It was the BBC presenter David Vine who stated that Hollywood ought to have as an alternative come to Cliff Thorburn once they solid Paul Newman as ‘Fast Eddie’ in The Color of Money.
And it doesn’t take lengthy in Thorburn’s firm to understand how two years inside an orphanage earlier than a decade-long apprenticeship within the billiard halls of North America left him outfitted for dealing even with Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins coming at him with a vodka bottle after arriving in England in 1973.
“We were living in San Francisco in the late 1960s – that was a boring time,” Thorburn says, grinning. “I didn’t indulge but rumour has it that they were smoking every kind of grass but astroturf. A fellow took me over to Oakland, California, to gamble where there was a guy called ‘Skinner the Bus Driver’ who was supposed to be a good snooker player.”
Thorburn, who was by now enjoying 14 hours a day, duly began to win earlier than being warned by an onlooker that “No boy’s ever gotten out of this place with Skinner’s money”. The man then smiled and pulled again his jacket to disclose a gun. Thorburn was nonetheless up for clearing them out earlier than his backer advised him in no unsure phrases that he had higher begin shedding some frames. He additionally as soon as had a jagged knife pulled on him on Vancouver Island after taking some fishermen to the cleaners at the native pool corridor.
‘Bugger’s going to shoot me within the again’
Thorburn actually thought he had met his maker throughout a 30-hour marathon match in San Francisco towards a participant referred to as Bill Medlum. “I had all of his money – then he goes into his jacket, and he’s got a freaking gun in his hand,” remembers Thorburn. “Now he’s walking towards me. I could feel the blood run… just the strangest feeling. My legs were starting to go. He walks by me. I’m saying to myself, ‘That bugger’s going to shoot me in the back’, and then I hear him say to one of his friends, ‘Give me 60 bucks for my gun’. He then paid me my 30 dollars. And it took six hours to get that last 30 off him. That’s how tough – or stubborn – I was.”
Fellow gamers ranged from ‘The Whale’, ‘Canadian Dick’ and ‘Fat Bill’ to ‘Philippine Gene’, ‘Hippy Dave’ and ‘The Garbage Collector’, with Thorburn even briefly shaving off his moustache and sporting a ponytail in an try to go unrecognised whereas typically hitchhiking in freezing circumstances throughout Canada.
By his personal admission, he then solely arrived in England in 1973 after he “ran out of customers” in North America.
A thousand reminiscences and 53 years later, Thorburn was on his 246th return flight this week for Thursday’s memorial service in Sheffield to the late John Virgo. Then there was the Champions Dinner of previous winners forward of the fiftieth version of the World Championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.
Now snooker’s oldest dwelling world champion, Thorburn reached the very first Crucible closing in 1977, recorded the primary century break contained in the venue, and famously delivered the primary most 147 in World Championship historical past.
