by elliott west
So many stories linger in the history of snooker at the Crucible with some being dubbed as the result of the “Crucible Curse”. I wish to concentrate on a few of these for today’s blog and will let you decide as the reader on whether any truth lies in them. For the first we have to rewind to 1978 when Fred Davis at the tender age of 64 was riding the crest of a wave at the Crucible. Not only was he the oldest player to ever play here but he had reached the quarter-final stage of the competition. Having defeated John Virgo and Patsy Fagan in the previous rounds, Davis was drawn against the talented player Perrie Mans. Fred had a chance to pull the match back to 15-16 but missed a pink off its spot. His brother Joe was watching in the audience and as Fred missed the shot he started rocking in his seat. He collapsed and was taken to hospital and later died. An incident that was branded as “the pink that killed Joe Davis.”
One of the obvious contenders for this so called curse was Jimmy White. Jimmy reached the World Championship final on six occasions but never won it, (1981,1984, 1990-1994) Perhaps this was due to White’s irrational temperament at the time and fact that he had a drug and alcohol problem in his private life. However the so called “curse” has always dogged him and overshadowed what has been a tremendous career with 30 titles to his name. I had to endure these losses as a fan so I can’t begin to think of what mental anguish Jimmy had to go through over this period of defeats.
During the same time, Dennis Taylor reached the final in 1985. Taylor had numerous career titles under his belt but had the thirst for this title. His opponent, Steve Davis was the man of the moment and could do no wrong with whatever he touched turning to silver. However Taylor defied logic and made the biggest comeback in Crucible history; winning eight frames in a row to come back into contention. Of course in the end Taylor won on a deciding black. This was definitely the most memorable final and had the largest viewing figures with an estimated 18.5 million viewers. Despite this great win Taylor isn’t remembered for anything else, his win against Alex Higgins was just as dramatic but has been buried in the VHS vaults. Perhaps the curse lies in the fact that nothing can equal this event and anything that tries sinks into obscurity.
I have expanded this curse theory for the purpose of this blog but in the most traditional sense, the Crucible curse or the curse of the Crucible, is when a player fails to retain their title the following year. Numerous champions have attempted it and failed. John Pullman was the most successful when he won back to back titles in 1964 pre-Crucible and later Joe Johnson narrowly missed it in 1987 after winning in 1986 and Ken Doherty in 1998. This attempted feat is even harder today as so much competition exists. It is hard enough to win one World Championship let alone two consecutive titles!
Perhaps the most recent whiff of a Crucible curse came in this year’s World Championship, when Shaun Murphy was on course for a 147 but asked for the partition to be raised as the match on the other table had concluded. Murphy probably chose this to allow more space to cue to cue and move around the table but unfortunately this was probably a moment of madness. As soon as the partition came up, he played the pink and missed the shot. What is it with this pink ball? Is that cursed as well?
As you can see there is plenty of material here to mount a curse theory but in truth all these incidents happened as a result of bad luck. The Crucible is such a revered place in a snooker fan’s eye that it can do no wrong and when things do go wrong, they defy logic and so are dubbed as cursed. Perhaps this is a an old wives’ tale but whatever the reasoning behind the course of Crucible events it makes fantastic reading.
