'Winning the UK Championship was best and worst day of my life – and the BBC didn't help'
The UK Championship is one of the biggest dates in the snooker calendar, but one former winner has mixed memories when it comes to his own title triumph
One-time UK Championship winner John Virgo once described his sole title victory as both "the best and worst day" of his life. The former world No. 10 was in his pomp when he edged Terry Griffiths to the UK crown in 1979, though he almost threw the result away altogether.
Snooker icon Griffiths was the reigning world champion at the time of their encounter. And the Welsh ace showed his class when he offered to split the prize money despite taking a lead thanks to Virgo's two-frame penalty. Virgo's close call wasn't due to talent but time-keeping after he was left out of the loop when his final session had been rescheduled. And it led to a mad dash to Preston Guild Hall - the UK Championship's former host venue - after he received the call while half-naked.
“It was the only major I won and it was the best and worst day of my life,” he said in the past as he looked back on the most significant date of his competitive career. 'JV' went on to explain he was unaware the start time of he final session had been moved up to accommodate live coverage on Grandstand, and he was caught unaware as the panic set in.
“So I’m in my hotel room and all of a sudden I get a phone call [saying], ‘Where are you?’ because it was now ten to one," he continued. "I said I wasn’t due but because it was live on Grandstand they’d moved the start time to one o’clock. You can imagine my panic, I wasn’t even dressed!
“I had to get dressed quickly, jump in the car, drive down to the Guild Hall. As I’m relaying the story now, 45 years later, I’m still getting cold sweats thinking about driving down the M6.I remember parking, running through the car park. I’d forgotten about the match, I just wanted to get there. I did well to only be 20 minutes late!
"But for the first time, they’d brought in a rule which said if you were 15 minutes late, you’d forfeit a frame. Then you’d lose another frame for every five minutes afterwards, so I was deducted two frames. You can imagine I wasn’t happy about it. Having got to the venue 11-7 in front, it was now 11-9.”
In hindsight, Virgo's tardiness could have been a whole lot worse had he been just 10 minutes later to his appointment. He went on to seal a 14-13 win over Griffiths and claimed one of the last UK Championship titles before it was accredited as a ranking event.
That ended up being the beginning of a very fruitful period for Virgo as he went on to seal the Bombay Classic and Pontins Professional in the months following his UK success. However, his prized moment in Preston wasn't captured on film after camera operators went on strike.
"I looked at the cameras but they were unmanned,” he added. “I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’ It turned out there was an industrial dispute and the BBC cameramen went on strike!
“So although I beat Terry Griffiths, who was then world champion, there is no film of it because the BBC were on strike. As I say, it was the worst and best day of my life, I put it in that order. It was a rollercoaster.”
Times have changed, and there's little risk of snooker's elite repeating Virgo's mistake in the present day. And while no UK Championship was ever won with ease, the future BBC broadcaster certainly took the hard route before celebrating the "worst and best" day of his playing career.
