didnt realise how good linekar was as a snooker player. snooker is so frustrating to play cos i love it, i watch everything, every tournament and go to afew tournaments on the tour , yet when i play i cant hit anything over a break of 30. ah well, thats life innit!!!
I was involved in a series of these commercials in the 80's This is how I did some of them ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XfiF-w2ugzk.html
Lineker was a sporting prodigy. He made about 50 career centuries in snooker, and almost had a maximum as well. Think his top break was 140. He was also a top class cricketer, and people thought he could have played for England. But he chose football
You probably know that he practiced often with the great WT (Willie Thorne) when he played for Leicester City. He's not the only sportsman to be good at other sports though, it just wasn't really publicised that much. Steve and Mike Gatting played both Football and Cricket to a good standard as well as table tennis. Mike chose cricket and Steve football.
I mean hes a great character of the game, but part of me still cant forgive him for beating Jimmy White in the final when it was almost written to be Whites year.
Like most dominant sportsmen (Djokovic, Sampras, Phil Taylor, Davis, Hendry, Tiger Woods etc) we love to see them lose, until they retire, then we miss them and admire & love them. I was a Jimmy White/Alex Higgins fan, so Steve was a pain the ass....but what a great guy he is. Could listen to him all day, when he's doing his punditry.
As a teenager, I found snooker a boring game (hardly a sport) so it needed characters to make it interesting and when Davis came, there was a certain hatred to this robotic man, who seem to think he is above you, and Alex Higgins and others disliked him from the start... and that's how outsiders like me were drawn into this tension, like a Hitchcock movie. Davis height and manner was all part of it, looking down on people and showing no emotions when destroying opponents slowly and he admitted it himself he loved it. In my opinion, when I die, the only snooker player I will remember is Davis.
He did way more for Snooker than he gets credit for. I had a Steve Davis snooker table as a kid and so did thousands of others. An absolute legend and a gent.
In any sport there is the GOAT, O'Sullivan with Hendry just behind him but then there is that old Master, the original "modern" player Steve Davis will always be that Master.
A very intelligent guy. He set the standard. In the 80s I always wanted him to lose; not after that; when he started losing I wanted him to win, but either way he gets my respect.
I disliked him at his peak because I was an Alex Higgins fan but like many I grew to appreciate him, also loved his book Steve Interesting Davis, it was hilarious
