Player: Kirk Stevens
Opponent: Jimmy White
Tournament: 1984 Masters
Venue: Wembley Conference Centre, London
Match situation: Semi-final, best of 11, Stevens was 5-3 down.
The 2024 World Championships are under way. Given the rate with which maximums are compiled these days (about one a tournament this season) I may end up further from the end of this project than when I commenced. Noppon notched one in the qualifiers, so look forward to reading about that in 2033.
Let us go back in time. The man in the white suit and arguably the emblematic visual of big ticket snooker in the 1980s was Toronto's own Kirk Stevens, a flamboyant boyband-ish type with charm and style to spare. Stevens found it difficult to get over the line in major tournaments, though he'd often run deep before getting dusted by a hall of fame level player, if billiards culture was crass enough to have such a thing.
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This break in a word: echoey. The first sound of felt-on-ball rings out, with each return to table from the chair feeling slightly over-long. In short - it feels like they're not just playing at a conference centre, but in the middle of a conference on paper or shower-curtain rings. The deadness of space gives Stevens a phantasmic appeal as he struts his stuff like he's just stepped out of a Joe Longthorne support slot.
