Doug Mountjoy

Mountjoy was born on 8 June 1942.[2] He was brought up just outside Ebbw Vale and worked for some years as a coal miner, playing snooker in his spare time.[1] A well-known player in the valleys as a youth and young man, he won many amateur tournaments including two Welsh Amateur titles and the World Amateur title in 1976,[1] for which he beat Paul Mifsud 11–1.[2] After the World Amateur victory he turned professional, at the age of 34.[3]

Mountjoy's first success was as a late replacement in the 1977 Masters at the New London Theatre, his first professional tournament.[1] He beat former world champions John Pulman, Fred Davis and Alex Higgins, and in the final defeated the then world champion (and defending Masters titleholder) Ray Reardon 7–6 to win the title.[3][4]

At the World Championship a couple of months later, he beat Higgins again in the first round but lost to Dennis Taylor in the quarter-final 11–13.[2] At the end of 1977 he reached the final of the first-ever UK Snooker Championship, losing to Patsy Fagan 9–12. He won the title a year later beating David Taylor 15–9, and in the same season he beat Ray Reardon to win the Irish Masters 6–5.[4]

In 1980 he won the Champion of Champions, beating John Virgo 10–8 in the final.

After being part of the winning Wales team in the first two snooker World Cups, in 1979 and 1980, he had an attack of Bell's palsy which partially paralysed his face.[1] With the problem cleared, he reached the final of the 1981 World Snooker Championship, where he beat Eddie Charlton, Dennis Taylor and, in the semi-final, Ray Reardon (against whom he made a 145 break, a championship record at the time). He then played Steve Davis in the final. Davis was favourite to win his first world title, and appeared to be racing to an easy victory when he won the first six frames of the match. However Mountjoy recovered, and on several occasions came close to drawing level. Trailing 11–13, and with the score at 60–63 in the 25th frame, he looked certain to cut Davis's lead to one frame but missed a simple blue from its spot. Davis went on to clear the colours, fluking the final black, and Mountjoy would win only one more frame as Davis eased to an 18–12 victory.

After that run at the World Championship, he had only a short run of titles; he won the Welsh Professional Championship in 1982[4] and 1984[4] to go with his 1980 title. He was back in the final of a major again in the 1985 Masters tournament, losing to Cliff Thorburn. Mountjoy also reclaimed the Pot Black title in March that year, having previously won it in 1978.

He won another Welsh title in 1987[4] but otherwise he struggled, including a 1–9 defeat to Steve Longworth in the 1986 UK Championship. By 1988 he was out of the top 16 in the World Rankings. It was at this time that he turned to the snooker coach Frank Callan, who had a reputation for being a valuable teacher to the professionals. In his book Frank Callan's Snooker Clinic, he relates the rebuilding of Mountjoy's game. Callan identified a particular fault in his technique, where he would play shots that required side spin by cueing across the ball, rather than moving his bridge hand over and striking in a straight line. This was how Mountjoy had always played a shot with sidespin, which was a testament to just how talented he was.[5] Callan instructed Mountjoy to use a 'drill' when preparing to strike the ball, rather than spending varying amounts of time and care on a shot dependent upon its difficulty. With a blanket approach to every stroke, Mountjoy found his game returning.

In the 1988/89 season, with Mountjoy noticeably using his new drill, he reached the final of the 1988 UK Championship. At the age of 46 he was meeting the young pretender Stephen Hendry in the final. He won 16–12 and gained his first ranking tournament victory, having at one stage scored centuries in three consecutive frames, and after the match praised Hendry as a future talent: "I can see him getting into the Top 300 at some point. Tee hee." In January 1989 he won the Classic, beating fellow Welshman Wayne Jones in the final, to win consecutive ranking titles. That gave Mountjoy his second ranking title during his twelve years as a professional, both of them won within two months. He then won his fifth Welsh Professional title the following month. He was back in the top 16 the next season, and by 1990 he was number 5 in the world. He stayed in the Top 16 until 1992. In 1993, not long after dropping out of the top 16, Mountjoy was diagnosed with lung cancer after being a smoker for many years.[1] That year, in his final World Championship finals appearance, at the age of 50, he beat Alain Robidoux 10–6 in the first round only weeks before an operation to remove his left lung. For fifteen years he was the last player aged over 50 to appear in the final stages. He survived the cancer and continued to play snooker until 1997. After 1997 he concentrated on snooker coaching but did compete in the World Championship again in 2000 and 2002.

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