By Elliott West
“I have played the best snooker of my life and I just got better and better as the tournament went on. It’s an incredible feeling especially as I started the underdog in virtually every match”.
Dave Harold
Introduction
Held at the Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel in Bangkok, the 1993 Nescafé Asian Open was a tournament consisting of 64 players and had a winning prize of £180,000. An event that was definitely a slow burner, audience numbers were initially low except when Thailand’s local hero, James Wattana was playing. However time is a great healer and by the time Wattana played Jimmy White in the quarter finals, you couldn’t get a place from the 600 seats available. People were literally having to watch the match on monitors in the hotel or scramble to local bars. A match watched by 20 million viewers. A tournament that was full of surprises, especially the eventual winner.
Eastern Promise
Prior to this competition taking place, all the talk was about a eventual winner amongst the usual suspects, Davis, Hendry, White, Parrott and of course Wattana. When the day eventually came for this tournament to and I mean eventually because anyone who knows anything about Asian snooker tournaments, will know the pomp and circumstance involved. It took three days of player arrivals, photo opportunities and press conferences before this event could and miles of red carpet were laid before the first red ball was potted.
Round Three
Much of the chatter in the press conference, aside from continuous cameras flashes for their player James Wattana, was asking for the location of Jimmy White. White, who had been struck down by a bout of food poisoning whilst in the UK, left organisers on tenterhooks on whether he would be well enough to play his opening evening match against Sean Lanigan. Thankfully, after a two visits from Thai doctors and an injection, Jimmy sprang back to life and made light work of his opponent, winning the match 5-0. White later commented on his malaise, saying:
“I’ve been told I must clean out my system completely so I can only take a water diet for the next 24 hours”.
Jimmy White
Another player to also struggle with his surroundings, was Jimmy’s good friend, Ronnie O’Sullivan. A jet lagged O’Sullivan struggled to get to grips with the Thai time difference and kept waking up at 4am. To conquer this insomnia, Ronnie headed to the practice table, where several other players were already in full flow, heading back to bed after his snooker workout. Perhaps this was the trick in the book that Ronnie needed because when he came to play Steve James in their first third round clash, the ‘Rocket’ walked away from the table with an emphatic 5-2 victory.
By round three, Nigel Bond, Eddie Charlton, Neal Foulds, Silvino Francisco Steve James, Terry Griffiths, Anthony Hamilton, Doug Mountjoy, Dean Reynolds,Alain Robidoux and Gary Wilkinson had all been put on an early flight home. Griffiths had rushed to the airport after his 5-2 loss against John Read, hoping he could get a seat on the 1.30am flight but arrived to find the jumbo jet was full. This shot in the dark can be contrasted with the spring in the step of Tony Knowles who had a 5-0 win over Peter Ebdon.
Round Four
Tony Knowles was not so lucky in next match in round 4 against Alan McManus. An unlucky loser, Knowles was beaten by a fluke by Alan on the final pink. Despite his defeat, Tony was able to come to the aid of Joe Swail who had tip problems in his previous match against Dean Reynolds. Going 3-1 at the interval, Tony worked his magic and re-tipped Swail’s cue. The rejuvenated cue did the trick and produced the intended result of a 5-3 win.
Tony was on the war path the next day, complaining to the authorities about the size of table pockets and giving Ray Edmonds an earful on the subject, asking him no what should be done about it. Anyone who knows Tony though, is once he has had his outburst, he goes back to default mode of his infectious smile but always makes sure his point is heard before calming down.
Joe Swail went on to beat Ronnie O’Sullivan 5-2 and Willie Thorne defeated Ken Doherty 5-4. There were also wins on this round for Jason Ferguson who got the better of Dennis Taylor 5-4, Jimmy White defeated Mike Hallett 5-3 and John Parrott beat David Roe 5-3.
Round Five
With the losers in this round walking away with £2,500 and 2,000 ranking points, the shock of this stage was Dave Harold’s 5-2 victory over Stephen Hendry. Perhaps not too much of a shock though as Harold was always a gritty player and knew how to ram a win home when his opponent made a mistake. There were also good wins for Willie Thorne who was triumphant against Fergal O’Brien 5-3, Jimmy White knocked out Alan McManus in a close match 5-4, John Parrott defeated Joe Johnson 5-1 and James Wattana won in his match against Joe Swail 5-2.
Semi-Finals
Aside from Stephen Murphy’s sunburn, where he had spent too much time relaxing in the midday sun, this competition was heating up nicely. With only four players left in the tournament and Alan Chamberlain having John Parrott’s sweepstake for the Cheltenham races, 2,800 bahts, equivalent of £80, threats were already coming from Eddie Charlton after his 5-0 defeat to John Campbell that if things didn’t improve, he was going to quit the sport.
To the backdrop of this turbulence, only Darren Morgan, Jimmy White, Dave Harold and Paul Davies survived. Morgan, like so many of his matches, took the game to the wire and managed a 5-4 win against White whilst Dave Harold eased past Paul Davies with a 5-2 victory.
The Final
Few had expected Dave Harold to reach the final. Dave from Stoke, who often played with a plaster under his chin and nicknamed the ‘Stoke Potter’ due to Stoke’s long association with the pottery industry, was then ranked 93 in the world rankings. Given a 500-1 chance of winning the tournament at the start of play by the bookmakers, Harold wasn’t the obvious choice to reach this final and it hadn’t crossed many minds that he could win the event.
The 26-year-old, former steel-fitter built up a head of steam against Darren Morgan and by the end of the first session, led the Welshman 7-1, thanks to breaks of 64, 137, 50, and 73. When play resumed and live on Thailand’s Channel 7, Morgan fought back with a break of 132 and took the first two frames. However, Dave didn’t let this mini fight back phase him and he quickly won the required two frames to win 9-3. A victory that netted him £30,000, a sharp contrast to the £4,250 earned in his debut season.
