The Hurricane has blown out and a new biography gives the reasons
Clive Everton
Alex Higgins has gone missing. Three months have passed since his last public sighting at the Crucible during the summer; not at the game’s most famous venue, however, but the snooker club of that name which stands in the shadow of Strangeways prison. Other sightings have placed him in various pubs on either side of the Irish Sea, hustling pool for a tenner a game, even at times reduced to topping up his glass with leftovers.
Twice under the surgeon’s knife for cancers of the palate and throat, he looked very rough indeed, although friends report that he has recently gained weight and moved into a flat in Belfast. He is, they say, “round and about” but at 51 is bereft of the talent, applause, fame and, but for the generosity of others, the money which glued his troubled life together.
John Hennessey’s unauthorised biography, Eye Of The Hurricane, which is published this week, charts his decline simply by assembling accounts of episodes from his turbulent past. This first proper account of Higgins’s life is all the more clear-eyed for being written without his cooperation and draws in new information and eye-witness accounts from those who crossed his path.
We know, for example, that in 1986 he was banned for five events for head-butting a tournament director; we learn only now that he also broke a pint glass and used it to threaten the doctor who was supervising the giving of a urine sample for a drug test.
The late John Pulman, a world champion in the olden days and no mean carouser himself, described him as “Jekyll and Hyde, 90% Hyde”. All snooker insiders would concur, arguing only about the percentage.
Even snooker’s fledgling Seniors Tour, one event old, is not hastening to offer the Hurricane any paydays. Peter Bainbridge of Seniors Snooker Ltd, said: “Seniors players are shareholders in our business, as is the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association [WPBSA]. Entry to our events is by invitation and virtually every player we have sounded out has some tale of borrowing money, physical assault or embarrassment to tell [of Higgins]. In no way would we wish to be judgemental and his participation at some stage is not to be ruled out, but at the moment we are looking for factors which are going to make it easier rather than potentially more difficult to establish our tour.”
Snooker players are not a censorious lot but experience has taught them that Higgins, particularly with a drink inside him, spells the kind of trouble that is unlikely to encourage corporate support. Two years ago, at an Irish Masters champions dinner, he poured a glass of wine into the dress-suit pocket of a sponsor’s representative. Later that night he was decked by the husband of a woman he had insulted in the bar of the tournament hotel. So what else was new?
Even when he won his first world title at the age of 22 it was clear that Higgins was carrying the seeds of self-destruction. After his second, 10 years later, he created one of television’s most indelible images as he tearfully beseeched his wife and baby daughter to join him on the stage of the Crucible Theatre.
“When he won the world title again he changed, as if to say, ‘I’m the champion and I can do what I like’,” said his former wife Lynn, who has been tracked down by Hennessey, together with the babe-in-arms Lauren, now 18.
Lauren admits: “I can’t relax with him when he’s had a drink. Despite all the things he’s done, he’s still my dad and I do love him. I don’t want any harm to come to him but I don’t know whether he’ll ever be able to sort himself out. Dad was the best and he threw it all away.”
Snooker’s greatest unorthodox genius came from a Belfast family in which there was never much money to spare. His father, when young, was hit by a lorry and left with a learning disorder. He received no compensation, nor did he ever learn to read or write.
His mother and three sisters gave him unconditional love, which he has spent his life trying to recapture. Sometimes he received it from his supporters, from women or from friends, with virtually all of whom he eventually outwore his welcome.
One childhood incident may hint at why his lack of respect for any form of authority is so liberally laced with rage and contempt. His mother had equipped him with a pristine football kit but he was five minutes late getting out on the pitch and the teacher with the whistle sent him back to the dressing room.
In his latter years as a player he complained endlessly and groundlessly about referees putting him off, even when they were standing behind him. “But you were in my line of thought,” he told one.
There were occasions when he was wronged. A manager, described by a high court judge as “incompetent, reckless or worse” as he banned him from holding a company directorship for five years, left him with severe financial bruising; some of his WPBSA disciplinary hearings had a whiff of the kangaroo court about them; his lawyer laid 17 complaints against WPBSA board members and officials which have never been dealt with; his high court action alleging unfair treatment at two disciplinary tribunals attracted an offer of settlement but has now expired.
No sum of money, of course, could ever compensate him for the aching loss of the irrecoverable: his game at peak performance.
It is a loss he cannot shake hands with and it is one that has cost him money, respect and the warmth which offers comfort to sport’s great champions of yesteryear.