Have you ever had a hobby that taught you a valuable lesson about life?

I have had many moments in my life that have taught me valuable life lessons.

I personally believe that we can learn something from almost any situation, there is always a lesson there, we just have to look for it.

I have loved the game of Snooker for as long as I can remember, the game caught my imagination from a very tender age. When I first started playing snooker I couldn’t pocket a ball if my life depended on it, I wasn’t very good at all.

But due to the fact that I loved billiards, I continued to practice, I began to get better and better. I began to chain small breaks, 16 points, then 20 points, then 28 points, little by little I improved. The better I got, the more I practiced, and the more I practiced, the better I got. (Imagine huh!)

Now you will be forgiven for thinking that what I have written so far are the valuable life lessons I learned playing pool.

You would be right.

Perseverance and practice are character traits that you must possess in order to achieve all that you are capable of in this life.

You must decide to do something, and you must stick with it until completion.

When you start doing something, you are usually not very good at it, however, if you persevere, you will improve all the time.

The more you practice that, the easier it will be for you to do and the better you will be at it.

Nevertheless.

The most valuable lesson I learned from billiards came from watching it, not playing it.

It was April 28, 1985, I remember the date because it was my 17th birthday. Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis were at the world championship final at the Crucible Theater in Sheffield. The Final was the best of 35 pool tables. Davis was ranked world number one at the time, he reached the final as the firm favourite. In the first session, Davis destroyed Taylor 7 frames to 0. Davis also won the first frame after the interval to make it 8-0.

Remarkably, Taylor managed to dig deep and stage a comeback, and was down 9-7 at the end of the game on the first day. They reached the final session tied 11-11.

Davis kept up the pressure and Taylor was playing catch up once again, Davis leading 17-15 and was first through 18 frames to win the title.

Taylor fought his way back to level at 17-17 and forced a deciding frame.

In the final frame, Davis led by 66 points to Taylor’s 44.

Taylor had to pocket the last four balls to win the match. He laid out a difficult long-range brown, followed by a tricky blue and an even trickier pink. This meant for the first time in history that the world snooker championship would be decided on the last ball, the black ball.

Taylor tried to fold the black into a medium pocket, but missed and the black went safely.

Davis played a fantastic safety shot next, leaving Taylor in a lot of trouble, Taylor tried to bend the black ball the full length of the table, missed and black went to a relatively safe position.

An unfortunate double kiss in the black from Davis gave Taylor a chance, Taylor grabbed the shot and missed.

The commentator (Jim Meadowcroft) described it as “the biggest opportunity of Dennis Taylor’s life.”

He had left Steve Davis a relatively easy pot with black, he was within close range, but it was a cut into a blind pocket, it was the wanted shot he hit 100 times out of 100, but not this day. There were 18.5 million people in the UK watching at that precise moment, and I don’t think you could have found 10 people who would have thought Steve Davis would miss that shot.

This time Dennis Taylor made no mistake, on his fourth shot at the black ball he pocketed it to become the 1985 World Snooker Champion. He had been behind from the first frame, the only time he was in front was when he pocketed the final black of the party

It was the biggest comeback in billiards history and it taught me some very valuable life lessons.

“Never, never, never give up.”

“Never give up.”

“It’s not where you start, it’s where you end.”

I could go on, but I think you understand what I’m saying.

It’s always too early to give up, never give up.

I would like to leave you with a quote that sums up the events of the 1985 World Snooker Championship.

“Some men give up their desires when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, win a victory by exerting, at the last moment, an effort more vigorous than ever.”