Jimmy White Interview

‘The greatest player never to have won the World Snooker Championship’ is probably the best way to describe Jimmy White.

Having lost in the final of the event a remarkable six-times, it seems White’s time has passed to get his name on the trophy.

But now he is doing his bit to repay the fans that have followed him throughout his career.

After officially opening a new snooker club in West Yorkshire, White paid tribute to the supporters that class him as their hero.

“I have a lot of time for people that admire me. I have never been rude to anyone and people appreciate that about me,” he said.

He continued by saying: “I am lucky to have played snooker for a living and done something that I enjoy doing.”

It all began after winning the English Amateur Championship in 1979, the World Amateur Championship in Tasmania a year later, before turning professional in the same year.

With the likes of Mark Williams, Ken Doherty and Matthew Stevens finding themselves out of the top 16, the standard of the game seems to be getting better all the time.

“The quality nowadays is amazing and that is because they are athletes like footballers are,” explained James Warren, which is his full name.

He went on to say: “When I made a 100 break at 13, it was in the national newspapers but they are making 147s at 13 now.”

And White had a word of advice for kids that may be looking to take up the sport.

“Education comes first, before anything else. I was one of the lucky ones but if I had an education then I would have been able to manage my affairs better,” he suggested.

As the amount of games he plays decreases due to not qualifying for tournaments, ‘The People’s Champion’ has a made a foray into other sports.

In 2003, he won the Poker Million tournament on Sky Sports, beating Steve Davis, the man who defeated him the 1984 final.

“The money was good, but the buzz came nowhere close to winning a snooker event,” White said contentedly.

Despite suffering personal problems and family tragedies throughout his life, he has battled on in his profession and has put that down to one thing: “A love for the sport.”
The 47-year-old describes how he felt when Batley boy Paul Hunter passed away in 2006.

“Paul’s death affected me a lot because I cared for him very much. He was a very good friend of mine, not just a pal on the circuit, we were very close. It makes me feel ill now talking about it,” he said solemnly.

Known as the ‘Whirlwind’ for his speed and swift movement around the table, White’s style has been popular with his admirers.

Ronnie O’Sullivan, or ‘The Rocket’, is famous for his pace and elegance on the green baize and is someone Jimmy relates to.

“I was always fast, not so much now because I am old but when I was younger I was as fast as Ronnie is now. You slow down eventually and start to think a bit,” revealed White.

He also gave the highest praise to the current world champion by saying: “O’ Sullivan is absolutely magic. He is the best player I have played against.”

But White disagrees with O’ Sullivan’s recent remarks that snooker is becoming boring and it needs jazzing up.

“Take no notice of a lot of his comments. Snooker is snooker, you can’t jazz it up in any way. It is one of them sports that should be left alone.

“When you have a genius like him playing the sport, snooker will always grow,” said White.

Even though he has slipped down to 65th in the rankings, White had a message for his fans.

“As long as I can walk around that table and still enjoy playing, I shall continue to do so,” he said enthusiastically.

It seems that any talk of retirement is out of the question which means we will be seeing Jimmy White gracing a snooker table for the foreseeable future.

And who knows, if the balls roll his way, maybe even another title before he performs his swan song.

Shamoon Hafez