The Snooker Thread (Part 2)

[ChairmanDan]

End of break for Ronnie on 31. Didn’t have an angle off the black to clip any red off the pack.

[ChairmanDan]

What was Ronnie thinking of there?

Robbo immediately runs out of position though.

[Massey]

Great chance for Robbo here now

[fenwaypark]

Robbo holds his nerve, great win

[ChairmanDan]

That was some match winning clearance from Robbo.

[Massey]

Excellent clearance

[starryplough]

WST (@WeAreWST) on X

[balbec]

Beat Lei Peifan 5-4 today. Into the last sixteen playing Zhang Anda next.

[balbec]

Hill lost 5-4. He really needs to start getting to QFs and SFs regularly to move up the rankings. Stan Moody made it though.

[Raylan]

Jimmy White: I lived life like I played snooker. I went for my shots

The ‘Whirlwind’ recalls skipping school to win money, his friendship with Alex Higgins, and the joy of following cricket career of grandson Ralphie Albert, who has already represented England U19

Atherton picks up a few tips from White during a frame at the Epsom Club

PETER TARRY FOR THE TIMES

Mike Atherton

, Chief Cricket Correspondent

Friday September 12 2025, 10.00am BST, The Times

Under a portrait of Winston Churchill, downstairs in the Epsom Club — a far cry from the snooker halls of his youth in Tooting — Jimmy “Whirlwind” White, one of Britain’s best-known sportsmen of the past 40 years, and still one of the most loved, is wide eyed with wonderment. “Sometimes I just go wow! I can’t quite believe it. I’m flabbergasted, really. I’m so proud of him,” he says.

Upstairs are four plush green-baize tables, upon which White rekindled his love of practice during the Covid period, and which has led to him maintaining his card on the professional circuit, aged 63. Pride of place in the snooker room is a photo of him and Alex Higgins, best mates and wild stars of the snooker circuit in the 1980s, when millions tuned in to a series of epic World Championships at the Crucible.

But that feels a lifetime ago when talk turns to the unlikely topic of cricket and the achievements of his grandson, Ralphie Albert, who is starting to make a name for himself in the game. Last month, Ralphie played for Surrey in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup, scoring 96 against Nottinghamshire in his maiden innings, and he took ten wickets in a match earlier in the summer with his left-arm spin for England’s under-19s against India.

Even when he is playing snooker abroad, White keeps track of Ralphie’s progress

ANDY KEARNS/GETTY IMAGES

Eagle-eyed viewers might have seen television pictures picking up White and Ralphie sitting together watching a day of the senior England side’s fifth Test against India at The Oval. White, an avid follower of his grandson’s nascent career, is proud that again Ralphie, just 17, has been selected for the England Under-19 games that will complete the summer, against Ireland and Bangladesh.

He realised that his grandson liked cricket early on. “Years ago, we’d occasionally have a celebrity game in Esher to raise money for charity and Ralphie’s dad, Jon Albert, my son-in-law, was a very good cricketer. I’d get him in as a ringer, like bringing in a hundred-break snooker player, and Ralphie has been playing ‘mini-cricket’ since he was a really young man.” As so often, enthusiasms get passed down through the generations.

“He’s such a hard worker. Even in lockdown, he was working away on his bowling. I’m absolutely blown away really. Ralphie’s so dedicated; practises hard and gives it his all. The most precious thing for me is that he enjoys it and that it’s about the cricket, not what he can get out of cricket. Even if he has a great day, he’s so level. He’s proper professional.

“As you know, you can watch anything on the streams these days, so I watch him all the time. I was in China last week for a tournament, trying to show the locals the stream, telling them, ‘It’s my grandson,’ but I think it all got lost a bit in translation. There was the language barrier, obviously; cricket is not a big thing in China, and my grandson’s surname is Albert. All in all, it didn’t go well,” he says, laughing.

Atherton with White, 63, who says that it is “a miracle that he is still alive”

PETER TARRY FOR THE TIMES

White, wearing a natty black cap and trim, is warm, humorous, self-deprecating and, all things considered, in surprisingly good nick. He has, he says, been living “the good life” for about five or six years now — and by the good life he means one shorn of those things, such as booze, with which his addictive personality cannot cope. “If I have one drink, I’ll have 21, so I stay away now,” he says.

That, as has been well documented, was not always the case, and White’s story, contrasting with his grandson’s stable upbringing, stands testament to how times and circumstances change — and how, from one generation to the next, lessons, inspiration and cautionary tales get passed on. “I just hope they [the grandkids] don’t scour the internet to find out what I got up to. It’s a miracle I’m still alive,” he says.

It was when he was about 13 years old, just after his first century break, that White began wagging off school to spend time at the Zans snooker club in Tooting, southwest London. “Kids now, not so much in the UK but in China, are making 147 breaks at 13,” he says. “We used to have to turn our [school] blazers inside out otherwise the police would just pick you up and take you back to school.

“I got really, really good around 15. Me and Tony Meo [who won the 1989 British Open] — he was a couple of years older than me — we had this taxi driver, a black cab, and we’d literally just put a pin on a map and we’d go somewhere like, say, Newcastle. The top players in the area would realise that there were two whippersnappers who would play anybody for money and we’d come back with thousands.

“My parents were wonderful people, loved them to bits, but I was sort of out of control from a very young age. All of a sudden, I had money, and if you had money where I came from it was thought that you should be gambling or drinking. Then I met Alex Higgins and he never played well sober.”

White said that Higgins, right, was the best shot-maker snooker has ever seen

ACTION IMAGES/SPORTING PICTURES

The “Hurricane” blew hard and the “Whirlwind” was caught up in it, and what a time it was. He had rivalries and friendships with Higgins, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry. “The red tops made out that me and Davis were enemies, but we were never that,” he says. “We’ve always been friends. I’ve just come back from Macau with him.”

White describes Higgins as the best shot-maker the game has seen, but is in no doubt that Ronnie O’Sullivan is the greatest player of them all. “Oh, without a shadow of a doubt,” he says. “His all-round game; playing ambidextrous; his focus and now, having been beaten in the semis [of the World Championships] he’s gone away to Dubai and has been practising for six hours a day. He’s probably the fittest player on tour. He’ll be back.”

White remained close to Higgins until the end and carried his coffin on the day of the funeral, with thousands lining the streets. “It was so sad,” he says. “He beat cancer, but he died of malnutrition in the end because he couldn’t look after himself. But, you know, he made snooker popular. He was the first X-factor snooker player and he was the first sportsman to bring a baby on to the telly [when Higgins beat Ray Reardon in the 1982 World Championship final]. He brought his baby on and now all the golfers do it.”

There was a legendary semi-final that year when White, 20 years old, lost to Higgins in a match he should have won, although White’s enduring popularity stems partly from his “nearly man” tag, courtesy of the six World Championship finals that slipped away. “There were only four channels then and we were in everybody’s front room,” he says. “Millions came on a rollercoaster ride with me. And there was my lifestyle — I lived my life like I played my snooker: I went for my shots.

White reached six World Championship finals but finished as runner-up each time

MIKE COOPER/ALLSPORT

“People say I should have won in ’82 and maybe I should. But I was out of control, you know. The way I was living and the way I was experimenting, I might not have survived it.” He encountered a different level of fame after that when he became friendly with the rock star Ronnie Wood, who has been a great pal for 30 years and remains so.

They met through their respective daughters. “I didn’t think Ronnie would know who the hell I was, but it turns out he had Joe Davis’s snooker table and is a great fan of the game.”

Regrets, there have been a few, and some lessons that can be passed on to the next generation usefully. “Unfortunately for me in my younger days, I was a bit of a control freak,” White says. “I looked after everybody, you know. I paid for the hotels; I paid for the mad stuff; and was looking after a group of people who were no good for me.

“I was a working-class kid; a lot of money; girls talking to me who wouldn’t normally give you a second look. I had no one to really put me right because everyone worked for me and I paid for everything. So I was a bit silly.

“Now I feel good every day. It’s fabulous. It’s not boring at all for me.”

He has found pleasure again in hard-duty snooker practice, and enjoys the tour and the competition, but not so much the travel.

“It’s usually the back that goes first with snooker players, and the co-ordination is a bit more difficult,” White says. “I do a bit of yoga to help with that. My eyes are OK, I’ve been lucky there. My travel bag is full of stuff: strap for my knee, stuff for my back; I’ve got all this stuff whereas before, you know, I’d just turn up and might not even have had any chalk.

White still enjoys playing in tournaments — although he finds the travel difficult

PETER TARRY FOR THE TIMES

“I’m playing as well as ever, but it’s different, though: now, if I’m playing in a big game, I’ll suddenly get a voice in my head that says: ‘Did you water the plants before you left home?’ Very strange.

“I’m so lucky that I’ve been able to go back on this journey. I’m only doing it for three more years, but I know there’s a tournament in me because my game is there. I just don’t know which one.”

Whether that is likely or not, I’ll leave to the snooker experts, but White seems at that contented stage, whether the bright lights shine again or not. “I’m so lucky, really: throughout all my madness I kept my relationships with my children. I adore my children. I’m very lucky how they’ve turned out. I’m proud of that. Their mum’s done a great job and to be involved with all my grandchildren, it’s just wonderful.”

And so to Ralphie. “As long as he keeps enjoying it. Fingers crossed,” White says. Alec Stewart, Surrey’s director of cricket, tells me that Ralphie is an intelligent, intuitive, hard-working cricketer with a bright future.

Before Ralphie’s professional debut, Stewart offered him shirt number 147, but the boy wears 22: he’s got his own magic to make, and his own road to take.

[balbec]

Very good. Thanks

[farmerinthecity]

A legend of the game,

And strikes me as a very nice bloke.

[balbec]

Jimmy won his first round in the English open but he’s 3-0 to Luca Brecel at the moment in 2nd. First to four

[farmerinthecity]

That mad bastard Brecel is back anyway?

[balbec]

He’s ranked 42 now

[farmerinthecity]

What a player though on his day.

He’s even better to watch than Ronnie and that says - well everything.

[starryplough]

WST (@WeAreWST) on X

[starryplough]

Hill into the last 16 against Carter, defeated Maguire 4-2 last night.

[Copper_pipe]

@starryplough

Hill into the last 16 against Lisowski, defeated Maguire 4-2 last night.

vs Ali Carter

[balbec]

Lisowski beat Xintong I think?