The popularity of the snooker game was at its peak throughout the 70s and 80s decades of the previous century. That time, when the World Championship final was on TV, the streets of London were empty, top snooker champs were millionaires and young kids were dreaming about a professional snooker career (on baize sheets, of course).

Why blubber about it when you can take a look at this TV documentary:

Apparently, it all begun in 1969, with the beginning of color TV. The televised snooker tournament "Pot Black" was broadcast by the BBC and the viewers were fascinated by the reds and color balls dropping down the baize-covered snooker table. Some of the best snooker players in history made their debut television appearance on the show. Some of them, such as Ronnie O’sullivan and Stephen Hendry, appeared as young snooker prodigies at the junior version of the TV show.

The rest was history; snooker was so popular that even Steve Davis, the least colorful figure of all the 1970s-1980s snooker stars (but probably one of the most diligent and devoted pros) was said to appear on TV more than the prime minister. Hey, he even got a spitting image!

Next up: the inevitable decline of snooker and where are the 1980s snooker stars now?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 5:33 am and is filed under Snooker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.