By Elliott West
Introduction
Think of a snooker tournament that brings back warm memories and one that has to be at the top of the list, must be the sadly missed Mercantile Credit Classic. This was an event that propelled the careers of Willie Thorne, Doug Mountjoy and Steve James. With a trademark trophy and a winner’s speech that was often emotional, the victor had to run a snooker marathon to get their hands on this treasured prize.
In 1990, the Mercantile Credit Classic was held at the notorious Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool. A venue that held fond memories for some players and nightmares for other. Often used as a qualifying base, the Norbreck was where rising players aimed to make their dreams and some dragged themselves there to try and hold on to their place on the tour.
On this occasion, the silverware and £60,000 went to the former postman from Cannock, Steve James. Steve beat the Australian, Warren King in the final 10-6. This was sadly his only professional title, adding to his 1992 Pontins Professional trophy, a non-ranking event.
The Tournament
First Round
The 1986 tournament took place between the 2nd and 13th January, 1990 with ITV coverage beginning on the 6th. An event that was full of surprises and upsets and left only four of the top sixteen reaching their seeding places.
The biggest shock came at the very beginning of the event when Doug Mounjoy was beaten by Steve Duggan in the first round 5-4. Duggan applied his Yorkshire grit to defeat the Welshman, in a dour match that lasted 247 minutes. This was a match that ended Mountjoy’s fantastic year, a year that the press had dubbed ‘the year of the dragon’.
Mountjoy trailed 1-3 and 3-4 but was well placed to clear the colours in the deciding frame. A frame that Duggan had made an initial contribution of 43. However Doug overhit the positional shot from brown to blue and his attempt to pot the blue with force resulted in an unattended kiss on the pink. This sent it into the top left hand pocket and left him needing snookers.
A similar fate was experienced by Terry Griffiths when he met Warren King with a brutal run of the balls an some determined play, King mauled his opponent and left Terry heading for the car park with a 5-1 victory. Griffiths said of the encounter:
“I just didn’t play well enough”
Terry Griffiths
Perhaps these losses were infectious because another casualty of the tournament was Joe Johnson in the top half of the draw. Johnson, the number 11, was whitewashed 5-0 by Nigel Gilbert. There was also a further surprise when Jimmy White withdrew from the competition. This came two hours before the tournament began. Jimmy who had been struck down by influenza, was too sick to make the flight from London to Manchester and so gave Ian Brunby his first ranking point.
The second day followed the same pattern as the first with both Tony Knowles and Willie Thorne being defeated. Knowles who was already teetering towards the edge of the top 16, lost 5-4 to John Campbell. Knowles complained about the damp and cold playing conditions, moaning that couldn’t feel his finger tips during the match and said that Campbell was taking too long on his shots. However the so called “five minutes on a shot” won the day.
Thorne sporting a small ponytail, followed the same fate, losing to the ‘Silver Fox’, David Taylor. Taylor was impressive, making breaks of 42 and 73 in the last two frames. Taylor said after the win:
“I could tell Willie wasn’t thinking clearly. He went for a couple of shots that were suicidal”.
David Taylor
However this was where the rot stopped. Steve Davis scraped through a tough battle with Wales’s Tony Chappel and breathed a sigh of relief after winning the match 5-4 with a winning 54 break.This was revenge for Chapel’s victory at the same stage of the event the previous year. Stephen Hendry, John Parrott, Mike Hallett, Dennis Taylor and Silvino Francisco were also successful.
Second Round
This victory March wouldn’t last long for Stephen Hendry. He lost 2-5 to New Zealand’s Dene O’Kane. Having just recovered from flu, Dene went up 3-0, aided by an outrageous fluke into the middle pocket in the second frame. O’Kane wasn’t phased by Stephen’s counter attack and fought back his usual nervousness to clinch the match impressively. Wins did however come for Martin Clark, Silvio Francisco, Steve James, Wayne Jones, Brian Morgan, Darren Morgan, Steve Newbury, Mark Rowling to name but a few.
Quarter-Finals
Warren King beat Steve Newbury 5-3
King became the first Australian to reach a ranking semi-final for six and a half years after a three hours fifty-four minute minutes battle. His 63 break in the opening frame with several balls awkwardly situated, was of high quality but the match soon became bogged down in cautious, tactical exchanges and anxious mistakes in potting and position.
From 3-3, King managed to take the next two frames for the match, just managing to avoid going in-off the pink when Newbury needed a snooker in what proved to be the clinching frame, to assure himself of £18,000.
Silvino Francisco beat Dene O’Kane 5-4
Francisco reached his first semi-final since the 1986 Rothmans Grand Prix after O’Kane had made a break of 100 to lead 4-3.
The South African equalised with a 63 break and from 0-22 in the decider won the match with 71. O’Kane having given him the initial chance of a straight red from hand by firing the cue-ball straight into a top pocket in attempting a thin safety.
Steve James beat Wayne Jones 5-2
Jones started slowly and lost the first two frames. He won the third but missed an easy red in the fourth which let James in for a winning 50 and a 3-1 lead.
Steve Davis beat Brian Morgan 5-1
Davis started cautiously, taking 47 minutes to win the opening frame but from 1-1 proceeded to victory at increasing speed with a succession of successful breaks.
Semi-Finals
Warren King beat Silvino Francisco 6-5
The first ball was struck at noon, the last at 639. This encompassed six hours five minutes playing time.
A football manager would have described it as a match of three thirds. King led 3-0; Francisco led 5-3; King won 6-5.
Having taken the first frame with a break of 72 and the second on the black with a 40 clearance. King had to struggle harder than seemed likely to make it 3-0 as Francisco obtained the three snookers he needed on the yellow only still to lose the frame.
The South African’s secondary objective was nevertheless achieved. King’s rhythm was broken. Having lost five frames, King managed to piece enough of his game together again to make the 42 which was instrumental in him winning the ninth frame. With his hopes rekindled, he added the tenth and after a tense decider of 52 minutes, became the first Australian a world ranking final since Eddie Charlton lost by a single frame to Ray Reardon in the 1975 world final.
Steve James beat Steve Davis 6-4
Three defeats in three tournaments, adding this to his losses to Stephen Hendry in the final of the Stormseal UK Open and to Dean Reynolds in the quarter-finals of the Everest World Matchplay did not constitute irreversible decline but this was a match that was similar to those two in which Davis missed the odd shot, every frame or so, that he did not not normally miss.
One such cost him the opening frame. The last red, almost straight to a baulk pocket, would have left James needing a snooker but it was James who cleared with 32 to win on the black.Twice more James went ahead the odd frame ahead before opening a two frame gap at 4-2 with a 141 total clearance.
At 3-4 and 29 in front, Davis was back in contention but another surprising miss let James in with a chance he exploited to the tune of 91 to go two up with three to play. Davis missed a straight red in the tenth when only nine behind. James made 45 from it and a few minutes later was through to his first ranking final.
The Final
Steve James beat Warren King 10-6
“Even though I got beat today”, “it’s my best week ever on the snooker scene. I probably played the better safety. The difference was that he was scoring more than me in the balls”.
Warren King
Having split the first two frames, James went 4-1 in a period which he made breaks of 48, 59 and 44. Despite leaving the penultimate red and the yellow hanging over pockets and a poor safety on the blue, King nevertheless won the sixth on the black after James won the sixth on the black after James had missed it for 5-1.
King made 50 early in the seventh; James came back at him and, when King failed to double the brown for game, James eventually took pink and black to lead 5-2. It was James’s turn to err in the eighth. Forty in front, he missed a simple red. King made 41 from it and later clinched the frame on the blue for 3-5.
When King also won the last frame of the afternoon to trail only 5-4 at the interval, he could congratulate himself on getting back in contention but James ran through the first two frames of the evening in only 23 minutes, making a break of 101 in the latter, to go three clear for the third time at 7-4.
King reduced this to 6-7 and 58-0 in the next was heading for 7-7 but a missed red brought his 49 break to an end and James crucially cleared with 70 to lead 8-6.
Two frames later, it was all over, leaving the question only of whether this would remain an isolated peak in the 28 year-old Midlander’s career or the first of several.
Summary
Steve James’s victory in the 1990 Mercantile Credit Classic was a tremendous feat but it is a great shame that it was his professional title. Steve was a great player and proved it later in the year of this victory when he achieved a 16-red total clearance in competitive play at the World Championship. He also got a 143 in the 1999 UK Championship. A player who earned £758,213 from snooker but could definitely have been a Triple Crown winner under different circumstances.
