NATURAL bOrn thriller

WORDS BY LUKE G WILLIAMS

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PATRICIA HOULIHAN

seeking to protect their own financial interests rather than grow the sport and leading players like Joe and Fred Davis viewed Houlihan as a threat.

The snooker establishment also disapproved of the fact that – like Paul Newman’s cinematic icon “Fast”

Eddie Felson – Houlihan was a hustler, namely, someone who travelled up and down the country playing for money.

Houlihan turned to hustling as it was the only way he could make money from his uncanny abilities with a snooker cue and he preferred potting balls to hauling crates on the Surrey docks, as his dad had done before him and as he also did himself for a while.

Main photo: a very rare early colour photo of Houlihan, probably taken in the early 1960s.

Above: Houlihan in his late 60s, a bottle of his favourite light ale in front of him coming up to you going, ‘All right mate? Fancy a game?’ I’d say, ‘Nah’, and I’d sit down and have my tea. Then some fella would say, ‘Anybody else?’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, all right, then.’ I’d let them win for not a lot of money and then they’re thinking, ‘This is all right’, and then I’d start coming back.”

Eventually, Houlihan’s face became too recognisable so he had to introduce other innovative wagers to earn money. Six-time world champion Steve Davis told me: “[Patsy would] play people and he wouldn’t be allowed to have the cue ball touch a cushion or whatever. People would think they would be able to beat him if he had that type of handicap but he was so skilful that he could still win.”

At other times, he would play onehanded, left-handed, or with the end of a broom rather than a cue.

Sadly, when Houlihan was finally allowed into professional snooker in the early 1970s, he was past his peak and had eyesight issues. Nevertheless, future stars of the game who saw him play during this period were still wowed by his talents. A teenage Jimmy White played and hung around with Houlihan at the Pot Black snooker club in Battersea in the mid-70s.

“Some days Patsy struggled because he’d been drinking the night before or gambling or whatever, but when it all connected and he started performing, he was like no one else on earth,” White, now 60, says. “There are certain people in this world, certain sports people, like Floyd Mayweather in boxing or Tiger Woods in golf, like Ronnie O’Sullivan at times today, that when they hit their peak they just can’t be beat... Houlihan was like that.”

Although high-level success in the pro ranks eluded Houlihan, his glittering amateur career, and his brilliance on the snooker hall scene, created a mythical aura that has seen his legend continue to grow. He finally retired from snooker in 1993, but he remained a much-loved local character in and around Deptford, playing regularly at Shades snooker club on Deptford High Street for several years.

Lee Suleymanoglu, who worked in Shades and now owns the club, told me: “He was such a character and very charismatic. He would tell jokes. He was a bit of an actor, a showman, I would say. It’s a shame he didn’t get the recognition or money out of the game that he would have done if he was born 30 or 40 years later. What is it these days – half a million when you win the world championship? He was the most natural player I’ve ever seen.” Houlihan died in 2006, after a sad retreat into reclusivity during the final couple of years of his life. Today most of the haunts he once frequented have gone; his beloved Osborne Arms pub closed in 2010 and the Deptford Arms – another of his favourite boozers –is now a bookmakers. The building which once housed the Lucania, where Houlihan first picked up a cue in the 1940s, is still there, but is no longer a snooker club.

Heartbreakingly, virtually no video footage has survived of Houlihan either – just a shot or two and a couple of short interviews. It’s only through the stories that are still told about him, and the memories of those who knew and loved him – like his daughter Patsy Girl and his mate Jimmy White – that I’ve been able to piece together the life and times of Patsy Houlihan.

I guess that’s why I wrote a book about him, because memories matter, and history matters too, and maybe –just maybe – through the pages of my book, Patsy Houlihan can live again.

The Natural: The Story of Patsy Houlihan, the Greatest Snooker Player You Never Saw by Luke G Williams is out now, published by Pitch