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Lets not forget the equally dodgy Peter Ebdon is currently being investigated for score fixing as well. The Observer clearly seems to think snooker has a serious problem in this area.

It's a sport I would never bet on any more for that reason.

Unless I knew who was meant to win of course.

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Guest The Phoenix
I'd say that's a possibility. He just oozed journeyman from what I saw.

He grew up in the Steven Hendry era - indeed I believe they practised together a lot.

Also pretty sure he got close to the Top 16 at one point but the end of the future arrived at the World Championship in the mid 90's when he led Terry Griffiths 9-5 and lost.

His biggest claim to fame is probably being the first to make a break of more than 147 (148) in a professional tournament :lol:

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Whatever happened to "Snooker"? :unsure:

It was massive in the 80's. Back when there was only "cooncil telly" snooker was a major sport with the BBC covering the world championships wall to wall and they and ITV competing for pretty high profile coverage of other tourneys even though there was limited actual scheduling available to the tv stations due to there only being four channels.

The likes of Hendry and Davis, White and Parrot became household names, they were high profile in the press, almost as big as football for a while and it was a given that the top snooker player would be a leading contender for Sports Personality of the Year.

Yet now, despite the availability of half a dozen dedicated sports channels on top of the mainstream channels, snooker is marginalised and a niche market sport. If it's still the preferred sport of the grannies then they must find it much harder to actually watch it. Instead of becoming even bigger with the growth of sport television it's somehow managed to buck the trend and go backwards. Pool must just about see more programming hours than snooker these days! We can watch all sorts of sports from all corners of the globe but there's less snooker than ever around.

Of course sponsorship collapsed as it was always heavily dominated by the tobacco companies but even if there's less money in it now that doesn't really explain the lower profile. And where are the new players coming through? Davis and then Hendry were dominant superstars of the sport but 20 years on (and I accept it isn't a physical sport but still) they are both still there or thereabouts.Nobody has really taken the mantle on. O'Sullivan is the best of those to have followed but he's a fruitloop. Others like Mark Williams, Ken Doherty, John Higgins, Shaun Murphy etc have flattered to deceive but they've never really grabbed the sport.

The marketing guys have made a right hash of snooker over the last 20 years. Whilst darts has been given a new lease of life and is bigger than it's been since the 70's snooker has gone from certainly being a top five UK interest sport to a fringe interest. Small print half a dozen pages into the sports section of the papers. 20 years ago you couldn't get a seat in the arena for one of the big tv tournaments unless you applied months in advance. Now the big matches are regularly seen on tv playing in front of empty or hald empty arenas. And Sports Personality of the Year? Not only were they not nominated or even thought about but the sport barely merited a mention (I think, I didn't actually see the whole show?).

I just don't understand what went wrong for snooker? :unsure:

Edited by Skyline Drifter
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What's the rule that allowed the ref to warn about this?

I thought you could concede a frame at any time you liked?

It is a rule of the sports governing body not a rule of snooker.

It's to ensure that members of the association provide "value for money" - imagine the scenario of a World Championship Final where there is a sell out crowd and O'Sullivan proceeds to concede frames because he "can't be bothered".

Sorry - I realise I didn't actually answer your original question properly - the criteria for the referee to "award" a one frame penalty are that, having been warned about conceding a frame which in the referee's opinion could still have been won, if the offending player repeats this act, he can have the penalty applied.

The referee's "opinion" is not purely judged on arithmetic (i.e. less points on the table than the player is behind) - he/she can still technically award the penalty under what you so appropriately call "not trying" if snooker(s) are required.

Disputing that Phoenix. The rules of snooker cover this under the player's conduct section and it IS based on arithmetic. You can only concede a frame if you need snookers to win. Refusal to continue a frame you don't need snookers in falls under "ungentlemanly conduct" and means that if you do it again your opponent will be awarded the match.

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Disputing that Phoenix. The rules of snooker cover this under the player's conduct section and it IS based on arithmetic. You can only concede a frame if you need snookers to win. Refusal to continue a frame you don't need snookers in falls under "ungentlemanly conduct" and means that if you do it again your opponent will be awarded the match.

So why was Ronnie O'Sullivan allowed to concede the frame when only 23-0 down?

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And where are the new players coming through? Davis and then Hendry were dominant superstars of the sport but 20 years on (and I accept it isn't a physical sport but still) they are both still there or thereabouts.Nobody has really taken the mantle on. O'Sullivan is the best of those to have followed but he's a fruitloop. Others like Mark Williams, Ken Doherty, John Higgins, Shaun Murphy etc have flattered to deceive but they've never really grabbed the sport.

The standard of snooker is far higher now than what it was when Hendry, and particularly Davis, were at their peak. Both these players dominated due to fairly weak competition.

You now have a situation where any of the top 16 can win a ranking tournament, or even the World Championships. In fact, I'd argue that any of the current top 16 would have been a strong challenger to Davis in the 80's, if not better. O'Sullivan should win every tournament he enters, as he's head and shoulders above anyone else playing, or in fact anyone else who's ever played, but his temperament isn't what it should be.

It's far more difficult to be as dominant as Davis and Hendry nowadays. That's why the current crop aren't seen to be doing so. During the 80's players like Tony Knowles and Neal Foulds got as high as Number 2 in the world. If they were at their peak today, they'd be lucky to reach the top 32.

As for your main point about where snooker is going, it's not an 'exciting' sport in the same way Darts is. Darts is quicker, and can accommodate the pazzazz which goes with it, therefore the game's characters can flourish more, which is more appealing to advertisers. No matter what way you jazz it up, snooker is a far more sedate sport, and in the ultra fast society we live in now, it's difficult for it to keep up.

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The standard of snooker is far higher now than what it was when Hendry, and particularly Davis, were at their peak. Both these players dominated due to fairly weak competition.

That's a very moot point.

I would suggest the overall standard was much higher ten or fifteen years ago. Hendry or Davis at their peak would be unbeatable right now.

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That's a very moot point.

I would suggest the overall standard was much higher ten or fifteen years ago. Hendry or Davis at their peak would be unbeatable right now.

It's very difficult to compare the two eras objectively.

Even things like the average break scores - which I think will be higher in the modern game - can be affected by the improvements in tables, balls and players' equipment.

I've only been watching snooker for about 10 years, so I don't know what the standard was like in the 1980s, but I think the players nowadays are very skilled, particularly in safety play.

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I would suggest the overall standard was much higher ten or fifteen years ago.

Rubbish.

In fact, look at the top 16 from fifteen years ago, 1993

1 - Stephen Hendry

2 - John Parrott

3 - Jimmy White

4 - Steve Davis

5 - James Wattana

6 - Alan McManus

7 - Willie Thorne

8 - Terry Griffiths

9 - Nigel Bond

10 - Darren Morgan

11 - Ken Doherty

12 - Martin Clark

13 - Steve James

14 - Neal Foulds

15 - Dennis Taylor

16 - David Roe

How many of these players at their peak would survive against the current top 16? Not many.

As if to further illustrate the point, if you look at the top 20 list of players who have over 100 century breaks, fifteen are current top 32 players. It's taken Shaun Murphy nine years to reach almost as many century breaks as Willie Thorne (the best 'breakbuilder' of the time) did in nineteen years. And this is despite far less ranking tournaments now than what there was years ago.

The standard is definitely far higher now than what it was.

I also don't agree about Davis dominating now at his peak. He was a great player in the 80's, there's no denying that, but he had very little in the way of any real competition. Bear in mind he lost in a world final to Joe Johnson. It's unthinkable a player of Johnson's calibre would get anywhere near a world final now, far less beat a player who was supposed to be 'dominant'. If Davis was at his peak now, he'd be a solid top 4 player, a bit like John Higgins, both of whom's games are very similar.

Edited by StewartyMac
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Rubbish.

Tell you what isn't rubbish...the fact that there were more characters in the 80's & 90's. Nowadays I'd reckin your average sports watcher would struggle to tell Mark Selby apart from Fergal O'Brien. Every player seems to be young, fresh faced, wears a black shirt and can make centruries for fun. Me, I preferred the likes of Big Bill, Kirk Stevens, Dennis Taylor, Cliff Thorburn, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, Joe Johnson and John Virgo. Let them get pissed again while playing. The only "character" we seem to have these days is a petulant nutter who throws the toys out of the pram when the mood takes him. Feeble.

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In fact, look at the top 16 from fifteen years ago, 1993

1 - Stephen Hendry

2 - John Parrott

3 - Jimmy White

4 - Steve Davis

5 - James Wattana

6 - Alan McManus

7 - Willie Thorne

8 - Terry Griffiths

9 - Nigel Bond

10 - Darren Morgan

11 - Ken Doherty

12 - Martin Clark

13 - Steve James

14 - Neal Foulds

15 - Dennis Taylor

16 - David Roe

How many of these players at their peak would survive against the current top 16? Not many.

Mmm, not sure about that. I accept you are presumably correct (I haven't looked) about players now buildings bigger breaks etc which is a fairly good indicator although that could be partly attributable to wider pockets (not saying it is, just saying it could be?) or differing styles. I do think the success of Hendry in taking over from the much more cautious Davis encouraged an entire generation of players coming through that attack was the best form of defence. As a result there are more centuries than ever before but probably also more frames lost at a single visit or from single mistakes. I bet the average frame time (possibly excluding games involving Davis!) has dropped from what it was 15 years ago too for that very reason.

I don't see what's so very different between "a player of Joe Johnson's calibre" and say Graeme Dott who enjoyed a couple of stellar runs to finish once runner up and once champion. Or Shaun Murphy for that matter though he might be a wee bit better than that.

What is fairly clear to me is that neither Steve Davis nor Stephen Hendry are playing now anywhere near as good as they once did. Would you accept that's fair? If so, and given that Hendry is STILL No 6 in the world at this moment (and was No 1 last year) and Davis is just outside the top 16, doesn't that illustrate very nicely that the overall standard actually isn't that much better if indeed it's any better at all?

As for the original main point, I think you are right. Snooker does suffer from not being a quick impact sport. But I don't think that fully explains why it has gone from being about the No1 televised sport domestically when we only had four channels (live football being a rarity back then) to even less coverage now than it did then despite the hours and hours of televised sport that are now shown. Where did the people go that watched it before? I still think snooker as a sport has marketed itself very poorly over the last decade or so. It had an audience before, it ought to still have one now, so advertisers, provided they are involved in the right demograph, ought to still be interested.

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Guest The Phoenix

The empty seats for the later stages of tournaments tells you all you need to know about which direction snooker is going in.

PS Hebridean was right. :angry::(;) - that'll teach me to listen to an "expert" I heard on the radio, relating what had and what could have happened.

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Tell you what isn't rubbish...the fact that there were more characters in the 80's & 90's. Nowadays I'd reckin your average sports watcher would struggle to tell Mark Selby apart from Fergal O'Brien. Every player seems to be young, fresh faced, wears a black shirt and can make centruries for fun. Me, I preferred the likes of Big Bill, Kirk Stevens, Dennis Taylor, Cliff Thorburn, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, Joe Johnson and John Virgo.

Ah, the old rose tinted spectacles about 'characters'. You'd struggle badly to watch a match between Cliff Thorburn and Willie Thorne without falling asleep for example. Even Davis when he was at his peak was dull as ditchwater. The legend of these players has far outshone any sort of watchability, save for maybe Alex Higgins or Jimmy White. Aye, it's good watching Thorburn's 147 from 1980, but that was one frame of an unbelievably voring encounter that seemed to go on forever.

People also wax lyrical about the 1985 final being the best final ever. The majority of that match was pretty yawn inducing, and it's really only entered folklore due to the dramatic finish and the late time it went on to.

I've been a big snooker fan for about 30 years, and the standard now far outshines that of when I started watching the game. It's a pity the interest level has waned so much.

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I've been a big snooker fan for about 30 years, and the standard now far outshines that of when I started watching the game.

Aye....but who cares about the standard ? I'd rather watch an error strewn frame of snooker between Kirk Stevens and Big Bill in a smoke bound arena with Bill supping his 20th pint ahead of two faceless robots pumping in 100 breaks. The higher standard makes it more boring. Snooker has gone in off the pink and is nearly dead. More gimicks needed pronto.

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Are folk suggesting the players should enter with entrance music a la darts and suchlike?

That would be embarrasing, it's a gentleman's sport and is not meant to be glitzy or flashy by any means. I think you would make a mockery of it if you did that.

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Aye....but who cares about the standard ? I'd rather watch an error strewn frame of snooker between Kirk Stevens and Big Bill in a smoke bound arena with Bill supping his 20th pint

That's because you clearly neither like nor respect the sport.

Are folk suggesting the players should enter with entrance music a la darts and suchlike?

That would be embarrasing, it's a gentleman's sport and is not meant to be glitzy or flashy by any means. I think you would make a mockery of it if you did that.

Correct.

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Mmm, not sure about that. I accept you are presumably correct (I haven't looked) about players now buildings bigger breaks etc which is a fairly good indicator although that could be partly attributable to wider pockets (not saying it is, just saying it could be?) or differing styles. I do think the success of Hendry in taking over from the much more cautious Davis encouraged an entire generation of players coming through that attack was the best form of defence. As a result there are more centuries than ever before but probably also more frames lost at a single visit or from single mistakes. I bet the average frame time (possibly excluding games involving Davis!) has dropped from what it was 15 years ago too for that very reason.

I don't see what's so very different between "a player of Joe Johnson's calibre" and say Graeme Dott who enjoyed a couple of stellar runs to finish once runner up and once champion. Or Shaun Murphy for that matter though he might be a wee bit better than that.

What is fairly clear to me is that neither Steve Davis nor Stephen Hendry are playing now anywhere near as good as they once did. Would you accept that's fair? If so, and given that Hendry is STILL No 6 in the world at this moment (and was No 1 last year) and Davis is just outside the top 16, doesn't that illustrate very nicely that the overall standard actually isn't that much better if indeed it's any better at all?

I've been a big snooker fan for about 30 years, and the standard now far outshines that of when I started watching the game. It's a pity the interest level has waned so much.

Ah, but you've not addressed my post at all. If the standard now far outshines 20 years ago why are a clearly much poorer Hendry and Davis still competitive with the best players of today?

Are folk suggesting the players should enter with entrance music a la darts and suchlike?

That would be embarrasing, it's a gentleman's sport and is not meant to be glitzy or flashy by any means. I think you would make a mockery of it if you did that.

No, not suggesting that at all. Just asking why it is snooker has gone in 20 years from being just about the biggest non-team sport in British terms and probably the biggest outside football and maybe cricket to a fringe sport ignored by most and barely meriting a mention on Sports Review of the Year?

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