Alex Higgins was quick in the 70s and 80s and played adventurous attacking snooker. Alex was not a robot he took risks and entertained the crowd. I met alex on two occassions and he was perfectly well behaved. I met Higgins at an exhibition and he played extra frames. I also love Hendry and played him at an exhibition he didn't play an extra single frame and charged a small boy 5 pounds for his autograph. Give me Alex any day! Alex is dead why malign me. Yes he sinned but don't we all. The people's champion was pure box office!
Hendry's era, it has to be said, didn't have the strength in depth as Davis's in the 80s when snooker was at it's peak. Davis would've had the edge over Hendry in their respective primes. Davis had to battle for his 6. Only Jimmy White was a challenge for Hendry.
@@tomsawyer5904 No, he gave it to a kids foundation, as he regularly did. Higgins missed so many shots and lost matches he cud have won but wanted to be loved. That gets u 2 World Titles, being attacking AND professional gets you 7!! Hendry/Davis, Ronnie, Terry Higgins top 4 ever. Alex wud be behind Williams and probably Jimmy White if Hendry hadn't been around.
Alex was very graceful towards stephen and his words were proved right. But watching that, what a thrill and i thank the person who put this video up. I could not help but want alex to win. I did not no the final result so it was engrossing to watch. 4-0 down and 5-2 down to come through and win. Hendry had his chances but in front of this irish home crowd alex the " hurricane " higgins brought it home. Brilliant final.
One of Alex's greatest tournament wins - surely! Irish Masters - I never had the opportunity to watch it, but heard there were some brilliant matches involving the likes of Alex and Jimmy.
Hendry's play at this time was absolutely beautiful. He wasn't quite as dominant as he'd become in a couple years, but even so, for Alex to beat him here was a remarkable achievement.
I watched Hendry on TV in his peak playiing years. Great to have youtube have these matches. I heard of Higgins being People's champion. I know better why. I wonder if Hendry's will be equalled in his 7 WC wins.
@@franktheawaken7169 ronnie has equalled and know where your coming from amazing achievement now will he manage 8 Ronnie is not only incredibly good its amazing how incredible he is at his age and instead of dipping with age has got from superb to even better and looking like he will never dip And like alex higgins they both could have achieved more alex going for impossible shots to entertain the crowd and anyone who does that will make occassionall mistakes and loose frames and his drinking antics etc would of held him back a little as well Ronnie with his mood swings he is so good he really should of over taking hendry easily long ago but due to his mood swings, but with all this he has broken some of hendrys records and equalled his 7 WC At his age group he is still untouchable even the best players say he is the best even hendry himself But alex was and is up there with the best for definate, i wonder how much more he would have achieved if he kept himself under control from the drinking etc He still done well with all this but still makes you wonder how much more he would have achieved with all the variables
Huge respect between both of them. Hendry attended Alex's funeral and said he was the only big player that would practice with him when he was young, also like Murphy he said none of them would have a living if it wasn't for alex
Alex wins is even more remarkable when you consider what Stephen Hendry was doing to Steve Davis at around this time. Alex never had a great record against Steve and yet he defied all odds here. Amazing.
Alex had a unique cueing style compared to most players, more of a jabber of the cue ball when you compare that to stephen with his deft touch. Yes alex had his faults but when he was good he was a real joy to watch.
Agreed, he had a minuscule backswing on the pressure shots and just kinda stabbed forwards. Probably because he knew he was weaving all over the place. He took very poor care of himself though and seemed to feel that eating was optional. Most players would do well to lose weight, he would have done well to put on 25 pounds.
ALEX HIGGINS THE GREATEST SNOOKER PLAYER OF ALL TIME IS HUNGER &PASSION FOR EVERY SHOT WILL NEVER BE REPEATED RIP ALEX INTO THE LOVING&CARING ARMS OF OUR JESUS AMEN
Alex was a one-off, a cue action that would make Joe Davis weep, and so many nervous ticks. He looked, and was, brittle and fragile, but on this night he reached deep within his reserves of talent and determination and pulled out a memorable victory against one of the all time greats of the game.
Makes you proud to be from Belfast when u look at some of the genius sportmen who were from here, like George Best and Alex Higgins. Imagine how good both would have been if not alcoholics! Legends though.
i was 9 when i saw this on the box with my dad...i can still remember it well. for some reason i think Alex drank milk throughout the tournament. great memories
Alex spoke with so much respect for Hendry, you could see in Hendry's face 1:58:25 that he appreciated compliments from The Great Alexander Hurricane Higgins
no he didnt mate- he went to funeral but wasnt a poll bearer. its on youtube. I still think your right when you said he respected Alex though- Alex was so magnanimous in victory- but not so in defeat. But of course Hendry respected him- everyone in snooker did- envy, respect but also probably bitterness and anger at how he died as well. R.I.P. Higgy- gone but never forgotten.
Foremost......Alex was a crowd pleaser....that cost him at least 4 more world crowns......what he naturally had was the best timing of striking the game has ever seen......that's what was genius about Alex.
According to his autobiography he never received the prize money, one of the reasons for his public outburst the year after saying the game was corrupt and then announced his retirement when he got knocked out in the first round of the World Championships. A great talent nonetheless.
@@koenhughes9267 I thought it was the UK championships where he didnt get the prize money. Or maybe even after he lost a match through playing really bad and the organisers where annoyed because he put bums on seats. Its a long long time since I read it.
@@stevemonks4528 , You might be right with that also but as I said, its in Alex's autobiography "My Story", the 1989 Irish Masters was his last tournament win and he never saw a penny of the prize money.
@@koenhughes9267 The authorities in snooker where harsh with Alex because he was a loose cannon. Its why Myself and millions of snooker fans loved him. They seemed happy when he was swelling the coffers in ticket sales, like Ronnie does now and then treated him poorly when he inevitably acted up a bit.
@@stevemonks4528 Alex Higgins was a typical Irishman, neurotic, ill tempered, unreliable and he had a problem with the sauce, but a genius all the same and so he got away with his troublesome predicaments because as you say he put bums on seats but when he thought he was bigger than the sport and could get away with putting the game in disrepute the authorities made an example of him, though they weren't completely innocent of misconduct themselves, bottom line was he was his own savior and his own worst enemy like the rest of us and its just a shame that he didn't cherish himself more and take care of himself more, but it cant be helped now, he deserves his rest anyway.
To think Alex Higgins beat a force as great as Stephen Hendry in a final nearly 20 years after he won the world title!! He transcended snooker and the generation he was from. It goes to show not only how good he was but how much he could have won had he stayed on the straight and narrow. Incredible player.x
Watching this in stages - it's a really good match! It's great watching Alex (wish there was more footage of him on youtube) - but just seen frame 12, and it was a real pleasure to watch Hendry in action. Did he get less fluid as he got older? (Will have to look at some more of him when I get the time.) Great upload anyways, many thanks!
Believe it or not, in 1989 Hendry was already a slower player than he used to be...He was just as fast as Ronnie when he started out as a pro but slowed his pace a little bit down towards the end of the 80's to become the youngest world champion ever in 1990. I guess he started observing the table a second longer and weighing his options a little longer as his experience grew. Anyway, many belief that slowing his pace a little bit down, was essential for Hendry in becoming the winning machine that he was.
Alex had been around nearly 20 years on the UK scene at this point. 20 years of drinking 30 units of alcohol on average every day. Wonderful and tragic in equal measure.
Fred Cogley, Aonghus McAnally, Michael Lyster - great stuff. Alex so gracious in victory at end.. Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche mentioned at the end and all...
Alex could battle thats for sure , his matches are like gold . He could have win so much more but would have probably not been as entertaining so it was best that he plated this way
When I hear Ronnie O'Sullivan bring up Alex Higgins randomly he says he's more like Higgins than Davis and that if he was watching snooker throughout the years as a fan that he probably wouldn't have picked himself because he's to in and out of form like alex Higgins basically if they were at there best they'd win almost every single match unless luck intervenes and when you watch Higgins in form it looks alot like that with him also.He could be knocked out of every tournament throughout the year but turn up and win the world championship.Thats why the likes of Higgins then white and now O Sullivan have been the fans favorite because they can be so good and yet you never know what is next with them. Heart on there sleeves players. Rip Higgins.
notice how fluent Hendry's cue action was back then, so natural and fearless. As he got older the long pots eventually stopped going in just as a coach once said to me would happen. Hendry went to Griffiths and that natural cue action became less fluent with a long pause on the backswing. I'm not sure Griffiths was much help.
Ryan Garritty he's no longer around to ask unfortunately. My main point was the fluency in his action. Griffiths instilled a pause and it started to look rather robotic. For most people a pause in the backswing is a good thing but Hendry wasn't most people. Just my opinion.
I suppose Hendry must have thought there was something wrong with his game to approach Griffiths in the first place, but from what you've said, it did little to help.
Ryan Garritty well it did do a lot to help in 2002 he reached the world final and was just 2 frame away from winning an 8th title. He was also a lot more consistent in tournaments than he had been in the years previously before Griffiths became his coach
Hendry got "the yips" in his cue action before he'd even won his 7th title. That's what he was trying to sort out. But he never did and it completely crippled his career.
Alex Higgins was hobbling round the table in this match after falling out of the window in a domestic with his girlfriend. Beats the future seven-time world champion. Interesting to know what Alex would have thought of Ronnie if he were here now.
Everyone wanting a piece of Alex at the end the peoples champion but it must have been an unbelievable pressure what a player the likes we’ll never see again
I watched snooker from the very early days of pot black etc. when Alex Higgins, Jimmy White, Steve Davies, Terry Griffiths, Doug Mountjoy, Dennis Taylor etc. were playing, and I'm absolutely sure that the modern players are not up to the standard, (with a few exceptions like Judd Trump, with a very unfortunate surname, Neil Robertson and Ronnie O'Sullivan etc.) of those early pioneers of the game. I watched a recently completed British open final between Mark Williams and Gary Wilson, and parts of that match was like watching grass grow.
One of the greatest to watch,but no way the greatest of all time that title goes to Ronnie closely followed by Hendry. In fact the quality in general now is far better than it was in Alex's day,he is known for his personality and the way he played the game at a time when all the rest were boring percentage players not for being the best.
great win for alex,beat a lot of top players on the way, only down side was he had to play a qualifying match for world champs next day with Darren morgan, and we all know how that went
+Hen Smithers hello Hen, I met Alex in 1976, I was a snooker freak, from the first touch of the cue ball on the break I accidentally made a red on the break, it was a soft break shot I ran the table 141 points, the break was completed in 3 min. 32 seconds according to the fellow recording the table time. I am saying this so you can imagine how intense me and my friends were in Toronto about snooker. Alex sat with me and introduced himself, he asked if I would like to practice with him, then it started, hundreds of people at the CNE would surround us as he started running perfect game after perfect game, sometimes back to back, usually 2 or 3 each session for 5 days our first week together, people were asking me for my autograph, their was a breeze around the table he moved so fast, and I spotted the balls as quickly as possible, he could make his wind alter the path of the cue ball, he was doing a tango with the table, his touch was so delicate it was sensual, he could see the hit closer than anyone ever, the ball was not geometric to him, it was a sphere, he was playing in a different dimension than anyone ever has. He was gifted and he knew it, and he needed to be treated as the royalty he knew God had made him, Alex was born to be the prince of snooker, no on else has been so able to softly roll the cue ball to the exact perfect spot. I am the luckiest guy in the world to have 4 summers in a row spotting so many perfect games for him, he didn't care about winning, he cared about people's love for him, Ronnie is amazing, but is like a perfect geometric player, Alex was all touch. Alex was truly God's gift to snooker. May I say thank you for you Alex. Love is God. Love Rules. Alex showed his love of his fans, that's what he lived for.
Alex was a sound guy he lived his final days around my street - he signed a nice painting for me. He did not like people who got on like an idiot around him - idiots would shout in his face and he would lose his rag with them but deep down he was a sound guy.
Alex is my hero and always Will be. The top 16 players to win silver wear Alex comes in at number 12 even to this day so meaning if they had a tournament with the top 16 players Alex would be in there he won 25 trophy not bad he could have won more but he liked to entertain going for impossible shots. R.I.P ALEX
@@roywilliams3793 yes totally agree and yes he would have won more in terms of going for impossible shots to entertain the crowd And you see this at times when he is more controlled and fluid and plays incredible but still does brilliantly when entertaining as well and fantastic to watch I will miss him and he was one of the greats no question about it Amazing player i had a BCE cue with hid signature on it and was the best snooker cue i ever had to this day Brilliant glad jimmy white stayed great friends with him up until his death real shame and will be very missed by millions
1:31:17 to 1:31:38....Must have been clipped out somewhere, but anybody notice that after taking that shot at 1:13:17, him then dropping a ball into the left bottom corner pocket at 1:31:38? LOL! Must have been clipped out, tickles me, he's reffing himself!! It kind of makes me realize I'd have done the exact same thing lol!
Looks bizarre ! I had to keep replaying it (laughing out loud) - but it looks like that the red was stuck in the pocket. Or else he's a great magician (well, he was - but in a different way...)
lol! It was definitely something edited out you can tell by how it clips in and out the way it does! It's funny though, cos he is definitely up to something and it looks like he's reffing himself there for a bit! i couldn't help laughing myself at this; bought some immense chuckles out lol!
Maria Smith The pockets are designed so that balls will fall down a chute to where the referee can pick them up easily. Sometimes that doesn't work. Alex noticed a ball stuck in the pocket and just pushed it down into the chute. As for anything magic happening, it's all in your head.
Huge epilepsy warning from 0:00 to 1:00 ( intro ) and huge epilepsy warning from 1:30:00 to 2:00:52 ( end of video ) . Also huge epilepsy warning for every second of this whole video . Also huge epilepsy warning for every second of every video on RU-vid .
+Curious Spectator "best snooker player ever" "snookers pride and joy" "brought viewers to snooker" "will be remembered as the best" "a legend" people say whatever the hell they want about dead people, even if its completely false.
Alex Higgins was the real master of snooker and the man who ruined him was the so called big man off snooker was Barry hearn and still ruin snooker it is definitely finished and it will definitely never be the same while he runs it money comes first to him
@duncanbirss8923 you are talking bull shit all hearn was concerned about making it a mans game one thing about Alex Higgins he showed how fantastic he was and never showed of or use two different hands he would have been absolutely brilliant if he had the right people behind him hearn was definitely all for Davis and the other so called snopes
