Reflecting on snooker hall memories in Kilkenny

I’ve been meaning to pen a little piece on the sport of snooker since the inception of this opinion column.

With the World Snooker Championship currently taking place in Sheffield, now seems like the perfect time.

I’m only 27, but I still hold great memories of the snooker club on Blackmill Street in Kilkenny City, which has since been bulldozed to make way for apartments.

Yes, it wasn’t the most glamourous sporting venue in terms of facilities, but it was kept afloat by people who loved the game and it was always brimming with characters.

As a kid going in with my father, you’d ascend a steep set of stairs, and it suddenly felt like you were on the threshold of another world.

There was a long window running down by the counter, and you just saw darkness inside the main snooker hall, with a pathwork of green tables illuminated by fluorescent lights.

I never had my own snooker cue at that age so I used to always pick one from the rack, and it was a fun process learning which cues reacted best to my style of play.

For non-snooker fans who’ve never seen a full size snooker table in real life, it tends to surprise people by how monstrously large it is.

When you’re a child, there are certain shots you can’t even reach, and I looked forward to landing on these shots, because you could use some of the interesting tools like the rest, spider and swan neck.

There’s something hugely satisfying about sinking pots in succession, whether that’s in an old snooker hall in The Marble City or The Crucible Theatre in Steel City (Sheffield).

It was also so disappointing when the lights at your snooker hall table were shut off by the timer.

Unfortunately for me, I could never pot as many balls in succession to ever warrant considering pursuing snooker competitively.

My highest break is still only 47, a full 100 points off the maximum break you can make in the game (and even 20 short of Tommy Tiernan’s personal best).

I was born just a year before Ken Doherty won the World Championship in 1997, the first and last man from the Republic of Ireland ever to do so.

As a kid, I used to be stuck to the television hoping I could see him repeat that feat, just so that I could remember it.

That possibility came devastatingly close in 2003, when he lost in the World Championship Final to Mark Williams on a scoreline of 18-16.

I was only five years of age (nearly six, mind you), but I remember watching that match and Ken coming from 10-2 down to 11-11 with it all to play for.

I also remember being so excited a few years later when Kilkennyman Davy Morris made it onto the professional tour back in 2006.

It was mad thinking that somebody from my own city, who played in the same snooker hall that I did, could go on and make it big in the professional game.

These days though, I often worry about the future of the game, not just in Kilkenny but all over Ireland.

Snooker halls are closing down at a rampant rate, not helped by the huge overheads involved in running them.

It saddens me that young people in Kilkenny won’t be able to share the same experiences that I had growing up.

It also makes me wonder how many talented potential local cueists are slipping through the cracks.

Kilkenny snooker player Benny O’Brien just recently made it as far as the Last 64 stage of the European Snooker Championships in Sarajevo.

He was one of the many locals to ply their trade in Blackmill Street, and subsequently go on to do great things.

If we ever do get a new multi-purpose sports venue in Kilkenny City, perhaps we should consider using it to help revive our county’s outstanding snooker heritage.