Snookered

Here’s a Facebook post I wrote on January the 18th – I’m quite proud of it, although it could probably do with a little editing, which I cannot be arsed to do.

Here comes a very long post about snooker, emotions, ageing, and Covid. You don’t have to read it all but it might be a nice read.

I watched lots of snooker over the last two days. The second semi-final and the final of The Masters – I didn’t even know it was on until I found myself switching the TV on for the first time in a few months, but it’s been emotional. I’ll try and tell you why.
In the final were John Higgins and a Chinese man named Yan Bingtao. Now, John is 45 and unlike his contemporaries, he hasn’t retired yet. He’s still the 6th best player in the world, apparently. And, he looks olllllld. I’d guess he’s 57 if I didn’t know his real age. Actually he looks older than my mate who died when he was 46, and I bet John hasn’t drunk as much or partied as often as Pat did. So, for two days I’ve been well aware that I’m in my forties too, and… Well, although I don’t look like I’m 57 yet, I’m not a pro snooker player.

I’ve always thought it would be nice to learn to play, but jeez, it was only today when I realised that I’m not likely to win a world championship.This has me reflecting on the things that I’m REALLY good at, thinking about the things I’ve practised and practised until I’ve been extremely able with them. And… I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I can’t think of one example. I mean, I’m OK with a yoyo, but only until I see someone who’s actually decent with a yoyo. I’m good at making music, but I’m not amazing at it. I’m fairly good at painting too, but again, not amazing. I’m Quite Good at a few things but not that good at any of them. There are some things I’m terrible at, including pool. But snooker? Nah mate. It’s hard.
So that’s been emotional, thinking about my life and making stupid comparisons (don’t do it folks!) and missing my old yoyo.

But anyway, the Chinese man, Yan Bingtao, is 20. TWENTY. He’s twenty. Seriously. And… He’s really fucking good. Really really fucking good.
He’s really really fucking good, despite the fact that he’s come over to the UK on his own to play, and he doesn’t speak English, so he’s been under crazy pressure and extremely isolated. The pressure isn’t just because of all of that – being alone, playing a top level game, against someone with a legacy who’s more than twice his age – but it’s also because the winner takes home £250,000.
This has been emotional too – I’ve been imagining the psychological strain in a game like that, for both John and Yan. Surely they both know that they play best when it doesn’t matter. When there is no pressure. So they’ll have both been doing everything they can, using every psychological trick they know, to fool themselves into being relaxed. And worse still, it hasn’t been very relaxing for either of them.
To win, one player needed to win 10 games first, and they soon won 2 games each. Then John got a lead of 4:2, and Yan was about to either fall far behind or try to relax so that he could catch up. He caught up. He must have either tried really well to relax or better yet, not tried at all. Because of course, not trying at all is how you relax. Anyway, soon it was 4:4… Then 4:5! Now John was feeling the strain – he’d had a great lead, but now he was behind. Relax, John! Relax! Try and try not to try to relax! John was playing late last night in the semi-finals – another emotional rollercoaster. He must have been knackered today. But, somehow, he got himself another 2-frame lead. It was now 7:5 and Yan was falling behind.

I was considering finding out how to place a bet on John so that I could maybe win a tenner. But then Yan won two frames and all of a sudden the score was 7:7. What the… And then 7:8. And then 8:8! WHAT THE! Then 8:9! Fuck. Maybe I should have found out how to place bets and then betted on Yan Bingtao. I still don’t know how to place bets, which obviously means I didn’t bother. I had wanted Yan to win all evening though, just because he’s newer and more exciting than John Higgins, whose snooker style is one that I find a liiiiiittle bit boring. So now I felt bad because earlier on I’d considered betting against my favourite player. Such is life.

Another thing that I’ve always wanted to do but never have done is to be in the audience at a big snooker match. I think it would be exciting, as long as the seat was comfy, to sit and watch it all happen in real life. Maybe I’d see some kind of fascinating history happen. This, alongside actually learning to play, is something that I’ve often thought, ‘I’ll do that when I can afford to’. I’ll go to Sheffield and watch the World Championships one day, when I have the money. I’ll get snooker lessons one day, when I have the money.
Well huh, weird, I haven’t done either, and I still don’t have the money. And I’m in my forties. So am I missing something here? Is it me who’s making me not go and watch or learn some snooker? I guess the lesson is this: I’m not 20 anymore and I’ll never do anything if I keep telling myself I can’t afford it.

This thought process has also been emotional, with added gravity given the fact that the venue on the TV (I can’t remember where they filmed it) was silent. These geniuses were playing in front of nobody – audiences are illegal this year. This was eery, and made me sad. Sad about Covid, and sad about not being able to go and see the snooker, and sad about gigs and friends and festivals and all the lovely things that I used to do which involve other people.
Fuck off Covid.
John and Yan would finish a game, then put a mask on and run off for a wee. The commentators and presenters were all sitting far apart. They had a man there, pressing an ‘Applause Button’ whenever either of them won a game or played a great shot. I haven’t watched telly for a long long time and this is what it’s like now. I do hope it goes back to when people sat near each other in studios.

Halfway through the snooker, John and Yan needed to go and have a shit or something so they played a montage of old footage – historic players winning historic Masters Tournaments. When someone like Ronnie O’Sullivan or John Parrott won, they’d hug their opponent, hug the referee, and shake hands with loads of audience members, and kiss their wives. The crowds were immense. Snooker isn’t the quiet sport that it pretends to be – The audiences are always ready to jump around and cheer and be all tightly packed and united and noisy. And THIS made me sad – On the one hand I miss being in a crowd, and on the other hand I was sitting there thinking ‘Oo no, don’t hug him! Yuck, sanitise your hands! Get back! DON’T FORGET THE TWO METRE RULE!’ ….It all seems a bit much, watching people hug on telly in the old days.
So now I’m wondering how long it will take to readjust, how long it will be before we go back into venues and jostle through a crowd, without being… Scared… I mean really. What IS normal now? Will ‘normal’ ever feel normal again? Fuck. So that has all been emotional.

Oh yes, another thing happened: halfway through the snooker, they cut to a camera behind the scenes and showed Yan’s girlfriend, who’d secretly flown to England today to see her boyfriend after he either lost or won this big game. He didn’t know she was there, but now I did, and so did probably millions of other people around the world.
Lots of Chinese people, surely, would have been watching and experiencing all the feels while wishing him to win, but I wonder if they were also conscious of the Covid relations between Britain and China. How were they feeling about that? Were they watching from a locked down city too? What state is their country even in now? And more to the point, what state is our country in now? Do they see the sort of news that we see about the UK? Do they know what a shitheap of a government we have? How Covid has fucked this already fucked, Brexitting bullshit country up? At the very least they must know that we’re in lockdown, and I wonder if there’s any kind of… National Guilt… About the virus originating there. But then of course they’ve probably heard that we have a new, and far superior variant, so if any of this was on their minds, they may have had mixed feelings.
I certainly had mixed feelings. I felt excited and sad and regretful and old and young and tired and empathic for all these people all over the world who are all going through the same thing and, at that point, doing one of two things: Watching snooker or not watching snooker. And those of us who were watching now felt all wibbly because Lonely Isolated Yan’s girlfriend was there and he was the only person in the world who didn’t know about it. Christ, I was on the edge of my seat.

Then, in the eighteenth frame, Yan kiiiind of won. He was a few points ahead, and there weren’t enough points left on the table for John to win, but John *could* win if he snookered Yan three times. This would make the score 9:9, preventing Yan from winning his 10th game, and so winning the trophy and the cheque. An unlikely win for John, but you can’t just turn down £250,000 because you can’t be bothered to play on against the odds.
So it sort of dragged on for a while, with not many decent shots happening anywhere, until, eventually, as was always going to happen, Yan won. Yay! Yan won! And his girlfriend was there! And the Applause Man pressed his button and some confetti came down and John and Yan bumped elbows and about 8 people stood 2 metres apart taking photos.

It was massively underwhelming. Yan struggled to lift the heavy trophy. John got a little silver medal. Yan’s girlfriend stood next to him with a surgical mask on, then she stepped back a little as though she wasn’t sure if she should have flown across the planet to see him. And then it finished. Quietly. The whole country is quiet right now, so I suppose it’s right that the snooker should finish that way too.

And what was I left with? Well. Funnily enough, I felt a little sad for John Higgins. sure, I’m chuffed for Yan and he’ll be exciting to watch again, but John… Well, poor bloke, he can’t help it that he’s all old now. He’s not the unbeatable player he used to be – he’s sort of just a bloke now, in my mind. A blokey bloke who looks like he drives a knackered old Transit van and who’s won some snooker matches in the past. Yeah he’s won £9,000,000 in his lifetime but tonight who gives a shit? Great, he could get some snooker lessons but he’s too old now to do much with his skills…
See, I’m talking about me now. Suddenly I feel like I’ve been beaten by a newcomer. I’m the one realising I’m not 20 anymore. John and I are both blokey blokes in our 40s who now can’t be world champion snooker players. Funny innit.

Wellllll. There we go – I’ve never written that much about snooker before! I will finish with this: One of the things I love about snooker is the way the brown, green, and yellow balls, when they’re together in a little row, remind me of a mallard. I’ve included a picture for reference.