Running: The Autobiography (19 page)

16

MAD MOMENTS

‘Felt sluggish, don’t enjoy easy run, weekend mileage 25 miles.’

I have my moments. My mad moments. Unplanned and, until now, unexplained. I’m probably as famous for doing daft things as I am for my snooker. But my mad moments haven’t come unprompted. Yes, there was a reason why I walked out in the middle of the Stephen Hendry match in the UK Championship; there was a reason why I put a cloth over my face when I played Mark King. There was even a reason why I gave myself the world’s worst skinhead in the middle of a match. It’s time to fess up.

Walking out on Stephen Hendry

It could have happened in any of the previous half-dozen matches. It was 2006 and I was playing in the Premier League, against Steve Davis in the semis and Jimmy White in the final. Jo and I were going through a terrible time, and my head was completely up my arse. I didn’t want to be at the tournaments. My brain wasn’t right. I wasn’t happy.

I played Davis, was 3-1 up, and missed a ball and went to
shake his hand because I just wanted to walk out. And as I did, I said to myself: ‘What are you doing? You can’t do that!’ I was 3-1 up! It was the Premier League, the tournament before the UK Championship, which was in York. So I just about stopped short of shaking his hand and sat back down again. My mind, though, was, shake his hand, get out of here, you’ve had enough. But I held back and went back to my chair.

I pulled myself together, won the match and got through to the final against Jimmy White. I was 4-0 up, had barely missed a ball, I was potting really well and then, boom! I missed a ball, he cleared up, and it went 4-1. In the next frame I missed another ball and I did the same thing – I went up to shake his hand.

I thought, Jesus, that’s twice on the trot. I didn’t do it, but the thought that I’d wanted to do it was worrying enough. I was in such a mess because of the state of my home life that I couldn’t face being there. I felt like the loneliest man in the world. I didn’t really know what I wanted. I didn’t want to be at the tournaments, but nor did I want to be at home because I was so miserable there. I suppose the bottom line was that I wanted a happy home life.

Lily was just a few months old at the time. She was absolutely gorgeous, adorable, but even her presence couldn’t help improve things between me and Jo. Before Lily was born we argued like most couples do, but we always got through it. Then, as soon as Lily was born, things took a dive. If we hadn’t had Lily I would have just left at that point. But I felt this overwhelming guilt and sadness. I was determined not to mess up as a dad as I had done with Taylor, my first daughter.

So as I went to shake Jimmy’s hand, again I thought: ‘What the fuck are you doing? You can’t do that. You’re 4-1 up, then 4-2 up, you’re going to win the tournament, what are you
doing, you nutter?’ So I got through the match, won the tournament, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t be the last of it. And it wasn’t.

A pattern was developing. I’d almost walked out twice, and then I was at York for the UK Championship and I’d won two rounds before playing Stephen Hendry. But in both matches I’d felt the same – I wanted to walk out. I managed to hold back, though. Then I was up against Hendry. I was playing terribly, couldn’t pot a ball, played a bad shot, went into the reds, 4-1 down in the quarter-finals, he was playing well, and I thought, fuck this, I’m out of here – I’m going straight out and I’m going to have a night of it.

It was about 4 p.m., and I was thinking, I’ve got a couple of my jockey mates up here, they like a good booze-up. I’m going to get smashed tonight, absolutely wasted. Even though I was still running well, I didn’t feel good in myself. It’s funny: to the outside world I looked in great nick – healthy, trim, fit. Everybody was saying, you’re looking well, but I was in pieces. I wasn’t eating my way out of depression, but I was running my way out of my depression. But even the running didn’t always do the trick. And now I just wanted out.

It was the first to nine, so Hendry still needed another five frames to win. We weren’t even at the halfway mark, but I simply didn’t want to be there. I turned round, shook the ref’s hand, shook Hendry’s hand, said: ‘Good luck, Steve’, and walked out. Since then I’ve seen Stephen Hendry’s reaction on YouTube, and he just didn’t know what to do with himself – did he stay there or walk out? – and he was saying: ‘Well, what do we do now, Jan?’ to the referee, Jan Verhaas. And Jan was: ‘Well, I suppose it’s game over because he’s conceded.’

A few people in the crowd shouted: ‘Come on, Ronnie! You can’t do that!’ and I thought, well, I can do what I like really.
Why can’t I do that? Not surprisingly, everybody started talking about my mental issues and unstable mind.

Nobody could believe what I’d done. Least of all Stephen. He was quite gracious about it at the time. He must have realised there was something really screwy with my head for me to do that. ‘I didn’t have an inkling anything was wrong,’ he said after I’d walked. ‘He seemed in good form beforehand and we were chatting backstage. Ronnie’s obviously got his reasons and I’m not going to criticise him. He just said he had had enough and wished me good luck for the rest of the tournament. Only he knows what he feels inside. I can’t criticise someone else for that, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s just bizarre.’

I issued a statement apologising for my behaviour. ‘I wish I could have played a better game today, but I had a bad day at the office,’ I said. ‘Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a perfectionist when it comes to my game, and today I got so annoyed with myself that I lost my patience and walked away from a game that, with hindsight, I should have continued. I’m sorry I didn’t stick around to sharpen him up for his semi-final. I’m also really sorry to let down the fans who came to see me play – it wasn’t my intention to disappoint them, and for that I am truly apologetic. At this present moment in time I am feeling disappointed with myself and am hurt and numb, but I am a fighter and I will be back on my feet fighting stronger and harder than ever very soon.’

But that wasn’t enough for most people. Most of the pundits thought I was a disgrace to the game and had brought shame on snooker.

I think it was inevitable that I would walk out of a tournament. There was something in me that wouldn’t be satisfied until I’d done it. It was just a matter of time before I got into
flight mode. It did cross my mind to get to the final and just not turn up. I thought that would be the ultimate thing to piss the authorities off. Part of me just wanted to have a go at World Snooker. I’m not saying this is the action of a man who was thinking at his most logical. But I also had people revving me up in the background. Friends were telling me they couldn’t get in the players’ lounge and they couldn’t get into matches, and they were encouraging me to have a pop at World Snooker. My mates the Scouse twins Bobby and Les were revving me up – nice guys, love ’em to pieces, but they are wind-up merchants. And they kept saying that the authorities were this and they were that, and they had a point; some of the people in the World Snooker hierarchy might be jobsworths who just want to make your life difficult but that’s my working environment and I have to get on with these people.

It’s important for me to keep it sweet with the authorities, but the Scouse boys didn’t want to keep it sweet – nor did they want me to keep it sweet. I was a bit of an idiot for listening to them, really; for letting them wind me up. For a while it became like a war between me and the authorities because I felt my mates had been wronged. And that was just daft.

When I walked out there was a fair old hooha. The fallout was worse than I imagined it would be. I couldn’t understand why they made such a big fuss. I wasn’t feeling well, I was depressed, Stephen Hendry’s had a bye: happy days. Then they fined me £25,000 and I thought, what the fuck! What’s happened here? They came down hard on me and I thought, I can’t do this again. When they fined me I was fuming. It made me feel even more alone.

That night I just got absolutely smashed. I phoned my mate, one of the jockeys, and said: ‘Dino, we’re out, mate!’ He came over to the house and just assumed that the match was over.
The Scouse twins, Bob and Les, were with me as well.

When I got home I told Jo what had happened. Because I was so down, she became supportive again. That’s how it always worked. She said: ‘Don’t worry, it’s the best thing you’ve ever done. That’s your truth.’ I went: ‘My truth? That’s not good. I’ve just been fined twenty-five grand. That ain’t good.’

I thought the fine was too heavy, but they were right to fine me. After all, I was a liability if they thought I could walk out in the middle of any match. And if the fans thought I might do that, maybe they’d do the same thing – or just not turn up in the first place.

I sat down with Rodney Walker, who was then chairman of World Snooker, and told him I was depressed and had family issues but said I didn’t want to go into them. ‘I’m having a hard time, not finding it easy, and I cracked,’ I said. ‘As you know, I’m quite highly strung and when I get it in my head that I’m going to do something I do it, but it was really because of personal stuff going on at home.’ It was the truth – but not the entire truth. I didn’t tell him the bit about being so pissed off with World Snooker.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘No problem, glad you told me.’ But they still shoved it up me with the fine.

Perhaps they also worried that I’d set a trend and other players would start walking out of matches, but I don’t reckon they had much to fear on that front. Other players aren’t mad enough to do it.

The fans turned against me a bit. I got a couple of boos when I played a match in Preston, then when I played in the Masters at Wembley, which was the very next tournament. John Parrott was slating me, saying, if he isn’t stable then he should get his problems sorted out and come back to play snooker when he’s ready. I thought that was wrong – kicking a man when he’s
down rather than showing a bit of empathy. Hendry was good about it. He said that for me to have done that I must have had a lot on my mind. But the others just said I had no excuse – if you’re a pro you just go out there and play.

At the Masters the pressure was really on me. I’d just walked out, and everybody was asking what I’d be like; whether I’d play well, whether I’d even stay long enough to know if I was playing well. That was the tournament in which I beat Ding in the final and he started crying. The reason I won that tournament was because I was sitting at home on the Sunday when Ding was playing and he was really flying, and John Virgo said: ‘This is the new guard, this is the guy who’s going to take over the mantle from Ronnie O’Sullivan.’

I went, cheeky bastard! I love John, but I thought, Christ, you’re writing my obit a bit premature, Virgo. It gave me a reason to go and win the tournament. Perfect motivation. I never said anything to John about it, but I remembered it and every time I was on that practice table I thought about what he had said, and how I had to shut my critics up.

Ironically, then, it was Ding who I met in the final and he was playing really well. He went 2-0 up, and I thought, I’ve got a right battle on here. But I knew my form was okay – coming and going – but when it came it did so in spades. So I thought, wait till I’ve got a bit of form and just see how he responds with what I hit him with. I didn’t panic when he went 2-0 up, then it went 2-2, then 5-3 at the interval – I’d outplayed him, outfought him, by then, and he knew he was in for a hard match because I was playing some nice shots.

Then it got to 9-3 and he wanted to walk out. Funny because Ding is the last person you’d expect to do something like that. Maybe he was taking a leaf out of my book. Ding started crying, and then it was the interval with me only needing one
more frame, and he went to shake my hand. I thought about my own problems, and said to him: ‘No, mate. You can’t do that. They are going to ruin me, and they’ll ruin you if you do it. You cannot do it.’

Well, when I say that’s what I said to him, it’s what I got Django to translate for me, and I put my arm round him and said: ‘Come and have a cup of tea.’ Maybe he was so gone that he didn’t know the score or he thought he’d already lost. So we went and had a cuppa and I said: ‘Your mum’s watching, your dad’s watching, this is bollocks, one more frame and it’s over.’ He was sobbing. I took him into my dressing room and Django was with us. I said to Django: ‘Tell him he’s got to go back and play, everything’s sweet’, and I asked him if he liked racing cars, Ferraris, and said we could go down to Brand’s Hatch for a day.

He started to chill out. His manager, Gary Baldry, was there, and I said: ‘He’s got to go out and play.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Gary said.

‘Come on, let’s go out and do one more frame, get it over and done with, and that’s it, otherwise World Snooker and the press will slaughter him just like they slaughtered me and that’s no good for him.’

So we went out, played the last frame and one person in the crowd slagged me off. He shouted out: ‘You’re just as bad, walking out.’

‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘If you’ve got nothing nice to say, go home.’ That was while I was clearing up in the last frame. I thought, I’m not having this idiot saying that.

So even though the walking-out experience was bad for me, in a way it made me aware of things, and enabled me to help Ding in the end, when he was in the same situation.

I’ve never spoken to Ding about what happened. There’s
no need to. He learnt from it, just as I learnt from my proper walkout.

The wet towel over the head

I was playing Mark King. Some players you can watch and enjoy and think: ‘You know what, I’m getting a pasting here, but I’ve got the best seat in the house’ – Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, and you’re going you know that this geeza’s class, but then I’m playing Mark King and there’s nothing good about watching him play.

He probably knows he’s a hacker. He’s not one of those who thinks he’s brilliant. He’s honest and open. He knows he’s done unbelievably well for the talent he’s got. He’s a bit of a banger. He’s got no touch. But he’s got more fight and spirit in him than anyone in the game. Having said that, sitting there and watching him play isn’t a dream day out.