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It has not been a good year for Welsh snooker players; firstly in July we had the passing of Ray Reardon (Clive Everton wasn't Welsh but we still lost him in 2024), and now we have had the demise of Terry Griffiths who has died from dementia aged 77. From collecting coal from local mines; collecting bus fares from passengers; and putting letters into letterboxes; his claim to fame would be to put coloured ivory balls into net pockets, Groffiths had a variable career firstly as a coal miner, postman, bus conductor before his true talent was discovered. Later on, Griffiths took over from the late Ray Reardon in the early 1980s to become the biggest Welsh snooker player of that decade. Mark Williams, Wales' incumbent, led the tributes to one of the fathers of Welsh snooker.
Griffiths was born in 1947 in Carmarthenshire, and whilst at Grammar School he was expelled for truancy (as I mentioned on the School Punishment thread on this very forum, it seemed so ironic to be expelled for such a thing - the punishment of not going to school as a result of not going to school!) I assumed that he must have nipped down to visit his local snooker club when he should have been at school, and that was where his interest in snooker started. He becaame a professional snooker player in June 1978. By 1980 he won The Masters, beating Alex Higgins and the Irish Masters, defeating fellow Welshman Doug Mountjoy - the following year he won the Irish Masters again, beating the recently departed Ray Reardon. He beat Steve Davis (almost a rare occurance by then) in the Classic and the Masters both in 1982. He won Pot Black against John Spencer in 1984. Griffiths continued to be a part of the professional snooker scene uintil his retirement in 1997.
His Welsh accent made him the taget for impressionsits; for example, during the height of the mid 1980s snooker boom (mostly thanks to Steve Davis and Barry Herne), a Carling Black Label commercial explored Griffiths' accent performed by an unknown impressionist - the one where referee Len Ganley happened to "be caught" when the cueball flew off the table and catches him in such a place where he certainly does not want to be caught. In frustration, Ganley grabbed the cueball in his hand, squeezed it tightly and crushed lt into dust onto the snooker table. "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label" Griffiths' soundalike said. "You ask him!" his apponent responded. The link between snooker and drinking alcohol were nicely put together in that way - after all, do people just go into pubs and just play snooker? Of course not; they order a round of drinks first, and then, in true Alex Higgins or Big Bill Werbeniuk style, s few pints under one's belt will help you improve your play on the snooker table - or that seemed to be the philosophy of some of the players back then.
Just like a lot of the snooker generation, he appeared on Big Break a few times, and one of my memories of a Griffiths appearance was on one of those special "snooker scrapbook" editions from around 1996 - cue John Virgo wearing what almost looked like a woolly blond wig on his head although it could have been something else, trying to do a Griffiths impersonation while attempting to perform a shot. Griffiths appeared a total of 17 times on the main editions of Big Break, appearing in all of the series at least once except the first series and the tenth and final series. When I used to do an average Welsh accent impression (and I am very good at doing impresssions of the famous), I often used to do one with Griffiths in mind "that's right, isn't it?"- he did feel to me more like a stereotype of an average Welshman more than Ray Reardon or even Mark Williams ever did. He was very much part of the early Steve Davis generation of snooker players who dominated the 1980s, when watching snooker was just as fashionable as supporting Margaret Thatcher.
No doubt that 2024 has been an Annus Horribulus in Welsh snooker.
Griffiths was born in 1947 in Carmarthenshire, and whilst at Grammar School he was expelled for truancy (as I mentioned on the School Punishment thread on this very forum, it seemed so ironic to be expelled for such a thing - the punishment of not going to school as a result of not going to school!) I assumed that he must have nipped down to visit his local snooker club when he should have been at school, and that was where his interest in snooker started. He becaame a professional snooker player in June 1978. By 1980 he won The Masters, beating Alex Higgins and the Irish Masters, defeating fellow Welshman Doug Mountjoy - the following year he won the Irish Masters again, beating the recently departed Ray Reardon. He beat Steve Davis (almost a rare occurance by then) in the Classic and the Masters both in 1982. He won Pot Black against John Spencer in 1984. Griffiths continued to be a part of the professional snooker scene uintil his retirement in 1997.
His Welsh accent made him the taget for impressionsits; for example, during the height of the mid 1980s snooker boom (mostly thanks to Steve Davis and Barry Herne), a Carling Black Label commercial explored Griffiths' accent performed by an unknown impressionist - the one where referee Len Ganley happened to "be caught" when the cueball flew off the table and catches him in such a place where he certainly does not want to be caught. In frustration, Ganley grabbed the cueball in his hand, squeezed it tightly and crushed lt into dust onto the snooker table. "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label" Griffiths' soundalike said. "You ask him!" his apponent responded. The link between snooker and drinking alcohol were nicely put together in that way - after all, do people just go into pubs and just play snooker? Of course not; they order a round of drinks first, and then, in true Alex Higgins or Big Bill Werbeniuk style, s few pints under one's belt will help you improve your play on the snooker table - or that seemed to be the philosophy of some of the players back then.
Just like a lot of the snooker generation, he appeared on Big Break a few times, and one of my memories of a Griffiths appearance was on one of those special "snooker scrapbook" editions from around 1996 - cue John Virgo wearing what almost looked like a woolly blond wig on his head although it could have been something else, trying to do a Griffiths impersonation while attempting to perform a shot. Griffiths appeared a total of 17 times on the main editions of Big Break, appearing in all of the series at least once except the first series and the tenth and final series. When I used to do an average Welsh accent impression (and I am very good at doing impresssions of the famous), I often used to do one with Griffiths in mind "that's right, isn't it?"- he did feel to me more like a stereotype of an average Welshman more than Ray Reardon or even Mark Williams ever did. He was very much part of the early Steve Davis generation of snooker players who dominated the 1980s, when watching snooker was just as fashionable as supporting Margaret Thatcher.
No doubt that 2024 has been an Annus Horribulus in Welsh snooker.
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