RIP Terry Griffiths

[Ming the Merciless]

From one of the golden eras of snooker. A cautious player.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/snooker/articles/cwyv571ex7go

 

[Beebo]

He was always one of the good guys.
Higgins and White were definitely in the bad boys camp.
But Griffiths just seemed a bit like your dad.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Since he retired he always seemed to be the coach that the best players turned to when their needed to improve their game a bit

Even the players whose game was totally different to his

Must have been a great coach - and clearly a great player

 

[Smokin Joe]

He was the main threat to Steve Davis in the eighties and he was also a brilliant analyst and very informative to listen to.

I wondered why he had disappeared completely from our screens and didn't realise he suffered from dementia. The third of the Welsh snooker legends to die this year, after Ray Reardon and Doug Mountjoy.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Dry, witty sense of humour.

 

[Time Waster]

You know I was thinking that we do not have the characters in snooker like we used to have in the past. I mean we had Terry Griffiths, ray reardon (dracula), alex higgins, jophn virgo, willy thorne, dennis taylor (he lived down the hill from me and had to sell the house with the snooker table as it could not be removed), cliff thorburn, etc. OK we also had Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry but who do they have of the later generations? Ronny O'Sullivan!! Not sure Judd Trump is as memorable as the older generation. YMMV!

 

[Beebo]

You know I was thinking that we do not have the characters in snooker like we used to have in the past. I mean we had Terry Griffiths, ray reardon (dracula), alex higgins, jophn virgo, willy thorne, dennis taylor (he lived down the hill from me and had to sell the house with the snooker table as it could not be removed), cliff thorburn, etc. OK we also had Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry but who do they have of the later generations? Ronny O'Sullivan!! Not sure Judd Trump is as memorable as the older generation. YMMV!

Watch the documentary about it called “Gods of Snooker”
Basically we only had 3 channels and snooker was one sport which could be easily shown on TV as it was indoors and the action was slow, unlike football where you needed loads of cameras and weather was an issue. Outside broadcasting was difficult in 1970s.
Millions of people used to watch it, not because they loved it, but because there simply wasn’t anything else to watch, so they eventually stated to love it.
Then Big Break was a Saturday night TV programme. 19 million people watched the Davis Taylor final!
It’s unheard of to get this sort of saturation.
Now we have so much more sport spread over such a huge array of channels that everything is diluted.

 

[Smokin Joe]

You know I was thinking that we do not have the characters in snooker like we used to have in the past. I mean we had Terry Griffiths, ray reardon (dracula), alex higgins, jophn virgo, willy thorne, dennis taylor (he lived down the hill from me and had to sell the house with the snooker table as it could not be removed), cliff thorburn, etc. OK we also had Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry but who do they have of the later generations? Ronny O'Sullivan!! Not sure Judd Trump is as memorable as the older generation. YMMV!

All the players you mention, with the exception of Higgins, were mature adults when they turned professional. They had been around the block and their characters developed long before they made the game their living. They had honed their skills on the snooker table on the exhibition circuit where you had to be an entertainer as well as a good player in order to make any money. Most of today's professionals have never had another job outside of a paper round.

 

[Time Waster]

Watch the documentary about it called “Gods of Snooker”
Basically we only had 3 channels and snooker was one sport which could be easily shown on TV as it was indoors and the action was slow, unlike football where you needed loads of cameras and weather was an issue. Outside broadcasting was difficult in 1970s.
Millions of people used to watch it, not because they loved it, but because there simply wasn’t anything else to watch, so they eventually stated to love it.
Then Big Break was a Saturday night TV programme. 19 million people watched the Davis Taylor final!
It’s unheard of to get this sort of saturation.
Now we have so much more sport spread over such a huge array of channels that everything is diluted.

I used to visit my grandad in the holidays or he visited us and he would have it on tv for hours. Only one tv in the house back then (we were all deprived back then with one tv only). I kind of learnt to apppreciate it. Same with cricket!! For some reason I never got to that stage with football!! Now bowling is a different matter!!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

19 million people watched the Davis Taylor final!

What a brilliantly tense final that was. Great TV!