Neil Robertson
Billiards, pool and snooker have always been famed for their international representation. Today, that is more obvious than ever, from the wealth of young talent emerging from China to the likes of Marco Fu and Hossein Vafaei, the first snooker pros to come from Hong Kong and Iran respectively. But perhaps the most astonishing thing, given the Euro-centric nature of billiards and snooker, is the talent that has come from Australia.
Here, we’ll look at some Aussie players who made headlines in the snooker, billiards and pool pages of the sports press – and not always for the right reasons.
Wally Lindrum was in a class of his own
Born in Kalgoorlie in 1898, Wally Lindrum was from billiards stock. His grandfather, Frederick, was Australia’s first billiards champion when he defeated Englishman John Roberts in 1869.
By the time he reached his mid-20s, young Wally couldn’t get a game in Australia. He was simply too good. Either side of World War Two, he toured the UK several times, playing greats like Joe Davis.
His career spanned 40 years, during which time he set 57 records, many of which still stand to this day. He was posthumously inducted into The Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985, and the accolade was elevated to a “Legend of Australian Sport” in 1998. Billiards had never seen his like before, and never will again.
Steady Eddie was always ready
In the 1980s, Barry Hearn’s Matchroom Mob was all about making snooker trendy and marketable, with the likes of Steve Davis, Kirk Stevens and Jimmy White. By then, “Steady” Eddie Charlton was in his 50s, but his craggy face was still a regular feature in the latter stages of the major tournaments.
Charlton turned pro in the early 60s, and was one of the last to play both snooker and billiards at the highest level. In fact, he is the only player to have reached the world final in both sports without ever having won – he was runner up in the World Billiards Championship in 1974, 1976 and 1980, and in the 1973 and 1975 World Snooker Championships. Charlton made his final professional appearance at the British Open in 1992, aged 62. It made him the oldest player to reach the final stages of a ranking tournament, a record that stood for 30 years before being broken by Jimmy White in February 2023.
Quinten Hann showed the darker side of Australian gambling
It’s well-known that Australians love to gamble. Most snooker and billiard clubs across Australia feature pokies – that’s slot machines as far as the rest of the world is concerned – and these days, there are numerous opportunities for Australians to play gambling games online – https://www.topaustraliangambling.com/online-casinos/real-money/ provides more information about the gambling sites and real money casino games that are available.
Against that backdrop, an Aussie snooker player with a fondness for a wager was nothing out of the ordinary. But Quinten Hann gambled his entire future away when he got involved in a match fixing scam, and he lost. It was a sad end to a career that had so much early promise. In the 1980s, Hann showed a prodigious talent for the game, and when he burst onto the pro scene aged 18 in 1995, success seemed a certainty.
However, controversy was forever at his heels, both on and off the table. In 2006, he resigned from the WPBSA to pursue a short-lived career in pool, before changing his name and launching a financial services company that also ended in legal disgrace. By his 40th birthday, Hann had disappeared from the radar and snooker fans were left ruing what might have been.
Neil Robertson – Australian snooker’s millennium man
In Neil Robertson, fans have an accurate answer to that question. Four year’s Hann’s junior, Robertson turned pro in 1998 and has been a constant presence in the top sixteen since 2006.
His crowning glory, of course, came in the 2010 World Championship, when he became the first and so far only Australian to lift the crown. But that is just one of 23 ranking titles held by the “Thunder from Down Under,” making him one of the most successful – not to mention most popular – players of the modern era.
