Tributes as Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins blows out (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Tributes as Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins blows out

8:00am Monday 26th July 2010 in Sport By Peter Magill, Chief reporter

TRIBUTES have poured in for snooker great Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, East Lancashire’s first world champion in 1972, who died on Saturday.

Higgins’ death of throat cancer, aged 61, was confirmed in Belfast at the weekend.

Higgins himself paid tribute in 1972 to the people of East Lancashire in the wake of his landmark triumph over John Spencer, telling the Lancashire Evening Telegraph how ‘heart-warming’ the messages of support had been.

The Hurricane’s career was forged in the snooker clubs of Blackburn, Accrington and Burnley.

Before he had made a name for himself nationally, he had challenged and beaten Spencer at the Elite, Accrington.

And as he built up the quicksilver speed which would set the snooker world alight, notching up a century in just over two minutes, he was dubbed ‘Hurricane’ by Lancashire Evening Telegraph snooker writer John Taylor, alias Cueman.

Fellow Ulsterman Dennis Taylor, the 1985 world champ, who also lived in East Lancashire for many years, said ‘there will not be another one like him’.

Taylor, now a BBC pundit, said: “I first met Alex when he was 18 and I had just won the British junior billiards title and he had won the All-Ireland snooker championships.

“Back then he was just Alex but I am sure it was John Taylor who first called him Hurricane and it stuck.”

The pair were fixtures at the Old Post Office snooker club in Blackburn and Taylor estimates he played ‘thousands of frames’ against Higgins.

Taylor also praised Higgins’ former East Lancashire managers John McLoughlin and Jack Leeming, and later Dennis Broderick, for guiding the Hurricane’s early career.

Higgins first came to the UK aged 15 to become a jockey but when that ambition failed he was lured to East Lancashire, then one of snooker’s hotbeds.

He lived in Catlow Hall Street in Oswaldtwistle during his 1972 world title triumph and also lived in Blackburn, Clayton-le-Moors and Huncoat.

Higgins and Taylor formed an up-and-coming trio with Bacup’s Jim Meadowcroft, who also became a BBC snooker expert.

Taylor added: “It is just sad. Alex was a one-off and there will never be another like him in snooker.”

The late John McLoughlin's ex-wife Ann said: "John met Alex in the Seventies.

"He went to Ireland to buy greyhounds, which was his hobby in those days, and came home with no dogs but Alex instead.

"He helped him on his way up the ladder by holding exhibition nights in and around Lancashire.

"I believe Alex changed the course of snooker from an old man's pastime to the exciting game it is today."

Lancashire Telegraph deputy editor Alan Simpson, who as a sports journalist at the time got to know Alex well, said he was 'the ultimate enigma of sport'.

He said: "He spent many an hour at the Elite Snooker Club, known locally as th’eelite.

"The cocky Irishman would breeze in around lunchtime having just got out of bed.

He would challenge someone already on a table to a one-frame game giving them a whacking start of 60 points.

"If they lost, which they always did, they had to buy his breakfast — a potato pie.

"At an exhibition match at Crawshawbooth WMC, I remember, he claimed the balls were too cold when he struggled to put a string of shots together.

"He asked for them to be heated up in the pie warmer on the bar.

"Once the balls were back on the table Higgins instantly hit a century break!

"East Lancashire was the hub of the snooker world in those early days.

"Even the best tables were made in Accrington at Rileys.

"And at the Elite there was always a cluster of professionals like Dennis Taylor, Jim Meadowcroft, Steve Longworth, John Virgo, John Spencer and Cliff Thorburn practising on the top two tables.

"But the one who caused everyone else in the billards hall to stop their games and watch — even when practising — was Higgins."

When Rishton joiner Harry White challenged Higgins to a game at Great Harwood Conservative Club in 1972, he certainly lived up to his 'Hurricane' nickname.

Mr White, 72, of Wharf Street, Rishton, recalled: “It was two months before he became world champion and he was playing a representative team of eight of us from the club on Glebe Street.

“He beat every one of us easily and after the game I suggested to a colleague I would take a 40-point head start for 10 shillings.

"He overheard me and borrowed 10 shillings from behind the bar to put against me.

“He struck off, smashed the balls everywhere. I had a shot and missed.

“He then cleared every ball on the table with a 136 break in two minutes and 46 seconds!

“Somebody in the audience of 50 timed it, it was unbelievable.

"It cost me 10 shillings, but it was worth every penny.”

Snooker promoter Barry Hearn said Higgins would be remembered as the "original people's champion" and the man who transformed the popularity of the sport.

Mr Hearn said: "I have known him for nearly 40 years. He was the major reason for snooker's popularity in the early days.

"He was controversial at times, but he always played the game in the right spirit.

"We will miss him - he was the original people's champion."

Earlier this summer Higgins was due to return to the area for a Snooker Legends event at Blackburn's King George's Hall, but had to pull out due to ill health.

Some £10,000 raised to help Higgins receive medical treatment prior to his death will go towards his funeral, which is yet to be finalised.

Higgins was diagnosed with throat cancer more than 10 years ago.