Running: The Autobiography (20 page)

Everything he does is wrong; the way he stands, the way he holds his bridge hand, the way he flicks it in, there’s nothing smooth about the way he plays. So, no disrespect to Mark – okay, a bit of disrespect to Mark – I had to put the wet towel over my head so that I didn’t see it. And I was afraid I’d be able to see him through the towel. So as I put it over my head I thought, Christ, can I still see him? But I couldn’t, thankfully.

I could just hear balls going in, and by the time the referee had called out the ball and he’d got round to potting his next ball I thought he must have walked round the table twice. A good player around this area when he’s in the balls just goes bish bish bish bish, done. Mark probably does four times more walking round the table than I do.

I just found it very difficult to watch – it was a long match, best of 17 frames, the UK Championships, and I thought, I
can’t watch him. But he isn’t the only one. There are loads I can’t bear watching. In some ways that’s why I wish I was shit because then I wouldn’t notice all the faults. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so aware of what makes certain players good and certain players bad. When you play a bad player you can pick up on their bad habits, just as when you play someone good you think: ‘Oh, I’ll try that’, and you can learn from them. With Mark King there was nothing I could feed off. I don’t think he ever knew why I had the towel over my head. He will do now, mind.

He beat me 9-8. That was the match Ray Reardon walked out of because I was smacking the balls all over the show. They brought in a rule after that saying you weren’t allowed to put a towel over your head because it was ungentlemanly conduct.

It was similar to when I played Selby and I started counting the dots on the spoon. I knew I wasn’t allowed to put the towel over my head, but he’s the same type of player. He’s got so many things wrong with his cue action that when you watch him you think, how is he potting balls, he’s going to break down eventually, he’s mistimed this one, miscued that, and I’d find myself watching and criticising in my mind. And it’s not something I wanted to do. I couldn’t help it. It’s like a compulsion. So my idea of counting the dots was so that I didn’t have to look at him or watch him play because he’s not good on the eye.

I think I could be a good coach, but I’d be a bit like Ray Reardon – baffled and frustrated when players didn’t play the way I wanted them to play. People call me instinctive but I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s more the other way round. You have to be technically good before you can be truly instinctive. If you’re technically good you can play the shots with ease and precision, which then allows you to not worry about potting the ball and where the white goes; you’re just worried about
getting from one shot to the next. You’re thinking, where do I want to be, rather than, I don’t like this shot; I’m jabby with this one, or I’m here but I don’t fancy getting there.

Being technically good frees you up and enables you to concentrate on the game itself rather than struggling with shots. That’s why I’ve often said I thought Selby would struggle with the tournaments that were over longer frames because, like me, he’s had his technical problems. Interestingly, he’s never won the World Championship, and only won the UK this year when they shortened the matches to first to 11 frames instead of first to 19. In the longer matches, technique tends to come to the fore because you’re more likely to struggle at some point if the match is over a few sessions, and if you lose a session 6-2 or 7-1 you’ve really got to battle to get back in. I used to think I would never win the World Championship because I felt I was struggling with my game technically. Thankfully, I was wrong.

The famous nosh in China

I’m not sure if this counts as a moment of madness. I thought I was just having a laugh, though not everyone saw it that way. The problem was I didn’t realise the cameras were rolling and the mics were all set up. If I had, there is no way I would have said what I did.

I was sitting next to Ivan Hirschowitz, head of media for World Snooker. Ivan’s one of my mates and he’s got a good sense of humour. They asked me the first question then translated it into English, and I thought, blimey that sounded a long question in Chinese then really short in English.

‘Fuck me,’ I said to Ivan. ‘That was the world’s longest question.’ And he started laughing.

The journalist said: ‘D’you think you gave 100 per cent today?’

‘I thought I performed well, but Marco just performed better,’ I said. I had the microphone in my hand and then put it down. I whispered to Ivan: ‘Look at that, it’s the size of my prick and the same shape.’

‘Well, that’s a funny shape,’ Ivan said.

‘Well, what shape’s yours then, Ivan,’ I said.

I didn’t realise I was all mic’d up, and we were just having a giggle. Then I looked round and said: ‘Anybody want to give me a nosh? Anyone want to suck my dick?’ And I was looking at the lady in the front row, saying: ‘You want to come and have a suck on this?’ She was looking at me, smiling, and Ivan was pissing himself laughing, tears rolling down his face. I only said it because she didn’t understand. It was stupid, but I’m not rude and offensive normally. We were just having a laugh.

I only realised that the mic was on when I got home and Dad phoned me up and said: ‘You’ve been done for lewd comments; it’s all over the radio.’

‘What?’ I said.

I didn’t know what he was on about. I was staying at my mate’s house in Ongar, and had no internet connection so I just had to take Dad’s word for it. The first I saw of it was when I bought the
Sun
the next day. I’d got home on the Monday and the transcript of it appeared in the
Sun
on the Wednesday. When I read it I just started laughing. That’s fantastic, I thought, really funny. But at the same time I was worried because I knew World Snooker was looking for an excuse to come down on me and I think they assumed the Chinese would find it offensive and say that I was a rotten lot. I was convinced World Snooker were looking for the first opportunity to ban me, and thought this would be the perfect chance – Ronnie
goes out to the new superpower, asks them to suck on his cock and upsets the Chinese. I thought they’d say, we need to come down on him; he’s not bigger than the sport, and I started to shit myself.

I had a few friends in China and asked them if they could do some digging to find out what the vibe was over there; to see whether they were really appalled by what I’d done. They got back to me and said: ‘No, no, no, they don’t get it, they think you’re great, and they’re just gutted that you’ve gone home.’ My friend said: ‘They love you here, and they don’t understand what all the fuss is about.’

So I thought, thank God for that. We put an apology out on their sports channel, I apologised, said, I love the Chinese snooker fans, I’m really looking forward to coming back. This was done without World Snooker, off my own back. By then the Chinese Snooker Association and Chinese press were on my side, so I had nothing to worry about from them. I just needed World Snooker to know that I had made up with the Chinese and apologised, and I knew that no damage had been done.

Sometimes it feels as if I’m in an abusive relationship with World Snooker. They love me, and know that I’m good for the game. But at the same time they resent me – they think I think I’m above the sport. To an extent they have been dependent on me over the past few years, and they hate that. And I know I’ve never been one of their sheep; never just done what I’m told and fallen into line. If I did that I’d quickly lose my own sense of who I am.

I thought, what’s the worst thing World Snooker can do to me? Ban me. And if they did, and I convinced myself I wasn’t enjoying playing, was depressed, they would have been doing me a favour. So every time I felt World Snooker had me by the short and curlies, I’d try to turn it into a positive – I told myself
that being banned would be good for me, and put myself out of my misery. No more snooker depression: great. I decided not to compromise. They could ban me if they wanted, but they’d look as if they were cutting off their nose to spite their face – ‘Good luck to you when you go and talk to sponsors because you would have been the ones who made the decision to ban me in the first place. I don’t have to worry about that now. Happy days!’ That’s what I told myself – and more or less what I told them.

It is weird that they are so dependent on me after all these years; that no one has come along with the personality and talent to kick me into touch. I think it’s the personality thing that’s the biggest factor. Snooker players are all boring bastards basically. Even those who are hugely gifted technically don’t have that thing that makes the public really care about them like they did about me or Jimmy White or Alex Higgins. I suppose our instability has always added to our appeal. We’re all pretty vulnerable types one way or another, and you never knew what was going to happen next when we were around.

The public adored Jimmy and Alex. Jimmy was such an amazing entertainer – and also the fact that he lost all six of his world finals turned him into even more of a people’s champion. We were all desperate for him to take the crown. Perhaps it’s the Hurricane that I’m most similar to, both in touch and in our demons. But I think the public see an important difference – ‘Yes, he’s like Higgins, but there’s the other side where he’s relentless in how he wants to be a champion, and he’s got these demons, he’s fucked up, we don’t know what he’s going to do next, but he’s healthy, he’s fit, he’s an athlete.’

World Snooker know the public feel like that about me, and it’s a problem for them. Sometimes I think there’s nothing
more they’d like to do than get rid of me once and for all. With Higgins they could do it – he wasn’t potting any more, wasn’t winning, so it was easy to give him lengthy bans when he misbehaved. Of course, when he was winning, they tolerated much of the bad behaviour.

With me, they are suffering it while I am doing okay, but I know the minute I’m not doing well, or the minute they think snooker fans have given up on me, they’ll get rid of me. It’s just a matter of time. But I’ve always thought I’m going to walk before they push me. I’ve always planned to leave on my terms rather than be pushed. I don’t want to do an Alex Higgins and be forced out. That’s why last year, world champion, best player on the planet, I went, you know what? Ta-ta. It was on my terms. And in the end they moved every goalpost to have me back. And that was me winning the battle.

In a way they must be looking forward to me retiring. Sure, they’d miss the stories and the will-he, won’t-hes, but at least they’d feel they had more control over their sport and be able to keep everyone in line easier. They would be like, Ronnie’s history, let’s move on.

People have talked up Judd Trump as the new me. But, again, I think there’s a difference. There’s a lot going on with me, for good and bad. Underneath it all, though, there is a burning desire to win and an intelligence in my game. I don’t just go out and hit balls and hope for the best, smash them round the table. I’ve walked out of a match, come back next tournament and won it. I’ve always managed to come back, and I think that makes people respect me – that I’ve come back when I’m down. People like that. It’s like Rocky or Muhammad Ali – get knocked down, get back up, win again. Ali was banned from boxing for being a conscientious objector and refusing to go into the army. In 1966, he famously said: ‘I ain’t got no quarrel
with them Viet Cong.’ He came back three years later and won the world title.

With all my demons, and my mum away, and dad away, and the drink and drugs, the kids, the maintenance, the keeping fit, the obsessions, the depressions, in between all that I’ve managed to win four world titles, four UKs and four Masters. I don’t know how. I’ve won 24 ranking events, 10 Premier Leagues, more than 50 tournaments altogether. It’s not bad going for such a fuck-up!

The Hurricane won two world titles, which is a fantastic achievement. He had the bottle to produce his best when it mattered. But he wasn’t relentless like I’ve been. He’d be out on the piss, I’d be out running eight miles (and sometimes doing both). Sometimes I would win in spite of myself. I think people have always expected me to crumble; blow up. Look at me, and you can understand why. But I’ve been going as a professional, winning events, for more than 20 years, and still feel I’ve got a few more victories left in me. But those who did think that, or who say that I’m weak mentally, don’t really know me. I’ll eat commentators like John Parrott for breakfast. All right, I have blowouts, my moments when I crack up, but over 20 years I reckon I’ve been far stronger mentally than most of my critics.

I’m not saying I’m mentally strong in the way, say, Peter Ebdon is, where he can grind through frame after frame at tortuous pace. I wear my heart on my sleeve, love my game, and ultimately as a player I do hold it together.

I might be inconsistent, contrary even, but so many real people are. Who can’t relate to that?

One day you love the game, next day you hate it. I bet loads of people feel that about their work (if they’re lucky). One day you love being around the kids, next day they’re driving
you mad. That’s just life. For me, it’s how I manage my emotions that’s important in how I go forward. In the past, my emotions dominated me. I’d have to go so low that there was nowhere else to go but up. Hopefully, I won’t spiral out of control now. I can nip it in the bud when I see things going downhill – breathe, think, ask myself what I want, try to enjoy the game.

I think most players, most people, have extreme highs and lows, but they just don’t talk about it. I’m very vocal. If I’m guilty of anything it’s being vocal about what goes on in the mind.

Shaving my head at Sheffield

It was 2005 and I was in the World Championships, playing pretty shit. I’d had a great season, winning four of the eight available titles. But at Sheffield I wasn’t dealing with the pressure very well. I felt ugly, low, sluggish. Nothing felt right. There was a clip on the telly of me, with the scoreline, and I looked at it and thought, ugh, look at the state of you. My hair was long at the time. I said to my friend Mickey the Mullet, get the razor out and give me a number one. The Mullet said: ‘No don’t be daft.’ But he did it anyway.