Historic Crucible deserves due respect as memories of past tournaments linger
Players criticised the venue during the opening days of last year’s event.
Twelve months ago Kyren Wilson emerged from a maelstrom of Crucible criticism to claim his first world snooker title and add his name to the list of those who have picked up the sport’s greatest prize since the tournament adopted its current home in 1977.
It is testament to the Championship’s enduring magic that the respective deaths, since Wilson collected his prize, of distant former champions Ray Reardon and Terry Griffiths should have been greeted with such profound sadness and vivid recollections by so many modern stars of the game.
Ronnie O’Sullivan recalled the unlikely coaching link-up with Reardon that helped him add an extra dimension to his game and sweep to his second world title in 2004, while Mark Williams was among many who owed much of their success to the tireless mentoring of Griffiths.
As the column inches devoted to the 40th anniversary of the famous ‘Black Ball Final’ this year have emphasised, snooker is not a sport that allows its history to fade and such memories are inextricably associated with the compact and, frankly, wholly un-modern venue in which they have been made.
Last year’s Championship was blighted from its opening days by criticism from players – some of whom are destined to remain mere bit-part players in its legacy – amid talk of spurious breakaway tours and sacrificing much of what has been built in order to gorge on Saudi golden balls or cold, hard Chinese cash.
Economically, of course, it is entirely appropriate to question the business sense of sticking with a 980-capacity venue when so many other lucrative opportunities are calling, be they at home or abroad, but it is too easy to disregard the uniqueness of a relationship whose 48 years have proven to be mutually priceless.
It may be that when it creaks to its half-century, the Crucible will indeed need an unrecognisable revamp, but for the time being it should be accorded the respect it deserves, with talk of its future – whatever that may entail – temporarily shelved during the course of the tournament’s latest instalment.
Wilson, for one, deserves full attention as he embarks on a quest to shatter the curious Crucible curse that says no first-time winner of the title has returned to successfully defend it since the days when it wrenched itself out of its smoke-filled working men’s club era.
Wilson has worn his world crown with pride and a successful season by any standards suggests he is as well-placed as any of those previous maiden champions – Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins – to put another of the Crucible’s famous quirks to rest.
If the world’s top 16 has hardly seen a shake-up in recent times, the current season has revitalised the careers of former champions Mark Selby and Higgins, who contested the Tour Championship final earlier this month and have every reason to believe their glory years are far from behind them.
Another trophy-laden season for Judd Trump has not quite banished lingering questions over his ability to stay the course over the long-haul format and repeat a triumph which, amid the extraordinary quality of his 2019 final win over Higgins, appeared almost certain to be the first of many.
And there remains the inescapable spectre of O’Sullivan, due to arrive in search of a record-breaking eighth title having not picked up his cue in a competitive environment since dumping it in a bin en route for the exit after losing a Championship League match against Robert Milkins in January.
At his best, O’Sullivan remains unstoppable, a player whose talent eclipses all who inhabit that long list of Crucible greats, names like Davis and Hendry who, at their best, seemed impregnable, piling up milestones that appeared incapable of being bettered either by their own or future generations.
O’Sullivan remains by far snooker’s most marketable asset, but at the same time he is far from rendering it a one-man show.
An early exit for O’Sullivan – or even, given his recent tendency, a withdrawal – might bite into a few TV viewing figures, might shave off a few of those column inches, but it would to little to impact the prestige nor momentum of a tournament which has stoically endured pretty much everything that has been thrown it over the past half-century or so.
Most of which is down to the magic of the Crucible, the very same arena in which Reardon luxuriantly preened and Griffiths won the title in only his second tournament as a professional, not long after clambering out of a Llanelli pit.
It is for them as much as anyone that this season’s tournament deserves to be contested amid the welcome sound of silence.
