6 Epic Sporting Stories That Deserve The Last Dance Treatment
5. How Snooker Became Mainstream
The
man largely responsible for snooker’s iconic place in British culture is not who
you’d expect. Sir David Attenborough, the legendary naturalist whose voice is
amongst the country’s most recognisable, commissioned the broadcasting of it
for the first time during his tenure as controller of BBC2, believing that the
colourful balls would be a great fit for the then new medium of colour
television. Interestingly enough, he isn’t the only unlikely name etched into
the sport’s history – Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamously known for
his appeasement of Hitler and replacement by Winston Churchill, invented the
form of it that is played today.
Since Attenborough’s fateful decision, snooker has been ever-present in the BBC schedules, always attracting respectable audience figures for prestigious tournaments. The nature of the game means that leading players can be at the top of it for decades and their stories would be captivating to hear given how all but a few of them maintain a very low profile away from the table.
A number of key things could be easily be focused on in a tale of how a niche table sport evolved into the global circuit seen today, from colourful individuals like Alex Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan to iconic matches such as Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor’s 1985 final, which attracted 18.5 million viewers as it went to the last black in the 35th and final frame.
You could even do a sequel about darts if it succeeded…