Most boring snooker player ever

Dave Harold. Absolutely no question. Sometimes I have nightmares that I am watching Alan McManus vs Dave Harold in a World Championship final where in every frame McManus makes a sixty break, then Dave The Grinder gets sixty, then they are stuck in an endless round of snookers and each frame lasts an hour. This goes on until the coverage has to end at 5:30 for This Morning to start on BBC One. The BBC congratulates itself for airing the longest continual sporting contest in history outside of the world of chess. People lose faith with snooker completely and never watch a match without Ronnie O Sullivan in it again.

The times I have watched snooker live and what it was like. Part One: The Crucible

Me, The Boy and the Grand Master went to the Crucible a while back. God we were excited. We even had a mini-tournament on the pool table in Wetherspoons Sheffield the night before to get ourselves in the mood. The Grand Master won as usual. He built the original table after all, from which all subsequent snooker followed. Our excitement was somewhat tempered by walking f*cking miles up the steepest hill in the world afterwards. The Grand Master gave great pleasure in informing us that he used to do this walk twice a day when he had his first job in Sheffield etc. etc. Since then cars have been invented, and some people own them and charge you to ride in them on a temporary basis (this practice is called taxi driving). We informed him of these developments and did not make the same mistake the night after.

The first game we saw was McManus versus McCulloch. We pronounce 'McManus' in our house as though the last part of his name sounds like the word anus. I don't know why this is funny but it is and has become common parlance. I would rather stick a rusty pole in my eye than watch these two bore-mongers play snooker. Also, it was the first half of a match so there was no finale / conclusion. Total shocker. It ended 8-8 I think.

But the next game made up for it. Hendry versus Pinches. Pinches is a ledge of the highest order as is from Norfolk like us. We were wearing our Norwich shirts hoping to get on the telly (failed) and were well up for the Pincherman to beat Bendry / Hendreary / Hendrong (he is called all of these things in our house). It was tense at 10-10 at the start with the first to 13 the winner. The Boy has pinched me about 5 times now as some kind of physical-semantic joke. It is wearing thin, and would have come in more handy during McManus McCulloch. Hendreary and Pincher go neck and neck to 12-12, Pinchit looking pretty confident. Being the Jimmy-defeater, Bendry is like some sort of pantomime villian to us, we cannot be doing with him. We want to see him crushed by Pinches, who is ranked about 114th in the world and probably still plays at the Canary Cue Club. 'Millions of Pinches, Pinches for me!' shout me and The Boy. The Grand Master tries to look excited, but maybe he has been here one too many times before at the hands of the old enemy Hendrong. At 12-12 Pincherman and Hendrong disappear to psyche themselves for the final frame. The roar when the Pincher comes back is huge. The back of his waistcoat is yellow and green, just like our blood - we love him long time! He starts positively, but soon Bendry is in and then Pinchme has no way back. Yet again, even when Pinches is about 20 points behind I still hope he can snooker Bendrong behind the black three times or that one of the studio lights will fall on the table and they will have to restart. Something almost statistically impossible that still nags away at the back of my mind. It is impossible, so it doesn't happen and Bendry wins. Gutting.

What a day out though.

Those wooden seats in the Crucible are pretty uncomfortable. During McManus (rhymes with anus remember) versus McCulloch I thought my leg would fall off. It would have diverted my attention from the game though which would have been a bonus.

We get a taxi home.

Most snooker commentators are idiots

Dear oh dear, snooker commentators. Virgo is my least favourite. He wasn't even a very good player! He often gets annoyed with the players when they try something interesting, and rants on about how they should have chosen a different shot. Sod that! Rock out the banana shots. He also has the most annoying catchphrases, such as 'where's the white going?'.

No-one can top Whispering Ted. His whispered 'no' when Steve Davis misses the black in his epic versus Dennis Taylor is one of the best pieces of commentary ever. He makes it sound so awesome.

I am a fan of Dennis Taylor because of his blatant double entendres. One thing you don't realise is that they cut a lot of it out on the highlights. When you go live you can get a little radio ear thing and listen to the commentary, good for staying awake if you get McManus - McCulloch (of which more later). When we went to the Masters, Dennis said 'Well John, what a magnificent semi.' Cue widespread sniggering amongst the crowd. Then he started going on about how Steven Lee had a lovely touch amongst the balls, and how his action was a bit long and swingy. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, he started talking about how he preferred a long and swingy one over a shorter one. Dirty Dennis.

I can't be doing with Parrott. I think this is a by-product of when he was a player in his later years making all those witty quips when walking around the table. Witty quips are acceptable on the sofa next to Hazel, but he jumped the gun.

Why I love snooker

Let's start at the beginning. I was raised on snooker. We had a Pot Black table early of course. My dad (who from now on will be known as the Grand Master - for that is his real snooker identity) loved snooker so much he built his own table in the garage. It was pretty good for a while. Then it got a bit damp and sagged in the middle. So he built an extension on our house just for the snooker table. Effort son! So snooker has pretty much been a staple of the family ever since I was born. We've even had family trips out to watch the Masters at Wembley (the whole family) and the World Championship (me, my brother and my dad). I've got to say though, it's better on the telly. It's pretty cool going, but it's also pretty dull if you get stuck with a sh*t match. At the World Championships we had to sit through Ian McCulloch vs Alan McManus. Yawn tastic, and it went all the way.

I suppose we were pretty lucky to have been kids during the 'golden age'. Jimmy White was my hero. Part of me still thinks he can win it. Alright, perhaps not now he can't even get past the qualifiers, but five years ago I still thought he could. The finals against Hendry and Davis are etched into my consciousness. They are some of the greatest sport I have ever witnessed. Snooker is about a tenth as good as it seemed then, but I still take great amusement and pleasure in watching it, mainly on the BBC. I find the coverage hilarious - snooker is only really interesting about a quarter of the time, the rest of the time it's f*cking dull, but I love the things that the commentators come up with to fill the 100+ hours that the BBC dedicates to the World Championship, Masters and UK Championship.