It’s not that I don’t want you to read this piece but if you are under the age of 35, you probably won’t have a clue what I am talking about and so it would be just a waste of your precious time. Because you won’t believe me when I tell you that snooker was once a sport that had as much a public following as say golf does today. Now, I am reluctant to call it a sport but for the sake of argument we will.

To this day the best present Santa Claus ever brought me was a four foot by two foot snooker table. I have no idea where my love for the sport came from, but I was infatuated with it.

I would spend literally hours and hours playing frame after frame

Talk about children now being addicted to Fortnite? Well that was me except with a snooker cue, coloured balls and a green baize. I would spend literally hours and hours playing frame after frame. And then a few years later, I got a six foot by three foot table.

There was a snooker shop on O’Connell Street and any chance I had, I was there looking around in the same way others would be mooching about record stores. I even had a monthly subscription to Snooker Scene magazine which was sent to my local newsagent. He was then what Amazon is today. But I wasn’t the only snooker nerd. There’d be a queue to get on the 12x6 full-size table in the GAA club every Saturday night if you weren’t on time. You put you £1 on the meter for “next up”.

I remember like it was yesterday, the sheer excitement at being taken by dad to the Keadean Hotel in Newbridge in 1984

Steve Davis and Alex Higgins were among the biggest names in sport. And in 1985, 18.5 million people watched the infamous world final between Davis and Dennis Taylor on the BBC, Tyrone man Taylor winning his first and only title on the final black ball. Imagine that, 18.5 million viewers in these pre-satellite TV days.

I remember like it was yesterday, the sheer excitement at being taken by dad to the Keadean Hotel in Newbridge in 1984. All the top players were staying there while competing in the Benson and Hedges Irish Masters in Goffs. Not only were tobacco companies big sponsors back then, players would puff away during matches.

The photo of Davis, Ken and I sits proudly on a mantelpiece in my aunt Kathleen’s house to this day

In those days too, there was little by way of security. Steve Davis was practicing on a table in a conference room and he was more than happy for dad, my brother Kenneth and I to sit in the corner and watch. It would be like Tiger Woods letting you walk around with him doing a practice round today. The photo of Davis, Ken and I sits proudly on a mantelpiece in my aunt Kathleen’s house to this day.

Goffs, a perfect amphitheatre would be full to the gills and RTÉ broadcast every match live. One year Alex Higgins threatened to have Dennis Taylor shot. It was front page headlines and then they were drawn against each other in Goffs. It was like the FAI story today, the whole country watching. I wrote a letter to the Evening Herald about it and it was the first time ever my name was in print! Mad days. Oh how snooker has fallen. The World Championship is on this week and it has nowhere near that profile it once had. But, happy memories of an era when snooker was the subject of water cooler conversations before there was such a thing as a water cooler!

No fear of missing out here

I would like to join all of you who have come out with no shame in admitting that you have never watched Game of Thrones. We should start a fan club!