BREAKING BAD

Booze, drugs, punch-ups & match fixing.. how green baize warriors reacted to pressures at the top

- BY SIOBHAN MCNALLY

GUINNESS and whisky fuelled legendary Irish snooker player Alex "Hurricane" Higgins' explosive matches, but it was Canada's "Big Bill" Werbeniuk who famously sank 28 pints and 16 whiskies to steady his nerves during a game.

Invented 150 years ago today, snooker has always attracted bad boys with a fondness for drink, drugs, dolly birds and the bookies.

According to top sports psychologist and coach Nic Barrow, the intense pressure of the game has driven many players to substance abuse.

In the 1970s and 1980s, legends of the snooker world such as Hurricane Higgins and Jimmy "the Whirlwind" White made footballers and hell-raiser actors look like amateurs when it came to drinking, gambling and womanising.

Canadian Cliff "the Grinder" Thorburn, now 77 who punched Higgins to the floor in a row - was the first player banned for failing a drugs test. Traces of cocaine were found in his urine in 1988.

Kirk Stevens, now 66, admitted seeking help for addiction. And six-times World Championship runner-up White, 62, was a crack addict.

ASHTRAYS

The game made household names of players, who were often seen falling out of nightclubs.

The 1985 World Championship final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor drew 18.5 million TV viewers.

But while Davis dominated the game in the 1980s, the people's champion was Hurricane Higgins.

When Higgins won the world title in 1972 the prize money was less than £500 (€581). When he won it again 10 years later, it was £25,000 (€29K), and now it's £500,000 (€580K).

Called the drinking man's sport, the game was invented on April 17, 1875 by British Army lieutenant Neville Chamberlain in Jabalpur, India. He did it by merging different forms of pool.

Water, tea and early nights have now replaced the pints and ashtrays at the World Championship, which begins this weekend at the Crucible in Sheffield, UK.