Running: The Autobiography (22 page)

18

THE WHORE’S DRAWERS

‘Six × 1 minutes by police station Manor Rd. Got faster with each rep. Felt good, legs felt like they could fly and they did.’

It was May 2013, and I’d been away from the game for 11 months – in court, on the farm, being a dad, running, living – and now I was due to make my comeback at Sheffield. I was excited, and bloody nervous. For weeks in advance, every time the BBC trailed the World Championship they did so by hyping up ‘the return of Rocket Ronnie’. They made it sound as if there was no one else in the competition. It was embarrassing. And after all that I didn’t fancy returning and going out in the first round with a whimper.

Towards the end of March I started practising. I gave myself six weeks to get match fit.

The first couple of weeks’ practice I felt great, as if I’d never been away. Initially, I was just playing my friends Chick and T, and that was fun for me. After a couple of weeks I went to the Academy in Romford, Django’s place, and he’s got three or four top Chinese players, so it’s one of the best training places in the country. I was on fire. I was playing 25 frames and making five or six centuries. We’d often play best of 25 to replicate Sheffield.
But as it got closer and closer to the start of the finals, it began to feel more like hard work.

Everybody was welcoming when I got to Sheffield. Funnily enough, the first person I saw was Barry Hawkins. I remember meeting Barry when he was 14 and I was 17. He was playing in a junior championship and I’d just turned pro and had won the UK Championship. I got invited to hand the prize out and play the winner. I remember thinking all those years ago, blimey, he hits the ball well. When I saw him at Sheffield he was as good as gold, asked me how I was, said it was great to see me back. Nobody really knew why I’d been away.

Hazel Irvine, the BBC presenter, was great. I love her; she’s the best. The BBC were definitely pleased to see me back. It wouldn’t have looked good to not have the defending world champion playing in the World Championship, and I suppose they must have worried what it would have done to viewing figures. The BBC has always been good to snooker, and we’re like a family together, so I’d missed them and was glad not to let them down.

What made me nervous was not so much the thought of playing again, but all the media interest.

Nearly all the snooker headlines involved me in some way – lots of speculation about why I’d been away and what my head would be like on my return. There was a fair bit of suggestion that it had all been staged to increase interest in the finals. That was nonsense.

Some people were saying the Ronnie O’Sullivan circus was in town, and that I just turned up when I fancied. I think some of the players felt that as well – that I could just turn up and play, that everything comes easy to me. When I hear that I find it hard to believe – it’s anything but.

I was talking to John Higgins the other day – John and
Stephen Hendry are the two greatest players I’ve played. I played John the other day; he was brilliant and beat me, and when we came off the table I said to him, when you’re in that form I don’t know how you can ever lose. And he looked at me as if I was taking the piss. ‘Apart from Hendry,’ I said, ‘there’s nobody who’s ever played the game like you.’ I meant every word of it, but he wasn’t having any of it. My mate Jason Francis was with us, and he said later that John might have thought I was patronising him.

‘That’s the last thing I’m doing, Jase,’ I said. ‘When he plays like that he’s unbelievable.’

‘But they all think that about you,’ Jason said.

I suppose I do play with instinct and I do flow when I’m on it, whereas most players have to think more and set themselves up for every shot. So in that respect I probably see things quicker than most players. But other players are more deliberate than me, more consistent, more reliable, whereas I tend to be either really good or really bad.

Maybe I’m being too tough on myself. I used to be really good or really bad, but I think Steve Peters has helped me play decently even when I’m not on top of my game. I am definitely more disciplined than I was, thanks to Steve. He’s taught me that giving up is just my emotional chimp sabotaging me, which it will do in certain situations. So I don’t listen to the chimp’s voice in the match. I will do afterwards but not when I’m playing, so I’m giving it 100 per cent in the game. So many times I’ve lost matches because in my mind I’ve given up.

My work with Steve had made me less emotional about the game, in a good way – more, this is your job, now do it. You don’t need to enjoy it, I told myself – after all, who always enjoys their job? Whereas before I was: ‘I need to be buzzing, I need to find that perfection.’ I told myself I had nothing to prove – I’d
won four titles, so I was content in that way, and nobody had retained the World Championship title since Stephen Hendry in 1996 (incredibly, the fifth of five consecutive wins), so there wasn’t pressure on me to do that. My head was in a good place. I thought, I’m just one of 32 players here, I’ve got as good a chance as anybody here, I just need to win five matches. In my practice sessions before the tournament I was playing well, getting the better of good players and I thought, well, it’s no different from going out and doing it at the Crucible. In fact, with the adrenaline and the crowds, I can play better in Sheffield than I had in practice. As with all sport, so much of snooker is psychological. Probably even more than most.

The crowd were really supportive. I got standing ovations whenever I went out. They’ve always been brilliant to me at Sheffield, but this felt different. It was really touching. I thought, well, I’ve been around a while, and maybe they gave it to me because they now regard me as an elder statesman. A lot of these people have been watching me for 20 years and they think, he’s one of us, he’s an old boy.

My first match was against Marcus Campbell, a tough, tough Scottish opponent. Marcus is a good, solid match player. The previous year I’d played him in China and just scraped home. But I always think Sheffield is different from anywhere else. Experience counts for so much at the Crucible – experience of the atmosphere, the intensity, and experience of having done well in the past. You can go there with bad form and do well if you’ve got the belief.

I was 7-2 up after the first session, playing decently, potting the balls. My long potting wasn’t great, but it’s never been brilliant so I wasn’t that concerned. In the evening session I went 9-2. Almost home. Then I started missing balls. I began to panic, and thinking my game’s gone; it’s only day one and I’ve
got another 16 days of this shit, if I survive that long – and that was a huge if.

I won 10-4, and was so down when I came off the table. Damien Hirst said to me: ‘You’d think we’d lost.’ He was making a joke of it, telling me how shit I’d made everybody feel. What he was basically saying is that I’m nuts. ‘You’ve been out for eleven months, you’ve won ten-four, you’ve played some lovely shots, yes you’ve missed a few, but that’s the game.’ He’s like another Steve Peters – he gives me perspective all the time.

In the evenings, when I wasn’t playing, I went to the casino with friends. We played blackjack, roulette, had some dinner, watched the snooker on the telly. A great way to spend an evening. I went in there with £500 and told myself that it had to last me 10 days because I don’t like gambling, don’t want to get sucked in to it. When I played, I bet anything between £3 and £50. We had a little team – me, Damien, Sylvia, Chick, Irish Chris, Taz and Scouse John. I ended up about a grand up after the first night. Sweet. My luck couldn’t hold out, though.

In the second round I played Ali Carter. Even though Marcus is a good player, he’s not got Ali’s experience at the Crucible – I’ve played him in two World Championship finals. The match started brilliantly for me, and I was 5-1 up in the first session, cruising. Then he won two good frames and came back to 5-3. We came out for the second session, and my game just wasn’t there. I couldn’t score, was coming off second best at the table. It got to 7-7, and I wasn’t feeling good.

At 7-7, Ali put me in a snooker and I smashed my way out of it and potted the white. I thought it was unlucky, but actually it was a touch because I got away with it. He had to take on a long ball after the white went in it, and he missed it by miles. Lovely, I thought, and I knocked in a 70. In the last frame of the evening I made an 80. So I’d gone from 5-3 to 7-7 to 9-7.
I’d struggled, Ali had played really well, and I’d come out in front, which was brilliant for me. The most telling sessions at Sheffield are when you’re struggling rather than flying. If you can win or draw a session when you’re off your game, that’s the stuff that wins you the World Championship.

It gave me confidence overnight, thinking, I’m two up, I’ve had my bad session, that’s out of the way. I came out the next day, played well. Long one, boom, 70. Long one, boom, 80. I played good safety, too. It helps when your long shots are working – it gets you in earlier, and puts pressure on the opponent. In the end, I beat Ali 13-8, and thought, that’s more Championship form.

I was in the quarter-finals, and a lot of the big names had already gone out: John Higgins, Mark Williams, Mark Selby, Mark Allen, Neil Robertson They’d all fallen by the wayside, but it didn’t make me feel that this was my big chance because I’ve always said that if you’re going to win the world title you’re going to have to play someone who’s on top of their game. There’s not a lot in it among the world’s top 16, and anyone who’s in their best form can beat you. So I wasn’t really worried about who’d won and lost; it was always more about my game.

The one big negative was that I couldn’t run at Sheffield. I tore my calf muscle when running just before the World Championship. I was in the gym doing stuff on the bike, but that was about it. It’s ironic really that once I stopped playing and thought I’d be able really to focus on the running I kept getting injured, so I got fat and lazy. Then, when I did start playing snooker again, I thought I’d better get fit, probably did too much running too quick, and tore my calf muscle. When I was in Sheffield I saw my running mates Jason and Lee. We couldn’t run together because of the injury but I went out
for a couple of meals with Jason, and saw Lee down the gym. Between matches I’d speak to Steve Peters, who lives between Sheffield and Manchester, in Chapel-en-le-Frith. I’d pop over there whenever I could, stay overnight, have a chat.

In the quarters I got Stuart Bingham, and went 7-0 up in the first session. His nickname is Ball-Run Bingham because people say he gets the run of the ball. But I don’t think he’s lucky. In my book he’s unlucky – he’s a good player; if he was lucky he would have won more tournaments.

Even though I wasn’t really confident with my game I was able to put the bad shots behind me. And there were quite a few of them. But my break-building was good – 79, 111, 87, 133 and 78. The commentators were saying it was snooker from the gods, but it didn’t feel like that at all; not like when I’m potting balls for fun. I felt I had really to work hard for it. I got to 7-0, then took my foot off the gas.

In the last three frames of the session against Stuart I couldn’t pot a ball. My concentration had gone. I got down on myself, thinking, I’ve got to concentrate so hard on every ball in every session to win this tournament and I can’t do that. I felt I was just taming the monster, caging the chimp, but it could have broken loose at any time. What made it difficult was having all these thoughts going through my head, and thinking, I’m not playing very well, then hearing Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry in the studio saying it’s the best snooker ever. It didn’t make any sense to me. I thought, are they winding me up? I think the truth was somewhere in the middle. It wasn’t coming to me as easily as it had in 2012; that year I had to graft for it, but was generally consistent.

I ended up beating Stuart Bingham 13-4, despite the fact that I was beating myself up so much. After the match, it has to be said I wasn’t at my most positive. I said I hadn’t missed
snooker, that this was possibly my last major tournament, and I’d only come back to pay the school fees. It didn’t go down well. But I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with snooker: when I hate it I really hate it and when I love it I really love it. Sometimes I love it and hate it at the same time.

As for the school fees, some people found it funny, and some thought it in poor taste and made me come across badly. Others simply didn’t believe me. Some thought it made me sound snobbish in that I needed to send the kids to private school, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I have no choice but to take them out of their schools unless I go to court, and I don’t want to do that. I do want to pay for their schools out of my income, but, actually, I’m not really a believer in private education. I think state school is good enough for all of us; it’s just a matter of whether you want to apply yourself. I went to state school and didn’t apply myself. But there were loads of highly intelligent kids there who did, and who went on to university and good careers. I don’t think many people believed that I was short of money, but it’s true. Yes, I’ve got my home, and the home for the kids, and a couple of properties with my mum, but the bottom line was that if I didn’t go back to work I’d have to sell my home.

The commentators kept saying how relaxed I looked this year, and I think I did on the table. But there were times when I felt so paranoid, especially after I’d just finished a session. It’s hard to explain, but it’s the classic symptom of paranoid depression – you can’t talk to people, can’t look them in the eye, you think people are laughing at you, you think you’re going to be exposed but you’re not sure why or about what. It’s a horrible, destructive waste of energy and life. Then I’d get out there and be alright. Playing was escapism – I felt okay playing; playing was a distraction. What I couldn’t handle was the thoughts and
anticipation when I wasn’t playing. And that’s what I wore my friends out with.

Everybody became exhausted. All my closest mates, Scouse John and Damien, I’d tell them, I can’t do this no more, I’m getting a new job, I’m going to work in the media. And the next day I’d get on the practice table, I’d be hitting the ball really well and I’d be going: ‘Yessssss. I’m going to play this game for the next ten years!’