Willie Thorne - Taking a Punt on My Life

To Malcolm, Mum, Robert, Jill, Kieran, Tristan, Tahli, Natalie and James.

Willie Thorne

Published by Vision Sports Publishing in 2011

Vision Sports Publishing

1923 High Street

Kingston upon Thames

Surrey

KT1 1LL

www.visionsp.co.uk

Epub ISBN 13: 978-1-907637-49-0

Book ISBN 13: 978-1-907637-17-9

Willie Thorne and Kevin Brennan

The moral right of the copyright holders has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Editor: Justyn Barnes

Copy editing: Alex Morton

Cover design: Doug Cheeseman

Cover photography: Clive Brunskill, Getty Images

A CIP Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to say thanks first and foremost to my family for their love and support, to my good friend John Hayes for his help and encouragement during the good times and the bad, to his son Matt and all at Champions UK, who are not only colleagues but friends as well.

My thanks go to Rick Mayson for helping to get this project off the ground, to Jim Drewett and Toby Trotman at Vision Sports Publishing for their belief in my story, and to Justyn Barnes for his editing skills. Finally I would like to thank Kevin Brennan who collaborated with me in writing this book, for his work in putting the whole thing together.

FOREWORD

By Dennis Taylor

I have known Willie for more years than either of us probably care to remember. One of the first trips we ever made together a very long time ago was to the Canadian Open. Things were a bit tight back then and we had to share a room. We got on really well and struck up a friendship that has remained to this day.

Over the years the two of us were always the ones who would go out for a meal and a chat in the evenings, or play golf if we had a day off when we were both playing in tournaments, and he was always very good company.

Willie was a very talented player and loved to attack when he was at the table. He was always looking to make big breaks, and perhaps that was something which stopped him winning more big tournaments than he did. He always played with a lot of class and was very quick around the table.

Willie and I were lucky to have been playing during a very good period for the game in the 1980s, and he very quickly became one of the sports characters. I suppose we both had faces that stuck with the public, Willie with his bald head and moustache and me with my distinctive glasses. It made us recognisable to a wider audience, and I think our careers benefitted from that.

I remember once when we were playing in the Howard Keel Golf Classic, Willie and I went out for a drink in Manchester with the American actor John Ashton, who was very big at the time because he had appeared alongside Eddie Murphy in the Beverley Hills Cop trilogy of movies. All night people were coming up to Willie and I for a chat and autographs, while hardly noticing John. It just showed how popular snooker was in Britain at the time.

It was a different game back then, when playing exhibitions was one of your main sources of income. I used to crack a joke during exhibitions when I was setting up shots and there was no doubt that having a rapport with your audience was a big part of what you did.

Willie has always had that natural rapport with the fans, and they have always liked him because of it. He has admitted to having some difficult times with his gambling, and I am sure he would be the first to admit that his life would have been much easier if those problems had not been in the background for much of the time. I know that his wife Jill has also been a real gem in helping him come through some tough moments in his life.

Willie and I still see quite a bit of each other these days, and enjoy our time together whenever we share television commentating duties. Whenever we meet it isnt long before all the old stories re-surface once more and were giggling like a couple of schoolboys. Its something I think we will always do and is a measure of the experiences we have shared together during all those years of playing snooker.

Willie is a lovely guy who has led a rich and colourful life. He has been one of snookers great characters, and one of my great friends. I hope you enjoy his story.

Dennis Taylor, September 2011

CHAPTER ONE

THE END

T he television was on, but the sound and pictures meant nothing to me. I couldnt tell you what was on or what it was about. I cant remember having any last thoughts in my head as I started to swallow the sleeping pills, washing them down with water. One after another, it all seemed very easy and very natural, as if I was preparing myself for a good nights sleep, except that I believed the number of pills I was swallowing would be enough to ensure it would be the last nights sleep I would ever have on this earth. If I had stopped to think about what I was doing, perhaps I would have panicked, but instead I just kept swallowing.

There was no great plan that Monday afternoon as I sat on the bed. I hadnt decided that this would be the day I would take my own life. In my depressed state, the thought had certainly floated around at the back of my mind. I saw it as my big get-out, a way of shedding all responsibilities for my actions with no comebacks. Id had enough. It wasnt the act of a brave man, it was the act of a coward, but I didnt care. I felt trapped by the financial problems I had, the mounting debts which I just couldnt seem to conquer. I had borrowed money from all sorts of people in order to keep my head above water and stave off the inevitable, but the reality was that I was sinking fast. In fact, I felt like I was drowning.

Although the decision to start shovelling pills down my throat was a spur-of-the-moment thing, I had thought about taking my own life often enough in the weeks, months and years before the day actually arrived. I was very matter of fact about it, but I had no real idea of when it would happen, or of how I would go about the act of committing suicide. For some time I had felt a tremendous sense of despair at the predicament I found myself in. I also felt terribly guilty because I knew I had brought it all on myself; it was my actions and behaviour which had landed me in such a mess. I can see that now and I have no problem admitting it, but back then it was something I didnt really want to own up to. Instead, I was prepared to take the cowards way out, thinking only of myself and not of the hurt and despair I was about to cause to those closest to me.

At the time I felt that the crushing weight of the consequences of my actions was just too much for me to cope with. I had managed to carry on for some time, borrowing from Peter to pay off Paul, but on that day in March 2002, a few days after my 48th birthday, Id had enough. The fight had gone out of me; I couldnt see a way out. I had finally been beaten by an addiction which had taken root many years before, when I was just a young man. An addiction that had begun before I became a professional snooker player and which stayed with me throughout my years as a high-earning sportsman. During that time, snooker became one of the most popular and lucrative sports in the country, watched by an audience of millions whenever it was televised in Britain and its popularity was growing fast around the world. Snooker had been my profession, but gambling had been my downfall. It had led to financial ruin and ultimately the misery which had finally driven me to try to take my own life.