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Snooker legend Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins dies at 61

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Former world snooker champion Alex Higgins has died aged 61 after a long battle against throat cancer.

The 1972 and 1982 world champion, a heavy smoker, was reportedly found dead in his flat in Belfast on Saturday.

Recent newspaper pictures showed a painfully thin Higgins in Spain after his hopes of having surgery to get new teeth had been dashed.

Higgins lost all his teeth during his cancer treatment but was not deemed fit enough to have the surgery.

The legendary Northern Ireland player had been suffering from throat cancer for more than a decade and he blamed his illness largely on the cigarette makers who sponsored his sport.

His weight had reportedly plummeted to only seven stone as he had to have all his food pureed because eating in a normal fashion had become excruciating.

Friends of the controversial snooker legend had raised around £20,000 to enable Higgins to have the surgery in Spain.

However, he was deemed too frail to undergo the operation by the Spanish medics.

Higgins was in the news in May after claiming that he had knowledge of at least four top players taking bribes to lose tournament matches.

The Northern Ireland legend also revealed that he turned down several big-money offers to throw games in his career.

Higgins, the world champion in 1972 and 1982, claimed Greek gamblers offered him £18,000 in 1979 to lose his Benson & Hedges Masters quarter-final against Perrie Mans and £20,000 to cheat at the Irish Masters in 1989 but rejected both.

Higgins was scheduled to appear in the new World Seniors Championship in November.

The Belfast man clinched his first World title in 1972 as he defeated John Spencer in the final and memorably repeated that triumph 10 years later at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield by beating Ray Reardon.

Higgins was also beaten in the 1976 and 1980 world finals while other triumphs included two Masters titles at Wembley.

He had frequent brushes with snooker's governing body - he once head-butted a tournament director - and his career suffered a downward spiral after being banned for an entire season following a threat to have his compatriot Dennis Taylor shot in 1990.

However, Taylor was among the first of many former players and others connected with the sport to pay tribute to Higgins, admitting: "There was just something about the way he played the game - there was a little bit of [John] McEnroe in there.

"I don't think you'll ever see a player in the game of snooker like the great Alex Higgins."

BBC snooker commentator Philip Studd described Higgins as "snooker's original, troubled genius".

"Charismatic, flash, fast, unpredictable, combustible - you just couldn't take your eyes off the 'Hurricane'," the BBC commentator told Radio 5 live.

"While he could never match the consistency of Steve Davis or Stephen Hendry, Higgins on his day was the greatest of them all.

"He touched the heights in 1982 when he won his second world title.

"He pipped Jimmy White to the final thanks to a break still widely regarded as the finest ever made.

"His tears of triumph after beating Ray Reardon - wife and baby in arms - remains one of snooker's most iconic moments.

"Without Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins snooker would never have become one of the most popular television sports in the 1980s and beyond."

Higgins was married twice and had two children with his second wife Lynn, whom he later divorced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/snooker/8852020.stm

RIP

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red fever

red fever

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Higgins & Best were heroes in N/Ireland nay GODS.

I loved watching him play the game.

There will never be another player like Higgins.

SAD that he's gone, but his fans will remember him as snookers greatest entertainer. The man was magic, he put snooker on the world stage.

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Dangerous

Dangerous

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BBC are doing a programme this week on Higgins " the peoples champion".

To my knowledge the peopless champion in snooker has always been Jimmy White.Im afraid Higgins was a selfish,violent drunk who gave absolutely nothing back to the game.all he did was take fom it.A carbon copy of his fellow irishman George Best.

They were both 50% genius 50% ar**holes.

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red fever

red fever

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HERO IN MY EYES. He is credited with puting snooker on the map so how you can say he gave nothing back makes me sad.:frown:

Higgins was an inspiration to many subsequent professional snooker players including Ken Doherty, Jimmy White, and Ronnie O'Sullivan who in an interview stated "Alex was an inspiration to players like Jimmy White and thousands of snooker players all over the country, including me. The way he played at his best is the way I believe the game should be played. It was on the edge, keeping the crowd entertained and glued to the action."[44]

His very unorthodox yet effective play was perhaps best encapsulated in a celebrated break of 69, made under extreme pressure, against Jimmy White in the penultimate frame of their World Professional Snooker Championship semi-final in 1982. Higgins was 0–59 down in the frame and probably one ball away from exiting the Championship, but managed to compile an extremely challenging clearance during which he was scarcely in position until the colours. In particular, former world champion Dennis Taylor considers a three-quarter-ball pot on a blue into the green pocket especially memorable, not only for its extreme degree of difficulty but for enabling Higgins to continue the break and keep White off the table and unable to clinch victory at that moment. In potting the blue, Higgins screwed the cue-ball on to the side cushion to bring it back towards the black/pink area with extreme left-hand sidespin, a shot Taylor believes could be played 100 times without coming close to the position Higgins reached with the cue-ball (he arguably went too far for ideal position on his next red but the match-saving break was still alive).[45][46]

In Clive Everton's TV documentary The Story of Snooker (2002), Steve Davis described Higgins as the "one true genius that snooker has produced",[47] despite the autobiography of a contemporary leading professional Willie Thorne characterising Higgins as "not a great player".[48] Higgins arguably fulfilled his potential only intermittently during his career peak in the 1970s and '80s; Everton puts this down to Davis and Ray Reardon generally being too consistent for him.[49]

Regardless, Higgins' exciting style and explosive persona helped make snooker a growing television sport in the 1970s and 1980s. Higgins also made one of the first 16-red clearances (in a challenge match in 1976); it was a break of 146 (with the brown as the first "red", and sixteen colours: 1 green, 5 pinks and 10 blacks).[

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Dangerous

Dangerous

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he may have inspired many great players.It could also be said that Adolf Hitler inspired many tyrants.

Higgins was a genius,but a tortured soul,who didnt really care for anybody but himself.Im afraid he cannot be mentioned in the same breath as Steve Davis,Ray Reardon,Stephen Hendry etc.These are true greats.

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