Rejoice! for this week there is snooker on the telly. This will almost certainly mean that the productivity of snooker fans such as myself will plummet, either due to putting work aside and succumbing to the delights of the red button or, if no television is available, by clicking ‘refresh’ every 30 seconds on the BBC sport website. Especially keen souls who are adept at multitasking and have both television and computer available will have one table showing on the TV and the other being displayed live on the internet (whilst this method definitely has its benefits, the aural cacophony produced by two conflicting commentary streams can be a tad confusing). Alas the BBC is only filming two of the four tables in action in the opening stages of the championship, precluding those with multiple computers from being surrounded by snooker on all four sides.
Of course, the best way to watch the snooker is to actually go to Telford International Centre and see it for real. Compared with most other ways of spending a day off it works out pretty cheaply, although the relative economy of the ticket prices can be wiped out if, like us, you live about 150 miles away and thus have to expend a good proportion of a tank of petrol getting there and back. Some may baulk at the thought of travelling for many hours to a big shed in an unremarkable Midlands town to essentially sit on their arses all day watching some blokes use big sticks to move some balls around on a table, but more enlightened souls will realise that this is in fact a splendid use of time and that any small hardships are well worth overcoming.
The snooker world is a small one, and as such it all feels quite friendly and inclusive. The referees and occasionally players will quite happily stroll through the crowds of Pukka Pie-eating punters, and the opening BBC segments are filmed with John Parrott, Steve Davis and the smiley Hazel Irvine standing mere metres from the queue to get into the arena. The spectators don't seem to fit any particular stereotype: male and female, young and old, every stratum of society is represented, all sat next to each other on not-particularly-comfortable plastic seats. As an example of the audience’s diversity, but universal enthusiasm for the game, there was one verging-on-goth-looking teenage girl (by no means a stereotypical snooker fan) who could not help herself from crying out excitedly "Oh my God, that's Jan Verhaas!" as the tall Dutch umpire walked past her in the corridor.
Once seated to watch the game, the atmosphere becomes electric in spite of the fact that watching snooker mostly involves being very, very quiet. There are of course bursts of applause after good shots, sharp intakes of breath as the cue ball teeters on the edge of a pocket, and cries of 'Come on Ronnie!' whenever the great man takes to the stage. There are also now, thanks to the ingenious little over-ear radios that allow spectators to listen to the commentary, rumbles of laughter/groans in response to the poor jokes being cracked by, for example, John Virgo and Dennis Taylor.
Other aspects which cannot be properly appreciated unless there 'in the flesh' include the wonderful clunk as the cue strikes the white ball, the click as it collides with its target and the thump as the object ball falls into the pocket. It is also possible to better eyeball the weird and wonderful expressions pulled by the players in response to events in the frame, with Ronnie O'Sullivan in particular being amusingly rubber-faced. Other entertaining players include Mark Selby, who looks positively daemonic as he bends down to eye up a shot, John Higgins who grimaces as though under intense strain and Neil Robertson who is wont to stick his tongue out every time he plays a shot he isn't completely happy with. Stephen Hendry, however, provides poor value in this aspect of the game as he just looks bloody miserable the whole time.
So, if you can get away with it, go to Telford this week! If not, at least enjoy it on the BBC. The second session this afternoon of the match between Mark Selby and Stephen Hendry should be a cracker if yesterday was anything to go by, and this evening Ronnie, ripe from his victory over Matthew Stevens, takes on Peter Ebdon. I'm not going to be getting much work done.
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