Canadian Club Masters 1976 Semi Final Alex Higgins v John Pulman (quality is a bit static at times) 

Rip Alex thanks for the memories growing up in the 80s 👍🎱🎱🎱🙏

Alex Higgins was born on 18th March 1949 therefore it seemed fitting to upload another Higgins video today

What an enjoyable match that was to watch. Higgins not wasting any time at all to get back to the table for his next shot...R.I.P Higgins.. Good upload👍

Alex higgins matches are like gold dust..Always wanted to see pullman play aswell..Thanks for the upload 👌

Really enjoying these old matches, thanks for uploading. It's amazing how the game has changed. No ball marker, ref using higgins' cloth, players sitting on the stairs!

I played Alex on May 21 1979 in Lee on solent British legion club, and he was amazing, 85, 104, 106, 110, my team friend Peter page, beat him on the pink. The atmosphere that night was something very special thinking about it now................Rip Alex and Peter.

Keep up the good work man,love these snooker videos,especially Alex Higgins. Im a millenium but love watching him play,my favourite player and to most of the people I guess.Genius.

Brilliant upload, thank you. How snooker has changed. Love the personal feel here...I reckon if one of the players needed the loo, they'd be allowed to get one of those blokes to take their shot for them! Loved Alex. A genius. Pulman's best was before my time but one of the best ever commentators...along with the brilliant Ted Lowe of course - I never tired of listening to him Was just reading that Pulman died on Christmas day following a fall down the stairs 😢

Higgins is a genius and superb to watch

Are most of the crowd dead? Some unbelievable pots by Alex and they don't applaud. he really was in imperious form here, potting balls from all angles and playing some decent safety when he had to. Pullman was past his prime but certainly no mug, yet he was blown off the table by The Hurricane.

Wow Alex really was quick in the 70s.

Alex Higgins the reason I started watching snooker made snooker in my opinion such an exiting great player a joy to watch Rip Alex

Love how they cleaned the cue ball. Just pick it up, wipe it and plonk it back. No marker, nothing.

What a player first ever snooker player to blow me away

THanks for uploading

And idiots say that Higgins wouldn't have beaten todays players. His talent and ease of potting and brilliant use of side is unmatched. When flowing he was greatest player by a country mile - inconsistency or not.

these balls are mad heavy. would be interesting to see modern players have a go at playing with these

How did he not win another title in these early years ,I was too young to remember not sure we had a tv lol.

I love how the ref just picks up the cue ball to clean it, nothing to mark the position of the cue ball, cleans the cue ball, then plonks it down somewhere close to where it was.

The actual quality of the play apart, it's very interesting to see how this match was directed by (I presume) some anonymous guy from Yorkshire TV. In a way, it's quite refreshing to see a departure from the "line up shot - pull focus - cut to reaction" cliches we've seen for many years, though you can see why TV snooker settled on those standard shots.

from back when you could have 1 person commentate a sport instead of needing ernie and bert everywhere

snooker looked much more raw then but far more interesting to watch...Golden period of snooker.

i love the way the ref cleaned the cue ball and didn't use a marker when he replaced it. just his initiative and experience which is good enough.....

Note to all: There only one “l” in Pulman.

The deep screw with side on the black at about 14.45 is stunning - so much power and control with those heavy old snooker balls and that slow cloth. And there's no applause for it, and daft old Ted Lowe, who knew nothing about the game despite commentating on it for decades, said nothing!

Great video

36:29 is why Higgins was the greatest player of all time. He could do anything with the cue ball. People talk about Trump today, but look at this shot, with the old heavy balls and cloth, it is pure genius, he made magic happen on the snooker table. People talk about todays higher scoring and consistency, but you can't compare different eras. If he were a young player in todays game, with all the guidance and professionalism, of course he'd be able to compete and win, as would Reardon and Spencer, they were masters of the game and had every shot in the book. Spencer and Higgins created shots, their colossal screw shots the full length of the table are the stuff of legend, Higgins played virtually every shot with screw and side, and was the first player to master the screw with reverse side. Legend!

I will say this after watching the first two frames, Pullman certainly never knew when he was beaten! 😂 Snookers very own equivalent to the Black Knight from Monty Python... Pullman now needs 87 snookers... Pullman: I've had worse, tis only a flesh wound 🤪

Higgins had it made playing all the auld team, but along came interesting and really spoilt the party 🎉 🍾 🍻 🤯

The late John Pullman. I only remember him as a player from the days of Pot Black as l believe he had retired in the early 80s.

14:46 what an insane shot!

This was a prime Higgins mid to late 70s

Stephen, do you have any footage of Alex from the 1987 & 1988 World Championship at all?

Hugh pockets then compared with today's

Stephen - great uploads, many thanks. Do you have the remaining matches in this tournament?

Ted Lowe also did Snooker for Indoor League

Hehe, word of the match..’getatable’..what frame? Who coined that fab word, made me giggle, what a fab match an I met these both greats as a nipper, early 70’s cheers

Maybe deinterlace the video for a next upload. Deinterlacing is, that the squirrel lines will be perfect

were the pockets bigger back then?

John pullman simply outclassed, by Alex........ 🐟🐟👍👍

3:38 "Where's the cue ball...?" Where's Virgo?

Fred!

after his opening shot, its easy to see why pullman was a champion

Wow Pullman never gave up did he !

Higgins like a werewolf here.

how the hell did you get this match. always wanting to watch alex play in the 70,s just heard stories he made century breaks in 90secs etc.

1.37 - Did the referee just clean the white with a towel Alex gave him and do it without marking where the white ball was? How funny!

Wow! I've never seen Pullman play before.

I think the best of Alex higgens was before snooker bacame famous

Rare footage of Pulman - shame he was so poor in this.

for pullman to have won the world title there must have been only 8 in the tournament with 7 of them women

Interesting that the players didn't concede in those days. Thank goodness that's no longer the case.

Alex wearing bow tie here 😂

Wow northern snooker centre - what a place and history

With these two playing the pub taps were probably run dry.

Old pulley a ten time world champion

Pulman wants a lot of snookers. "He is 81 behind with just 35 on the table" . Shades of Ronnie here getting match practice whilst chasing a hopeless cause. In all seriousness, this was the age when players were trying to sell the game to the public, so as per someones comment earlier, short changing the public by conceding wasn't really the done thing.

Why do they keep playing when there's no chance to win with Higgins so far in front?

According to the commentator one red was not "get-attable".

The great John Pulman, whowon his first World Championship in 1957 and held it until beaten by John Spencer in 1969. Fair to say he’s past his best here, or just out of form.

Didn't they bother to concede in those days ?

Presenter at the start looks like Fred Dineage

All the audience wearing ties

£1000 for the tournament winner. A lot of money in 1976.

36:25

0.24k :)

Is that dicky davis?

Joh Pullman is playing quite badly but let's remember, he's 53 years old here and way past his best.

Fred Dinance has escaped from area 51 ?

Higgins gets a cloth to wipe the ball lol .some different now.

Honestly licking the ball is disgusting lol

imagine how good higgins might have been were he to aim for each shot and stay on it before he went for the next one.

Tavy@ in the 1970s the pockets were smaller and what alex did at 33.29 shows hes the greatest player ever. A though john pulman was going to keep playing after the lights went off and every one even alex went home. Even at 2-0 and 80-4 points down when alex got down to the pink and black pulman was still thincking about playing on. even though hes well beaten and out the tournament. I thought what it is it with this guy? Stubborn or what. Or just cant accept defeat. Alex walked all the way back to the crowd and then had to walk all the way back down to shake pulmans hand. Pulman shouldv walked up to alex. Any way the man was crap. Just becouse he win the world title 10 times against and in a time with the worse players ever to play the game. If alex had been born ten years earlier you wouldnt of heard of pulman, reardon, spencer, alex took the game to a higher level pushing reardon and spencer out the game and pulman as well. A mean that pot at 33.29 potting that red hard right along the cushion and screwing the white back at least 11 feet, when has any one seen pulman, reardon and spencer do a shot like that. And in a time with smaller pockets!!! Rip alex

pulman really playing on 81 behind? lmfao

Higgins the master! John pulman won the world title 10 times. But tbh did he really have any great competiton in the 1950s and 60s, a dont believe so. And when joe davis won it 26 times and fred davis 36 times a think. How many players were there back then? About 16 and any one else that wanted a game lol. Round about 1969 the bbc were talking about axing the game from the tv. Becouse there was no money in it, the game wasnt going any where, no one was that interested in it. And it was boring and so slow to watch! So the bbc gave it another few years but the game looked doomend. A mean how could it get any better? And colour tv was in as well, but the bbc wanted to see money and lots of it. Then in 1972 the bbc had found a miracle? That miracle had a name, it was alex higgins. At his first attempt he won the 1972 world title having just turn pro that year also. It was some feat, but alex was some player and one no one had seen before or since! After that the bbc knew they had some one special although the final of 1972 wasnt on film clive everton said "its just a shame it wasnt on film becouse its the greatest performance i have ever seen on a snooker table, alex was just brilliant and in the last session he just ran over spencer to win 36-31 it was breathtaking" so after 72 alex was a big draw selling out halls and any where he played in 2 hours. So the bbc went from axing it to having to find alot bigger plus better arena's as the audiences that alex now played to and for wanted value for money as alex was now in huge demand and people went from paying into cheap halls to buying tickets for arena's, while alex single handidly dragged an edwardian sport that was going nowhere fast all through the 1970s and by the early 1980s alex had made the game bigger than football. Almost every young boy wanted a 6ft snooker table for xmas. Or 5ft, 4ft, 3ft, and these tables were selling by the millions all over the world, they even made electronic small tables about 8 inches all round, they were great. The 6ft table was by far the most comon? Becouse there big for a boy age 8 or 9 and not too big to fit in a bedroom council house, i remember thinking when i first saw mine? God this looks big? Bigger than i thought it would be. But all the sizes sold big style! The 5ft was just as comon maybe? Then 4ft, 3ft, a think 3ft was the smallest table. My friend had a 7ft table and it looked more than a foot longer than my 6ft table, it was huge! Maybe too big becouse we could hardly get space to play a shot. And a 12ft full size well seemingly they were really hard to buy back then in 1982 and they cost a small fortune. When alex stopped playing around 1993 a think? I stopped watching the game! But then watched again when ronnie started playing. Players like steve davis, thorburn, griffiths, even ray reardon, mountjoy, tony knowles, white, hendry, ronnie, dennis taylor, meo, spencer, john higgins, selby, robertson, ding, williams, charlton, and all the rest have alex higgins to thank for where they are today and so many of them have already paid holage to alex for that in there own way! If there was a really hard pot to make and your life depended on it then alex would be the one to pot it!!!!!! Rip alex and thanks

Alex always grabbing the cue ball shtick

Just horrendous positional play and pullman missing simple shots

God Pullman was CRAP!

Alex is in another league , potting amazing . Pullman can’t seem to hit anything, vastly overrated

Horrible, jabby, cue action Higgins had. Okay, against 70s opposition it was effective enough, and occasionally in the 80s, but it was ugly snooker. Hardly any backswing, and jabby, awkward striking. Great when White, and Hendry and Ronnie came along, putting a bit of beauty into the game.

Ted Lowe was a terrible commentator

2nd frame, Pulman trails Higgins by 98 pts to 22 and they still play on, each missing ridiculously easy pinks in the process! Oh how innocent snooker was back then!