FEATURESTORY
Snooker champs right on cue Australia has had few world champions at billiards or snooker. One, Walter Lindrum, was a 1930s poster boy alongside Bradman and Phar Lap. Two others met while playing local snooker in Melbourne’s east. DAVID SCHOUT finds where cue sport fits into Melbourne’s sports scene. obby Foldvari knows what it’s like to be Australia’s cue sport king. The 1986 world billiards champion toured the world in the ’80s and ’90s, playing hundreds of international snooker and billiards tournaments. During one off-season in the mid-90s, Foldvari returned home to Melbourne after a long season overseas. It was at this time that Neil Robertson, who would later become a world-beater, was a pimply teen trying to make his mark on the eastern suburbs snooker scene. Some shrewd recruiting by a local club led the two Melburnians together and started a relationship that, by the time they went to either ends of the Earth, signalled a passing of the baton as Australia’s hope to take on the world. ‘‘There was a snooker room in Knox and at this time, in between playing in England, they asked me to play pennant for them in a six-man team,’’ Foldvari explains. ‘‘Neil was only a kid and was the No. 6. I didn’t have any idea what he’d be like. That was my first meeting with him.’’ As Robertson moved up the ranks, the two got to know each other and toured the Australian snooker circuit together. ‘‘He used to practise all the time back then. He loved the game. You could see he was talented at a young age because he’d pot a lot of balls. He just had to refine his skill. ‘‘We used to talk a lot, especially in the long train trips to tournaments. One day his dad ran out of petrol on a trip home from Sydney, so we had even more time to talk,’’ Foldvari says with a laugh. Then, in 2000, the two met in the Oceania snooker championship final in New Zealand. Foldvari’s international career was winding down while Robertson’s career was just kickstarting. It signalled a changing of the guard in Australian snooker. ‘‘I was playing really well and had won the semis 8-1. ‘‘In the final I was putting him on the top cushion [the other end of the table] but he just kept potting the long ball. I didn’t think he could keep doing it but he did, and he has ever since. He’s well known for being probably the best long potter in the world.’’ Robertson, who grew up in Ringwood, went on to win the 2010 world snooker championship and break a 30-year British stranglehold on the tournament. It was an Aussie beating the Poms at their own game, in their backyard. Foldvari puts it into context. ‘‘The BBC televises the world championships for 10 hours a
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THE DANDENONG JOURNAL \ MAY 13, 2013
Table topper: Robby Foldvari was once ranked in the world’s top 50 in billiards and snooker. day, two weeks straight in much the same fashion as Channel Seven televises the Australian Open tennis.’’ The win put Robertson on Australia’s congested sports pages and gave the sport the air time it craved. While cue sports like snooker, billiards and pool at present don’t seem to grab the attention of the average punter in Australia, it wasn’t always like this. The games have experienced peaks of popularity and troughs of seeming obscurity. Comparisons with basketball and baseball, which have also had ebb and flow popularity in Australia, are not too far off the mark. It seems, however, that every peak comes on the back of Australian success overseas. Foldvari agrees, and, while sitting at the bar of a quiet Moorabbin pool room, explains the heyday of billiards, starting in the 1930s with the seemingly unbeatable Australian, Walter Lindrum. ‘‘It’s a long story but to cut it short, when Bradman came along, they called Bradman the Lindrum of cricket — that’s how big Lindrum was,’’ he says. ‘‘In the ’30s, there were three main icons — Phar Lap, Bradman and Lindrum. The public followed that story because it was an amazing story. He cut his finger off as a kid and had to change to left hand and became the world’s best.’’ He goes on to explain how snooker then started to ‘‘get big’’ in the 1970s in Australia primarily because of British television show Pot Black and another hero, Eddie Charlton. The BBC show featured snooker tournaments that, despite carrying no official ranking points,
Robby’s 5 basic tips 1. Keep your head still. 2. Separate each finger and place on the table. Bring your thumb against your index finger and use that as the channel for the cue to slide. 3. To work out angles, imagine a line to the pocket from where the object ball is. 4. Smooth cue action. Slow back swing and accelerate through — just like golf. 5. Grip the cue like a hammer. Take pressure off when swinging back and tighten when striking the ball.
can be attributed for popularising the modern game. ‘‘For Australia, Eddie Charlton was playing and he won it a few times. That was good TV and really good for the game.’’ Charlton became a national hero for beating the British at their own game, much like Robertson 30 years on. Then, in 1986, Foldvari won the world billiards championship and finished runner-up to Pat Cash to become the ‘Herald Caltex Sportsman of the Year’, so popular was the sport. The emergence of Robertson, Foldvari says, gives Aussies ‘‘someone to follow’’. While it may be too early to assess the impact of Robertson’s win, at the very least it brought the game into living rooms across the country. More importantly, it provided the impetus for world snooker executives to include the Australian championships — the Australian Goldfields Open — as one of 10 international ‘ranking’ events as part of the 2011 season. It was the first time international players had played for official
Picture: Gary Sissons
ranking points Down Under since 1975 and the Bendigo tournament is now part of the world snooker calendar. Eastern Districts Pool League president Claude Welson says that at a local level, while participation has dropped slightly in recent years, demand for ‘eight-ball’ — the traditional pub game in Australia — is still high. ‘‘I don’t know why numbers have gone down,’’ he says. ‘‘There’s been a few pool halls close. I guess it [popularity] goes in phases. ‘‘Our numbers are still healthy and we have five divisions that play on a Tuesday night. We’re still ambitious and looking to expand, especially our juniors.’’ Welson says while the sport may have previously been masculine, the EDPL has about 10 per cent female participation. And they play against the guys. ‘‘We’ve got a good number of women playing, which is great. They play against the men because it’s such an even sport that just requires hand-eye co-ordination.’’ Foldvari still fronts up for the RACV Club in Melbourne and says the local snooker competition is very strong. He operates his own business, World Cuesport Billiard Academy, in Melbourne and offers coaching and trick shot exhibitions. Foldvari says the various cue sport disciplines have been detrimental. ‘‘If it was one game, it’d be as big as golf. There’s too many to choose from.’’ The Australian Goldfields Open — with Robertson as a headline act — begins in Bendigo on July 8.