The "147" Still Magical After All These Years

 This was the only time in all the years I'd known Joe that he revealed nerves.When the cheering had died down an we began to move from the table to my office he gasped; Ted! For Gods sake pour me a large brandy". After sinking it even faster than the last black in his 147, he phoned his wife June, who knew how much that maximum break meant to him and told her the good news. Understandably enough, she burst into tears.- Ted Lowe on the Joe Davis's first 147.

There was a moment the other day, when Mark Allen rolled in that length of the table yellow to keep his break alive, that the camera flicked to the audience & people were literally hopping up and down from their seats with excitement. If anything shows just what a hold moments like these have over the snooker world, it was this. After all, can you think of any other sporting achievement that still means so much after it has been done for the 170th time?

This coming January 11th, we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first official televised 147, when Steve Davis took 11 minutes & 53 seconds to create that bit of snooker magic at The Oldham Civic Centre, famously winning a Lada Car for his trouble ( the tournament was the Lada Classic after all )

By irony his opponent on the night was John Spencer, who a couple of years previously had been denied this honour when the tv cameras were not rolling for his "maxi" & the break itself was then confined to history because the pockets were not templated properly.

Over the years of course we have seen the number of players achieving the break continuously increase,but still in 40 years, when you look at the amount of frames played, 170 is still a small enough number to make being a member of the club feel pretty exclusive.

This is understandable when you think of all the things that have to fall in to place to make it possible.Firstly you have to pot the opening red and finish on the black. Ideally this would be early in the frame,before any safety has pushed reds to safe positions.Then, if you've started with three or four reds & blacks, you might start to think  "this is on" ,but the state of the match comes in to play. The first priority in every frame is to win it, so invariably at some stage a player will have to make a conscious decision to commit to it, often turning down easier position on another colour to stay on the black. If a match is still in the balance this is a brave choice to make. Once the tenth red has gone down the frame is safe,but now nerves come in to it. At this stage the crowd are all fully aware of whats happening and are willing every ball in. As their excitement builds you need to keep your own in check. If you are playing in a multi table arena, play will have stopped on those tables as you start to clear the colours.All eyes are on you now & everyone expects you to do it. You have cleared the colours hundreds of thousands of times, but this is different. Palms getting sweaty you try to stay calm. Eventually you get to the final black, ideally just off straight with your hand on the table, you roll it in & the place erupts.

Sadly at times, after completing all the hard work, that final black at times can prove at step too far. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh ,twice missed the final black in the same season, but the most famous final black miss was from poor old  Ken Doherty. Playing Matthew Stevens in the 2000 Masters final, with the 147 prize of a Honda Sportscar waiting to be claimed, Ken missed the easiest of blacks.The crowd still rose to give a standing ovation as Ken departed the table, but this was more the clap of sympathy you get at football matches when a player is stretchered off. Thankfully Ken did get to join the "147 club" later in his career, but after his World championship win in 1997, it is that missed black he will be most remembered for.

In the 40 yrs since Steve created that piece of snooker history, we have witnessed  so many great maximum moments, so whether your favourite is Bill Werbernuik peaking around the curtain at his friend Cliff Thorburn, Kirk Stevens leaping in the air, Ronnie whizzing around in 5 minutes or one you were in the audience to witness yourself ( for me it was standing backstage in the arena as Ding Junhui cleared the colours in the PTC Garnd Finals in Galway) Long may the 147 be something that thrills the snooker world.