colours, producing a 4-2 win.
Semi-Finals
Alex Higgins lacked his usual flair and electricity when he came up his long time rival John Spencer. Alex played like a spluttering match, producing fitful flashes but John was in the end too much of a force to be reckoned with and Spencer inflicted a 8-2 victory over Higgins.
The surprise of the semi-finals, was Eddie Charlton’s defeat. The Australian had not dropped a frame up until this point whereas his opponent, Pulman had struggled to get over the line in his previous matches with two close call 4-3 wins. Perhaps this was the key to this win because it enforced the stamina needed to win a match and produced a convincing 8-3 win for John over ‘Steady Eddie’.
The Final
In a final, where two former World Champions were pitched against each other, John Pulman met John Spencer. Spencer had a good track record against Pulman and had not often lost a match against him. This match though produced a headache for John. Although this was not apparent in the early stages of the match as Spencer produced a commanding 4-0 lead in the afternoon session. In the evening session, this then increased to 6-2 but John missed a chance to increase his lead to 7-2.
Pulman pulled out all the stops and drew on his ten years as a World Champion, soaking up the tension of the match to bring it back to 7-7. In the decider, Spencer produced a 50 break to put him in front but John came back at him and made a 39 break and looked like he was heading for the winning line. However in potting the yellow into its own pocket, he unintentionally knocked the brown into a safe position, very close to the yellow pocket. With this mistake and a subsequent lapse in concentration, he missed the green and handed Spencer the match and title. A prize which landed John Spencer £1,500 as the victor and £1,000 to John Pulman as the runner-up. Eddie Charlton won the third place play-off by defeating Alex Higgins 8-5 and claiming £300 in prize money.
Summary
This was a short-lived tournament and only ran for two with John Spencer victorious in both years of it being held, defeating Ray Reardon in the 1974 final in another close call 10-9. One of the many tournaments in London, it was a much acclaimed event in its time and echoed the dominance of the key players of the time. Perhaps not as high scoring as the modern game, this tournament was filled with the best players of the time and oozed nostalgia. A fine affair that was staged at the heart of the country’s capital.
