Obituary: Alex Higgins / Took Britain by storm in snooker
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The rogues of sport are legion. Gifted, charismatic and reckless, they burn with hubris, flout convention, seize championships and rouse fans. Bobby Fischer at the chessboard. Mike Tyson in the ring. Tiger Woods on the links. Alex Higgins -- smoker, drinker, brawler, gambler, womanizer and two-time world snooker champion -- was an exemplar of the type.
An offshoot of billiards, the British game is played on a 12-foot-by-6-foot table with 6 pockets and 22 balls. It originated in the second half of the 19th century, probably among British soldiers stationed in India -- the name comes from a sneering term for an inexperienced cadet -- and became a niche pastime, almost solely for bar gamblers and gentleman codgers.
Then, in the early 1970s, Mr. Higgins, a working-class hustler and failed jockey born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, joined the professional snooker circuit, won his first world championship at 22, and, with his whirlwind playing style -- his nickname was Hurricane -- and belligerent antics, became a pop star.
Known as "the people's champion," he helped spur the game's popularity, especially on television; in the 1980s, millions of viewers followed professional snooker on the BBC.
Mr. Higgins was found dead in his home in Belfast on July 24. He was 61. He received a diagnosis of throat cancer 12 years ago, and treatments finally destroyed his teeth and otherwise weakened him to the point where he could not take solid food, Ivan Hirschowitz, a spokesman for World Snooker, the sport's governing body, said.
Snooker may be alien to most Americans, but it remains one of Britain's most popular games, with 4 million people who play, according to World Snooker. Its popularity has grown recently in Germany and Eastern European nations like Poland and Romania, but its most startling growth has been in China, where an estimated 30 million people have taken up the game in the past decade.
The game, which has found little footing in the United States, begins with 15 red balls racked as in a game of straight pool and six additional balls of different colors placed at specified locations on the table.
Players use a cue and a white cue ball to pocket -- or pot, in the game's parlance -- the other balls in a prescribed order, the balls having different point values. A player shoots until he misses; the skein of successful shots is called a break. The idea is to have more points than your opponent by the time the table is clear.
First Published August 11, 2010 12:00 am
