I was gutted when Hendry retired. He was the player I rooted for every tournament. He had great determination and yet a really chilled out smooth playing style. It’s frustrating seeing how much success mark williams has had since his comeback, thinking that perhaps Hendry could have done the same.
As a child in the 90s, snooker was Stephen Hendry. Whenever it was on, he was centre stage. When he was playing, he dominated play. Unrelenting and a formidable attacking player. A true master.
The decline of snooker in Ireland and the UK is simple. No kid can afford 6-8euro a hour to play. It needs to be 1-2euro an hour and government funded as a sport. There is no other way it can grow again without funding.
Why would a govt subsidise snooker clubs? There are 500 higher priorities, which if all were implemented would double the tax rate... something you will not be voting for!
That's sad Inspector. I love the game yet I've never been able to play because there are no snooker tables anywhere near me. The closest one is almost 6 hours away in Detroit, Michigan. The pool hall I practice at had one years ago but they got rid of it because they said no one ever played. I just think that's ashame. I've been watching it now on youtube for the last year and I love it. It's a gentleman's game. A pro here told me that people in the U.S. are too impatient to play snooker. Everyone wants to play a fast game and get on to the next game. And I don't see many gentlemen playing pool here either. I think we could take lessons from you guys who play snooker and are respectful. It's just sad. I will play one day, but I only play 8, 9, and 10 ball. I just think you guys are so lucky to have snooker. I hope that people in the UK and Ireland will keep playing. Have a great day.
aremedy frosty thanks aremedy. Yes. Just from watching it the last year I know it's terribly hard to do. I would just love to be able to play it. I love 8,9, and 10 ball but that's all we play. I'd just like to try something new but there's just no tables anywhere here. I do agree with the pro at my pool hall that people here in the U.S. are just too impatient to play it. And it's a gentleman's game. Haha. Not many gentlemen here unfortunately. No joke. But hopefully someday I'll get to play. Hey I think 32 is great. I would probably be lucky just to pot a red and a color. Lol. Thanks man. Have a good day.
I feel the need to mention Malcolm Thorne, the brother of Willie. Most snooker fans won't know of him but he managed their snooker club in Leicester. Malcolm would spot young talent and give them unlimited free table time and coaches to work with. He would also run plenty of tournaments and events with no restrictions on entry so these young players could play in them. Mark Selby, Ben Wollaston and Tom Ford have all been pro for a long while now after being helped by this man. If you ever wondered why Leicester is like a hotbed for snooker then Malcolm is the reason. Sadly, he passed away a long time ago now but his legacy has lived on even if very few know about it.
Interesting interview technique there. Most people think of the question first, then ask it. It’s nice to see him literally making up questions as he asks them!!
A good, interesting interview. The questions could have been expressed more succinctly, but they were good questions and brought out interesting answers (especially Hendry regretting becoming friends with players).
Absolutely. For me Stephen Hendry the greatest ever. He peaked and fell quickly. A real shame because now people will believe Ronnie is the greatest ever but had Hendry kept his form for longer we wouldn't be saying Ronnie the greatest. I don't ever remember anyone having a better ability to create angles for the next shot like Hendry. I was gutted he never regained his composure.
It's a long game, people want five minute outcomes, now 20/20 cricket is too long. Patience and skill are no longer valued, Wham bam thank you mam is the norm. I'm depressed about the future, particularly sports. 17 days of snooker is great. Five day tests is great. TV says no. Sorry state of sport.
@@michaeltrumph121 Thats because most viewers have only played on cheap inconsistent club tables where snookers and snookering is forgotten because the cushions and cloths are too slow , they don't actually understand what they're watching and fall in love with o'sullivan .
They've dumbed society down to accept average as being heroic and "genius",, people working in a food factories during this "pandemic" are classed as "heroes".. everyone is now a hero, everyone is now a genius, society is dead.
I only knew off one Scottish player before Hendry came along Murdo MacLeod.. Seen him a few times in my local snooker hall as he was friends with the owner.. Don't think he won anything but after Hendry came along the club was heaving with new players but it just petered out and the clubs all closed.. My nearest one is in Edinburgh now.
Its sad in a way that they dont give out one wild-card to the Crucible, given out a week before the tournament started ! That would make the possibility of playing there still "alive" for all players even if they dont succeeded to qualify through their results and rankings ! Its gonna be like, "the season is not over " until that name is reveal, thats what i call a Cliff-hanger ! And why dont let the snooker-fans vote for it, like a peoples choice, the sport wouldnt be where it is today with out them !! So if someone who is close to Barry Hearn and has read this , please mention this for him !! It would be worth trying and a fun spice in that melting-pot that Crucible really stands for !! Cheers…...
@@123bwlch Well then, that is HENDRY 's behaviour : not the interviewer's prompting ! ....QED ...Have you ever tried to speak to someone who is constantly giving off those signals ? ..This kind of cowardly ignorance and rudeness is all too common these days, so I'm sure you must have done so .
@@pennyfulton3418 Every time I dealt with the media within my work you had to be professional unless the journalist was nasty or your out of a job , seen Hendry in the studio being a pro many a time. Must had a bad day or wanted to pee badly.
Pretty good interview actually. And some thoughtful replies with the patented sly humor :) I actually don't see a decline today compared to say 5-10 years ago - at least not in viewer involvement and appreciation. Not the craze of the 80s/early 90s, but better than recently for sure. Players and clubs... I don't know what it's like in the UK but here it's virtually nonexistent. A few clubs in the major cities and that's it. I doubt a player could come from Sweden and have had enough opposition to reach the top 64... China, Thailand must be booming, obviously a much greater population than even the UK...
Interview ok & Stephen tries to be open with answers & actually gives good replies however the interviewer spends too much time on each question. He needs to work on shortening his questions as they are too long winded. Questions that take ages to finish makes interview boring. Good to see Stephen trying to be positive with his answers though to keep the interview alive!!
That's a mean thing to say , he wasn't deliberately getting tongue tied ! Maybe you just needed to take out some of your own inadequacy on someone else .........Ha !
Kids don't want to play snooker for 3 hours and spend £40 and neither do parents that's why I go to a local club and pay £1 an hour and that's about as cheap as it's gonna get, tbh I've only ever been to northern snooker in Leeds once and the tables weren't that good so I'll stick to the club better people and better atmosphere
lsbrother it's still expensive for a child or a parent to go play snooker that's the point £7.50 for 1 hour isn't cheap when you used to pay 10p or 20p for the lights where are they getting their numbers from
Well it's all relative: go to a football match or the cinema and you'll pay similar money. I too can remember when for sixpence you could watch a movie, have a meal, 3 pints and get a taxi back home - but those days have long gone!
Yeah I know it's very unfortunate a lot of kids would rather play these games on an Xbox but your right it's inflation if local clubs can keep 3 tables running with 20p lights why can't northern snooker that's really my only question just don't get where there prices are coming from what are the running costs for there lights and keeping the cloth in good condition can't be to expensive if maintained well
At 20p/hour a table, 22 tables going (unrealistically) for an average of 10 hours/day would produce £44/day - hardly enough to pay for the upkeep of the tables let alone the staff's salaries, business rates, electricity bill, cleaning bill, etc etc. I think you are living in some private dream world!
The last in the statement above - regretting retirement is easily fixed ...... make a comeback ..... Ronnie is still playing in his forties so why not !!
You are more than likely right there Geo and Ronnie isn't finished yet ....I hope ....Ronnie has I think about another 152 centuries to go yet and a few more maximums and what ever else his superb ability conjures up !! Ronnie O'Sullivan for ever :-) :-) :-)
Luckily I am not most people :-) Ronnie is the best that has ever been and I watched them all starting with Joe Davis 50 odd years ago...any title is great if you are good enough on the day but the daily grind ...the longevity is what counts for me and 948 centuries says that he is the greatest break builder of all time and his 14 maximum breaks are phenomenal and is what? 6 more than the next highest !! On his day ( of which he has had many) he is unbeatable with some of his shot selections even baffling the retired pro commentators but he still pulls them out of the proverbial hat ...as in magicians hat :-) Have a good day mate !! :-)
Yep, Ronnie is great, love him. I think he and Hendry are probably side by side as no. 1 and no. 2 on the greatest list. And because of that sometimes, especially at the world champs, I'd just wish he'd tone down a little on the drama and just focus on playing snooker well. Just be a bit more robotic like a Selby for that one tournament alone and win a couple more or something.
when i was a teenager i would play pool every day in my local pub with my friends... went to my local snooker hall once .. 30 euros yearly membership and they had top up meters at every table meaning you had top up 1 euro every 10 mins to keep the lights on.. disgraceful, how can kids afford this ? snooker game last about 30mins for someone learning, it would cost 5euros for one game
This might sound silly but you can’t have characters in snooker because the pro table is too specialised or niche to play on , the pockets are too small so you get faceless parts of the furniture 40 year old players like joe perry ryan day and ali carter sweeping up the prize money , it can be revitalised but only if tables with bigger pockets and slower cushions are used otherwise these faceless bores have too much of an advantage with 20 to 30 years experience .
I grew up in the 90's. we had playstation, megadrive, snes and we all played snooker all the time. snooker always took priority over computer games because winning at snooker meant so much more. I dont think its computer games that take kids away from snooker but maybe social media and those smartphones that take away the need to actually meet up and do something. Also im sure the price of a table these days is expensive. it wasnt so bad back then but increasing rents probably made prices go up too much.
It’s got nothing to do with the “iPhone Generation” it’s got more to do with the ridiculous prices it costs to play, the “old man” vibe of dark and dingy snooker clubs I’d never take my kid. It’s the lack of personality in the players. It’s the lack of any rivalry. It’s the lack of any promotion. It’s the fact the biggest stars (Ronnie, Judd etc) never do any talk shows on mainstream telly advertising the upcoming matches. It’s the lack of controversy. It’s also the lack of excitement. Every single one of us that loves snooker was at one time excited by it. If any kid flicks through the channels and comes across snooker... what is there to excite them? If the iPhone generation is to blame then other mainstream sports would suffer aswell, but they don’t.
Who are the so-called "iPhone generation"? A lot of people have iPhones, don't they? Guarantee one of your family members do. If you're talking about young people then that's an unfair thing to say.
I agree it's not the most accurate term to use, but it basically refers to the generation that grew up with smartphones as teenagers (well, and all the generations after that). I guess late Millennials would also fall under this demographic (born in the 90s mainly).
I don't think owning a smartphone as a teenager is indicative of having a short attention span though. I'm 18 and own a smartphone and I watch snooker and Test cricket, sports which have a perceived notion of being boring by a lot of people.
When they put fobts in the betting shops . It was the death knell for snooker clubs .they made their money on the fruit machines . Not on the lights .plus everything else .mobile phones and stuff
Totally agree, snooker is like golf now, pros take forever to play, slow man. Snooker same, these pros have seen every shot, plus the tables dont change man, see the shot play it man.
Pro am’s that toured the existing snooker clubs would generate interest but you would have to have the bigger names prepared to step out of their comfort zone and mingle.
Property / land prices are too high and snooker tables are too big. That means the cost per hour is high, kids can not afford it. They should make the tables 8 foot and the game might stand a chance
I think it should be a bit like hockey. Players could fight and hit each other with their sticks between frames. Female refs will be scantily dressed in bikinis and after the break the first player to tackle the her gets a free ball.
the worst interview ever,snooker is dying because the players are boring full stop,when ronnie osullivan finally retires i think tv will give up on it too
Never liked Hendry at his best! (Jimmy White Syndrome) But he’s turned out to be a nicer person since his retirement. I’m assuming that dedication and determination don’t care about what others think.
If you're being serious,not taking the mick.Government funding for snooker! Laugh my ballix off!Maybe the government should send someone round to clean my bottom every time I visit the wc.
Its funny that Hendry is bemoaning the decline of snooker when I asked him once why are there so few pro standard tables in england for people to get familiar with the pro game to have a chance to make it , he answered it was a good thing there weren’t many because pro snooker has to maintain a social class status like golf and not become too common , thats largely why he made it too , so I’d take what he says in front of a camera with a large pinch of salt , he’s just playing to the crowd .
bathtownship Shurrup with this "these days" rubbish. The reason snooker isn't played by young people nowadays isn't because they're lazy. Most teenagers grow out of video games by the time exams roll around. It's deeper than that.
@@JackBarrBaxter typical. you do know that video game competitions pay more than snooker tournament wins right? why bother learning a dying, boring art when you can learn gaming which is more exciting and more lucrative.
I love the way snooker players pick their nose on camera all the time with not a care in the world. The only sport in the world where sticking your finger up your hairy nose in an interview is not frowned on lol
Tom Thumblittle he is looking at his notes/ next question so can ask them properly so we get what we want, more of Hendry etc. I care about what’s coming out of Hendys mouth not about the body large of the interviewer. Do you watch the referee the who is you watch snooker?
Jacob Streiff ..i supose you have a point...but even when i dont look and just listen he is still pretty bad...and he should know his first 3 to 4 questions hands down before he even interviews the man makin it look and sound a bit more professional ...and then maybe look at your next 3 to 4 questions after that ...he might grow yet you never know
