Shaun Murphy - Part 2 (The Blueprint — Discipline, Sacrifice, and a Champion’s Mind)

In Part 2 of our five-part conversation with snooker great Shaun Murphy, the story moves from raw ability to the disciplined framework that helped shape one of the game’s true champions. This episode offers a revealing look at the system behind Shaun’s early development, as he reflects on the rigorous, highly structured approach created by his father — a man with no background in cue sports, but a remarkable instinct for preparation, accountability, and performance. Monthly goals, honest self-assessment, and a relentless focus on improvement became the foundation for Shaun’s rise.

But this chapter is about far more than training routines. Shaun speaks openly about what that life demanded of him as a young boy: the childhood experiences he missed, the social life he largely gave up, and the pressure that came with chasing excellence so young. He also shares a painful and deeply personal account of the bullying that drove him away from school, and how snooker became both his escape and his future.

There is humor and color throughout as well. Shaun tells the wonderful story of his Doc Martens sponsorship as a teenager, including the surreal experience of finding himself alongside Madonna at a London store opening. He also remembers the unforgettable characters from the snooker clubs of his youth — the hustlers, mentors, and larger-than-life personalities who helped teach him how the world worked both inside and outside the game.

Along the way, this episode explores Shaun’s early amateur success, the values his father tried to instill, his admiration for the gifted but tragic Lee Spick, and the surprising role golf played in his young sporting life. Part 2 is funny, moving, revealing, and filled with the lessons, sacrifices, and formative experiences that helped create “The Magician.”

Transcript

Allison Fisher 0:14

So in the early days, how did you train? You talked about doing drills, routines. Who was sort of guiding you through that?

Shaun Murphy 0:24

It was my dad. You know, my dad didn't come from a Cue Sports background, as I said, but he came from a sales marketing background, so he knew very well about training and getting the best out of people and that kind of world. That was his world. So, you know, in fairness to him, whilst I was at school, he was reading snooker books. And then I'd get home from school, he'd go, right, son, we're going to try this tonight. This is what Steve Davis did in 1984. We're going to see if you can do it. Obviously, I couldn't do it. But, you know, give me a month, give me a month at it, and I'll have it. And it was that kind of thing, really. It was the basics of stance, bridge, grip, which you can, you know, you can show me how to do that, and I'll do that. And then it was a case of, right, this routine should take X. Let's see how we go. And it really was a case of just keep scaling the mountain, you know, setting a challenge, you know, by the end of the month. And my dad would literally have a piece of paper on the wall in the kitchen of this is what we're attempting this month, this is what we're doing it for. And you've got that tournament on a Sunday, the under four teams at Willythorne Snoopy Club in Leicester, and our goal for that tournament is to get to the quarterfinals. And then it would be like, Did you achieve that goal? What were the reasons you did or you didn't? And we'd re-evaluate every month. And a bit like, you know, a marketing guy would have his team and they'd have their sales review meeting at the end of every quarter with a flip chart and a whatnot. That was my life. Every month we'd sit down with the flip chart in my dad's office and review what we'd done and what we hadn't done. Now I'm 11 years of age at this stage.

Allison Fisher 1:53

That's crazy. It's amazing. It's amazing that your dad was doing that with you.

Shaun Murphy 1:57

Totally crazy, is what it is. It's great.

Mike Gonzalez 1:59

It's that sounds like a corporate guy. I mean, I can relate to that. I grew up in Ibn Ammons.

Allison Fisher 2:04

Yeah, I can relate all that. Definitely. I think it's wonderful to have somebody like that pushing you. I mean, I would have loved that.

Shaun Murphy 2:11

It was very difficult at the time and it caused problems in our relationship, you know, in terms of becoming a snooker player. And in well, in terms of improving. It was definitely the right way to go. There's no question about that. And, you know, I've been lucky enough to sort of been asked by a couple of younger players over the few over the years to help them. And it's amazing because I go into turn into my dad for half an hour, you know. It's funny, and all these old ways come out which are buried deep in my subconscious. I haven't thought about that for 20 years, 30 years. And they they look at me like I've got two heads. You know, I'm not I'm not doing that. I think, well, unfortunate, that's what you've got to do, you know.

Allison Fisher 2:51

And the other side of the coin though, do you feel like you missed out a little bit in childhood or not? The fact that you had these goals.

Shaun Murphy 2:58

Do you know what? I thought I've I've struggled with this for many, many years. Uh, you know, I'm I'm happy to admit and talk about, you know, I've I've been through therapy, I've had a lot of different discussions with a lot of different people. I think you can only miss what you, you know, I've d I never had it. So I don't really miss it. I don't miss, you know, those cold nights stood on a street corner with my mates from school.

Mike Gonzalez 3:21

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 3:22

A lot of whom still live in the same village. They've never left it, you know. And when I go back and visit it, they're all still there. I can take them. They'll they'll be in the pub on a Friday night where we all used to sit. They'll still be sat there.

Allison Fisher 3:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 3:33

And there's nothing wrong with that at all. But that that wasn't where I wanted my life to go. No, I suppose I don't I never felt like I missed out. I certainly don't have a lot of the experiences that a lot of other people, you know, and as I say, my fiance Jo will tell me fondly of her times at university and you know, going around the world doing what she's done. I don't have any of those stories because I was in the snooker club. I was practicing I don't have any of those stories and you know, great nights out and the boys' trips away to Ibitha and all that. I don't have any of those stories.

Allison Fisher 4:04

You wouldn't remember them if you did, probably. No, all my trips to Ibiza.

Shaun Murphy 4:10

All my stories are snooker related.

Allison Fisher 4:11

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 4:12

Which, you know, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Allison Fisher 4:15

So your dad had all these goals and and then they became your goals. Would you do that as a father to your kids? How old are your kids now?

Shaun Murphy 4:22

Yeah, my my my children are nine and seven. I have to say, I have to say, you know, because it would be very easy to, you know, label my father as a pushy parent. These were all things we sat down and discussed me fire and my desire that pushed these things on. But it was once once we agreed on where we were going, he then said, Well, this is how we get there, son, you know, this is this is how we do it. It wasn't him pushing me to you've got to do, but it was a case, you know, if you wanna, if you do want to be a world champion, then you are gonna have to do things differently to how everyone else does things. And that was as a young man, that was quite painful. You know, I remember being, you know, while all my mates were reading comics and reading whatever they were reading, I was reading autobiographies of past sporting greats. You know, I was studying Steffi Graff. I remember my dad made me read her book every month. Every month. And if you thought my father was hard, goodness me, her father was, you know, it was just incredible. Very different to, you know, the life that my mates had and my friends from school had, a lot of which I'm still, despite having left school, you know, at such a young age, I'm I'm pleased to say that a lot of my friendships from school still stand, you know, I'm still great friends with a lot of people from Earthlingborough in Northamptonshire, where I grew up, although I've moved away and I moved away 20 odd years ago, I'm still in touch with a lot of them. But we had very different experiences growing up, no doubt.

Mark Wilson 5:48

One of the things that really comes through, Sean, is that um you were deeply passionate about the sport. And what happens in pools so often is it's equated to money. And so people do it for impure motives, where you're after a medal or you want to beat Ronnie O'Sullivan's century when you're 10 years old, and that carried on, and and you know, wow, maybe you left school at 13, you're a bright guy, and you figured it out. And anything that you might have missed as a child has now been replaced by experiences that they'll never have because they didn't pay the price that you did. So it's uh very motivating and inspiring to listen to.

Shaun Murphy 6:27

Well, you know, it's it's it's a funny story to look back on, as I say. It's uh you know, I don't spend a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror, but I'm certainly as I get older I've I've been asked a few times to do a book and stuff like that. You know, it's stuff that you might I might start jotting a few stories down, you know, here or there. I mean, you know, whilst we're talking about it, you know, I didn't leave school because I was, you know, I'd learnt everything and and you know, I was I was done with it. I I left school because on the penultimate day of what we call year nine in the UK, I was left for dead in the toilets. You know, I was beaten up and left because the the kids at school, you know, kids are cruel. They're mean. They can be mean. They they didn't know how to deal with with me in their school. I was always being dragged up the front by the head teacher. And it's a thing in the UK. I don't know if it's the same in the States, but it's the same in in the UK if you're an achiever. But bring your trophy in at bring your trophy in, let's celebrate. We'll have you out at, you know, uh in front of the whole clas in front of the whole school and we'll celebrate. Sure, when you get to play when you get to break time, you know, all the kids are waiting for you around the corner and they give you a good hiding, you know. And it was horrible. And this happened all the time through junior school, high school, whatever you want to call it, and it got to the penultimate day of year nine. This would have been what was this, 1995 or something like that. And my old geography teacher, she was called Mrs. Heathfield, she was like a stand-in geography teacher, came looking for me and found me in the toilet. I'd been beaten by six or seven of these men, these lads, sorry, they weren't men. And there were six of them. So it was it was unfair. And she took me home, and I'll never forget, she took me home there, and then she sat me down in front of my mum and dad in the kitchen at the kitchen table. And amongst other things, she said, Don't ever send Sean back to this school. That's how it's whatever you do. She said, They will kill him. They will kill him. Don't send him back.

Allison Fisher 8:20

And I never went back. Unbelievable. Wow. It's cruel, isn't it? Some kids. Unbelievable. Yeah, cruel.

Shaun Murphy 8:28

But I you know, I get it. And and you know, I you see it all the time. It's it's but it wasn't really they didn't know it, they weren't, they didn't know. It's uh kids are kids. But again, Mark, you know, you touched on it, you know it that I think that and as I say, I I never played for money and I still don't play for money. I think because I when I grew up we had no money. Money wasn't money wasn't an idol in our house. It wasn't a thing because we didn't have any of it. Yeah. So it wasn't geez, we desperately needed it. Because we always desperately needed it. But it wasn't a thing. It wasn't wasn't commodity, because it it you know, as long as we had enough to pay the rent, it was everything was okay.

Allison Fisher 9:04

Yeah.

Mark Wilson 9:05

Well Mark, you you were gonna say Efren Reyes is very much the same way.

Allison Fisher 9:11

Yeah.

Mark Wilson 9:12

He came from desperation to get by, but having money was not a goal. And he's been offered many times to have a mansion here that will be paid for in the United States, but he lives in Angeles City, Philippines. He's not leaving his friends, families, cousins, brothers. And so oftentimes when he wins money, he gives it away to his cousins.

Shaun Murphy 9:34

Well, listen, I mean, if anyone wants to offer me a mansion in the States and we would come over, if there's a budding snooker team over there that wants some coaching, I'll be able to do that.

Allison Fisher 9:41

Oh, there you go. That's his thoughts on that. I love that. So so tell us about this. This is one I was curious about. Your Dr. Martin's sponsorship at 13. How how does that happen? Especially Dr. Martin's knowing how you dress.

Shaun Murphy 9:59

I know, I know, I know. Well it's a f amazing story, really, of coincidence. So go right back to the start, we like to say we lost everything as a family, we had to move out of our lovely home, we were evicted by the bank, and we had to find this little rental house, which was owned by uh the local family who owned a Ford dealership in the village. They were local, you know, movers and shakers, they were local business people involved in the little community, and in the in the local business community was a guy called Max Griggs who owned Doc Martins. Owned the lot. It was his business. And it turned out that he had a lot of pride in helping local budding sports teams, individuals, whatever. He sponsored the local basketball team. I mean, who knew there was a basketball team in Northampton? Who knew that? I didn't know that. And one of the and one of the things he he he wanted to help, one of the things he wanted to do was help me. And this family, the Reddings, Jeff, the father, and Paul and Andy, the sons, who ran the business after him, they introduced us to the Griggs family. And my dad went into full corporate mode and pitched him, pitched in the deal, got his pinstripe suit out, you know, dusted it off, flipped, his old manuals out. Right, this is how we do a deal, son. Watch this, bosh. And did the deal. And somehow we had we came out, I think I was 12. Max Griggs said, we're gonna sponsor you until you turn pro and we're gonna pay for everything that's snooker related. We're gonna take that pressure off you as a family financially for snooker.

Allison Fisher 11:39

Oh, that's fantastic.

Shaun Murphy 11:40

And when you turn pro, we'll feel like we've done our bit and you'll never hear from us again. Get in. And they and they did everything they said that Max, when I turned pro and went on to do what I did, and they never they never wanted anything. Whenever I used to write to them and invite them to come to events, come as my guests, be lovely to see you. He was very happy to sit it out and say, We we loved helping you. You're very close to us, we're very fond, but we don't really like the limelight, we don't want any plaudits. We were very happy helping and good luck. Like they never asked for a thing back. Fantastic. Just what you needed, too. Yeah. Funniest thing of that whole period of time was around the mid-90s when this would have happened, they would have started sponsoring me in like 94, 95, somewhere around then. Around that time, they opened one of the world's largest flagship stores in London's Covent Garden. And it was like the reboot of Doc Martin's, no pun intended. They were like, this is Doc Martin's 2.0, we're gonna go big style round the world. And they had Madonna come and open the store. Whoa. Me. And you thought, no way. And I remember standing there with Madonna, and she's looking at me, and I'm looking at her. We've got absolutely nothing in common.

Allison Fisher 13:04

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 13:05

And I can remember her looking at me as if to say, Who are you? Like, why are you here? Why is this child here? It's incredible. And the owner, Max, bless him, he's no longer with us, was like pushing me to the front. No, he's stopping all the other photographers outside Covent Garden. No, we've got to have Sean at the front. Sean, go yeah, you'll have to stand back, Madonna. Sean, Sean, you're the boy. You stand at the front. I'm like, this is funny. This is weird.

Allison Fisher 13:30

Brilliant.

Shaun Murphy 13:31

Yeah, funny.

Allison Fisher 13:32

That's a great story. Push Madonna aside. Who is she anyway?

Shaun Murphy 13:37

Yeah, really. I think she was good in her day.

Allison Fisher 13:39

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 13:40

Yeah, exactly. Let's let's go back uh to early experiences in some of those snooker halls. If you're like most boys, you were impressionable. And I grew up, you know, like at a little municipal golf course. I just remember all the characters that influenced me in some way. You must have memories of some of the characters that populated some of those early snooker halls that you you hung out in.

Shaun Murphy 14:02

Well, yeah, and of course, now as a grown man, I've learned that we use the word characters. What we actually mean is villains. Okay, villains. There's a reason there's a reason why all the gangster movies are set in snooker clubs and pool halls. Like pool, yeah. Yeah, there's a reason for that. No, I mean, listener, there were some big influences. I mean, Alison, you'll remember coming to Rawls yourself, the Q Sports Club, when the World Ladies was played there a few times. That's where we first met, and you know, the characters in that club were just yeah, you you know, you could get anything in this club. I mean, it was in this little, you know, backwater, sleepy little village that, you know, no one's ever heard of. But if you needed something, you'd speak to John at the bar and you'd get it. Within seven days, it'd be there. Yeah, there were some wheeler dealer types and but uh but you know, outside of an education at school, that's where I that's where I learnt how the world works. And you learn that, you know, I I perhaps might not have the greatest grasp of history or other things you learn in school, but you learn how the world works, and you learn how money works, and you learn about playing for money and doing things, you know, money you haven't got. You learn about yourself and as I say, making it work. And a lot of those people I knew from those days, they're still in my phone book today. They're still they still come to tournaments, they still come and watch me, they still cheer, they still criticize when it goes wrong. And do you know the funny thing is all these grown men who they did know Snooker better than me when I was a child, they still think they know the game better than me. Oh, yeah. It's quite funny. And we were at Little Championships last year at the Crucible, and I lost my match. We went out for lunch, uh, there was a bot a couple of bottles of wine, and one of the guys, John, funnily, his name is John, he was a deep family friend of ours, but I met him in the Snoopy Club. And he used to be a bit of a hustler, he used to play for money, and I learned a few things from him, and this, that, and the other. He started telling me about in that frame there, frame 12, maybe you should have put the brown safe, and you perhaps should have done this, and maybe and I put my glass of wine down and I said, John, are we really having this conversation? Is this is this happening? And he's and he looked at me and he went, Yeah, you're right, this is ridiculous. Poor the one. That's funny.

Mike Gonzalez 16:20

That's what you did. Let's uh let's go back to your early amateur career then uh before you turned professional. Uh what was your most memorable win? Would it have been that first UK under-15 championship you won?

Shaun Murphy 16:31

Uh yeah, I guess so. I mean, I I the UK under-15s was was a big deal. That was our sort of that was the biggest junior competition in the UK at the time. So that was a that was a massive deal. You know, that was a that was a big thing. That was an event I went on to win three years consecutively, actually. So that was a that was a that was a big thing. I remember getting awarded the captaincy of England uh of the adult team as a kid, which was a that was a big deal. The English Association for Snooker and Billiards back in the day gave me the grown-up, the men's captaincy as a junior player, which was huge.

Allison Fisher 17:09

May I ask who was on the team? Just out of curiosity, if you remember.

Shaun Murphy 17:13

Who was on the team? Michael Gold.

Allison Fisher 17:17

I remember Michael Gold.

Shaun Murphy 17:18

Do you remember that name? Michael Gold. I think there was another Michael from the Northeast, whose name escapes me at the moment. And there was another junior player on the team as well, uh, from Mansfield, called Lee Spick.

Allison Fisher 17:33

Yeah, I remember that name.

Shaun Murphy 17:34

Lee passed away 11 years ago, I think. He ended up in a bad way, yeah. But he and I would have been of a similar age. So for us to both be on the men's team was a big deal. And Mark Selby. Mark Selby was on the team as well. Of course, we grew up as kids playing, we've known each other since we were nine years of age, so we've we've been knocking hell out of each other uh for many, many years. But that that playing for England was a big deal because whilst I was given the captaincy, I still never played for England. And the story goes that we went to Pontins, a holiday camp in North Wales, where the home internationals were being played.

Allison Fisher 18:15

Prestatin.

Shaun Murphy 18:17

Prestatin.

Allison Fisher 18:18

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 18:18

That's the one, and we got there, and the manager of the team came over to us, stood in reception. The manager of the team, by coincidence, was Willie Thorne's brother, Malcolm. And he came over to us, and and he and my father had a prickly relationship at best. Because my dad was a bit vocal from the sidelines when I would play, you know, he could get involved. Malcolm came over a bit tentatively, said, uh bit of a problem here, Tony, to my dad. He said, uh, as you can see, Prestatin's very busy. There was a massive netball event going on at the same time, and they'd overbook the rooms. He said, So the only way this is gonna work is if you as a family, this is this is my mother and father and I share a one-bedroom chalet with the Selby family, which was Mark, his brother and his father. How does that work?

Allison Fisher 19:10

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 19:11

Doesn't work, does he? Six doesn't go into one. Generally not, no. So my father, my father stood there as cold as you like and said to Malcolm, Well, we're obviously not gonna do that, Malcolm, but I'm gonna give you an hour to fix the problem. And Malcolm turned around and said, Not even you, Tony, would take away the opportunity for your son to play for England. Not even you would deny him that. And my my father looked at his watch and said, 58 minutes now, Malcolm.

Mike Gonzalez 19:39

Good for him.

Shaun Murphy 19:41

Wow. Anyway, 58 minutes came and went. Coffees were had, burgers were eaten, went back to reception, there was no room available. We got back in the car and drove home.

Mike Gonzalez 19:53

It was true.

Shaun Murphy 19:54

And it was and I remember I remember my father was like, We're not staying, we're not being treated like this, we're off. Now, if it was up to me, I'd have slept in the car to play for England. Sure, yeah. Yeah. I would have would have slept on the street. And I remember uh there was a very unfavourable article written about all this in the Pop Black magazine or the Snooker scene magazine of the time, whatever it was called then, about you know, my dad kicking off and all of that. But yeah, that was that was unpleasant.

Allison Fisher 20:23

I remember the Pontins days, and I remember where you're talking about the arena in the middle there. And if you won the tournament, you'd get a free invite back, wouldn't you? You'd get a coupon to go back the following year. Which we were the same as you guys, probably. We're grateful, because now it covers the costs, right?

Shaun Murphy 20:39

Yeah, totally, yeah. Totally. Used to get paid in Pontins pounds. Yep. Which you you had to spend on site.

Mike Gonzalez 20:49

Yeah. Yeah, what's the conversion rate of those now?

Shaun Murphy 20:52

Very little. It's very little.

Mike Gonzalez 20:54

Well, it's great to hear that your father, Tony, was a man of principle. Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 20:58

Well, he was certainly that. He was he he was certainly principled, no question.

Allison Fisher 21:02

Probably upset you at the time, but you understood it later on, maybe.

Shaun Murphy 21:06

Yeah, I did understand it, but as I say, I mean, I look back at that, you know, to be given the captaincy of the senior team and to to not be able to say, oh, I played for England, you know, was a was a great shame. I did play for the junior team prior to that. And then of course, you know, my dad in his in his commercial way, he set up his own England v Scotland game with the with the father of some Scottish players, you know, not to be outdone. Yeah. He just went, Well, I'm gonna go round the national body, I'm gonna we're gonna set our own one up. Which we did, and we did a home and away, an eight-man, eight, eight-boy team, I should say. Eight kid team from England v Scotland went up to Scotland and they came down to us. Yeah, so it was a very much a Murphy trait. It was very, very much a Murphy family trait, you know, of if you put an obstacle up, we're gonna go around it, you know. And I suppose to some to some degree, that was instilled in me.

Mike Gonzalez 21:53

Interesting. Yeah, you mentioned Lee Spick, he was the the lad that you would have defeated, I think, in your first under 50 UK championship. Championship.

Shaun Murphy 22:01

He and I were great friends, and you know, as I say, a bit like Mark Selby. You know, Lee was a bit old, maybe two or three years older, I think. Lee's the person you when I get asked, and I do, you know, in all my shows, exhibitions, interviews, whatever, they say who's the best player you ever saw? Slee Spick. He was the best player I ever saw. Isn't that right? He was the best player I ever saw in the flesh.

Allison Fisher 22:21

That's amazing.

Shaun Murphy 22:23

He could have and should have gone on to become a household name, a world champion. The most gifted, the most gifted snooker player I've ever seen.

Mike Gonzalez 22:31

And so what happened? Incredible. Why did that not happen?

Shaun Murphy 22:35

I mean, from what I could see, I didn't I didn't know they're set up that well. I stayed with him a few times and he used to come and stay with us and and whatnot. But think I think the first thing I think about is that all the things that I found difficult and hard about my upbringing with my father and the way my father was and all of the things he instilled into me, whilst they were very difficult to accept, they they were right and they did work. And maybe the things that Lee was being shown, and maybe the people he had around him at the time, maybe he wasn't as lucky. You know, I I was very lucky. The people I had around me from Big John in the Snooker Club, who later went on to become a you know, he worked for us to my dad, to sponsors, to Max Griggs, to all of those people helping us, Mark Wildman as well. I was very, very lucky. I had so many good people in my corner. Lee didn't have those people in his corner, and and and you know, he had so much more talent than anyone I've ever seen, and I include Yoronio Sullivan's and, you know, Zhao Zintong's and all those people in that. Lee Spick was the most talented snooker player I've I've ever seen. When he walked into a tournament as a junior player at Waifi, walked in the room, we were all playing for second place. And just when he turned professional, I think the stresses and strains of professional sport got the better of him. I think he had a bit of an issue with drink. I I think he used to sort of console himself with a drink. You know, life's tough, isn't it? Life got the better of him in the end. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 23:59

Well, we are all products of our circumstance, aren't we?

Shaun Murphy 24:03

Yeah, definitely. And as I say, I you know, I think you you take it with a pinch of salt when people say, Oh, you're lucky to have the life you have. Like, I I don't remember there being much luck involved in it. Yeah.

Allison Fisher 24:15

A lot of work I've worked hard.

Shaun Murphy 24:18

But I think the people you're, you know, the people you're around and the people who are in your circle, you know, they're not people they're not necessarily people you choose. And I was very lucky as a kid, as a young person, I had some exceptional people around me who they knew they knew right from wrong.

Mike Gonzalez 24:37

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 24:37

And I was very lucky with that.

Mike Gonzalez 24:39

I think that's one thing too, we fret about as parents, don't we? Because we really it's really difficult for us to control the friends our kids choose to hang with and be influenced by.

Shaun Murphy 24:49

My dad used to say, you become like the people you spend your time with. And uh when I was getting ready to go out on a night out with my friends, you know, before I could drive or after I drove could drive, or when I got my license and he perhaps felt I should have been practicing, you know, my dad wasn't backwards in coming forwards. He would say, Do you think, do you think Stephen Hendry's going out tonight with his friends? Or do you think he do you think he's practicing or you know, and you know, nine times out of ten, I would say, Yeah, well, you know, he can do what he wants, but I'm going out. Yeah. That's being a kid. Perhaps that's why I've only won one world championship and Stephen won seven, you know, it may be. But yeah, no, my father wasn't backwards in coming forwards. And, you know, we used to have all of these things dotted around the house, all of these little slogans, these little like sales things that he would have come from his days. And I suppose a lot of them went in, you know. A lot of them, a lot of them went in. And if my my children picked up a sport or something they were passionate about, could I could I hold my hand up and say I wouldn't say some of those things? I probably couldn't. Yeah. You know, you know what works for you it you you know, if you want different results from everyone else, you have to do things differently than everyone else.

Mike Gonzalez 26:02

Yeah, yeah.

Shaun Murphy 26:03

And it was painful at the time. It was painful, but you know.

Mike Gonzalez 26:06

It worked though. One thing we didn't talk about was uh other sports in your life. Were there other sports competing for your time when you were trying to pick up snooker as well?

Shaun Murphy 26:14

Well, not when I took it up. Um I I I I was introduced to golf, I think around being sort of 14, 15, you know, by which time I was already well, I turned pro at snooker at 15, so I was already a professional snooker player. But I remember once I got my driving license in sort of what would that have been, 1999, something like that, as a 17-year-old, just before I was 18. And once I got my independence and didn't have to get a lift to the snooker club from my dad, golf became a bit of a problem. But anyone who's anyone who's listening to this who's played golf and has hit that ball out of the middle of the club once knows how addictive it can be. And this very, very funny story. I mean, there was dozens of stories like this. You know, I I wasn't a saint by any stretch. But like mobile phones had just started to become a thing, and I I am I remember having one and it was very basic, and I hadn't stored this number in. So this I'm out with my mate, we were we were golfing, and we'd started the day at the snooker club. He used to come in the snooker club and pick the balls out and whatnot. And uh we were in the snooker club about an hour, and it was a glorious day outside, and he said, I said, should we go golfing? What why are we inside? Should we should we go and play golf? And we kind of encouraged each other to get out of the snooker club and off we went to the golf course and we were there all day. It was fantastic. What a day we had. Mobile phone went off, which was you know, there was only about four people had my number. I it was so new. Didn't recognise the number, answered the phone, hello, it was my dad. He said, Hey son, how are you doing? Yeah, you're okay, yeah, just checking in on you. Yeah, no, good, Julia, good, good, good. How's practice going? Yeah, it's going really well. It's going really well. You're working on those long reds like I told you to. Yeah, those long pots, yeah, oh, they're fantastic. He said, It it's just that I'm in the snooker club. And you're not. And there were there were plenty of moments like that. Golf was really the only thing that that ever threatened it, I think. You know, I wasn't I wasn't a big go-out, I wasn't big into going out, you know, I wasn't a I wasn't a drinker, I've never smoked in my life, never really been into anything like that. There were never really any genuine threats to snooker. But golf almost got me. And whilst, you know, in that period of my life, as I say, I got my driver's licence, I became fully independent, my golf game started to improve. I got my name on the board at Wellingborough Golf Club a few times. I got the trophy, which a couple of times, which as we know it was all about. But my snooker career started to nosedive at pace. So the golf, the golf had to take a bit of a back seat for a while.

Mike Gonzalez 28:57

No other sports? Did you play football or anything?

Shaun Murphy 29:01

Um not really. No, I used to watch a lot of football. No, I used to watch a lot of it, uh, you know, with my old manager uh who's no longer here anymore, Brandon Parker. We used to go there a lot when we could, but yeah, no, it was never never a distraction to Snooker. I've always been very I've always found myself very fortunate that that that the sort of burning passion and love for snooker that I had as a kid, I still have today. And I, you know, there's very little in the world I'd rather be doing than playing snooker. I still take, you know, Joe will say, How long are you gonna be in the snooker room for? I'm like, I don't know. You know, I'm gonna take myself off, I've got my queue, and I've been thinking of something over breakfast, you know, I want to try something, I'm gonna go in there and just just fiddle with it, you know, just try something. And like I'm 43 years of age now, I I'm still madly in love with the game and still got a long way to go, you know.

Allison Fisher 29:53

That's incredible how you keep motivated. I mean, as much as you play tournaments, which I I'm not even sure how many tournaments you have a year, I know you're away a lot, that you keep motivated to keep practicing. How many hours would you say you do a day at home?

Shaun Murphy 30:09

Yeah, I d I do less now than I've probably ever done in my life. I do have other commitments, you know, I do have other things in my life. I think as for you know, certainly at my age, it's hard to be absolutely laser focused on one thing. You know, I have children for one thing, whilst they might live in a different country, you know, they're still there and I, you know, I'm I'm still in touch with them and involved with them as much as I possibly can be. We travel all over the place, that needs doing on, you know, agents and managers and all this stuff and other other things. But I mean, I would say I usually try and spend my mornings doing my business work and my other other stuff. And then in the afternoons, certainly from once the once the clock goes past midday, I'm in the snooker room then in four, five, six hours. Anything to get out of walking the dog, to be totally honest. Especially in the rain. Especially in the rain, yeah. I I was out this morning with the dog and it was pouring down. But yeah, no, I tend to do that in the mornings and get in the snooker room, and I could be in there, you know. Listen, if you feel your game's going well and there's not much to work on, sometimes playing too much can be a bad thing. Sometimes you can start looking for problems and finding things that, you know, you start taking the engine apart, you think, well, I really should have left this alone, you know. I mean, when I was before, but I tend to do probably three hours in the afternoon most days, which as a kid I would have said, well, that that's not worth doing, that's nothing. But, you know, at this stage of life, three, a minimum three to four, maybe five hours, something like that. I think that's enough for me.

Allison Fisher 31:36

During that time, are you playing games or are you setting up shots? Are you doing drills just out of curiosity?

Shaun Murphy 31:42

It's a lot of drills, it's a lot of the old-fashioned, good old-fashioned drills, Alison. You know, of trying to reinvent the line-ups, T's, X's, all of that stuff, you know, stuff we did as kids, you know, just not trying to reinvent the wheel.

Allison Fisher 31:56

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 31:57

You know, if it was good enough for you, good enough for Steve, Steven, Ronnie, it's good enough for me. I do a lot of frames against myself, you know, practice situations against myself where I try and play both roles of both players. And then I, you know, I going back to what we touched on earlier on, the resources we've got now, all my matches tend to be on YouTube somewhere. So I often go through and, you know, certainly matches that I've lost, you know, sift through the wreckage of a defeat and try and work out where it went wrong, and then take it to the table and go, right, you know, let's set that up. You know, could I have done something different there? Was that a mental error? Was it a technical error? What were you know what led to that? One of my biggest bugbears in Snooker is where you get players say, Well, I, you know, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. Well, you must have done something wrong. So that's 10 shots.

Allison Fisher 32:48

Yeah. Well, in that situation, I'm not sure. Maybe showing up was wrong.

Shaun Murphy 32:52

Yeah, well, every now and every now and again that you I think you get to say that, but uh it's it's once in a blue moon. But yeah, you'll often find me in my snooker room sifting through a match, you know, going, right, what happened here? How did I lose this match from a a winning position, a commanding position? And I think from what I can gather from a lot of players, a lot of players don't do that. I don't know why they don't do it. Um, because it's it's a resource that's just there, it's free, it's there for you. Watch these games, watch other past, you know, watch the great at it, watch the best at it. What did they do? And you know, what can I do differently?

Allison Fisher 33:27

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