Shaun Murphy - Part 3 (No Plan B — Turning Pro, Triple Crowns, and the Art of Winning)

In Part 3 of our five-part conversation with snooker great Shaun Murphy, the story moves into the years when talent had to become a profession and ambition had to survive reality. Shaun reflects on the early certainty that snooker was never simply a dream, but the only plan. There was no fallback, no second option, and no diluted ambition. From the time he made his first century as a boy, he believed this would be his life.

This episode explores the difficult transition from gifted junior to hardened professional, and Shaun speaks with refreshing honesty about how unprepared he was for the tactical demands of the top level. He could score, attack, and thrill, but he had not yet learned the darker arts of match play — the safety, strategy, and patience that separate a dangerous talent from a true champion. His account of those early professional lessons is insightful, self-aware, and full of perspective for fans of both snooker and pool.

Along the way, Shaun shares terrific stories about seeking advice from the best players he could find, including a young Allison Fisher, and about the unforgettable education he received simply by being around great players and great events. He also offers a fascinating look at what it means to win snooker’s Triple Crown, why those BBC majors still carry such weight, and why joining that exclusive club remains one of the proudest achievements of his career.

The episode also dives into the magic of century breaks and 147s, the relationship between player and crowd, and the charitable purpose Shaun has attached to his scoring feats. Part 3 is a wonderful blend of humor, candor, and high-level insight — a chapter about growing up in the game, learning how to win, and still believing that the best may be yet to come.

Transcript

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Allison asked you a little bit about the process of becoming a professional, but let's talk about your decision process that you went through. At what age do you remember having the thought, hey, I want to play this for a living?

Shaun Murphy 0:26

Um I mean, I don't remember the day, but I remember by the age by the time I'd made my first century break, that just after my 10th birthday, Snooker was Snooker was it. Like, you know, by then, already by then, Snooker was it. That was all I wanted to watch, talk about, study. It was definitely what I was going to do for a job. You know, that was we already talked about that as a family. That was definitely where I was going. Which I think when it came to leaving school, although it was I left school under very difficult circumstances, it made the decision quite easy because I I wasn't, you know, I wasn't particularly interested in it anyway. I did my, as I said, I did my GCSEs quite early. I passed them, so I always had them in the back pocket just in case. But we didn't live in a just in case family. We didn't have plan B. As again, my dad from like that sort of, you know, teacher training, kind of training people in achievement and stuff world that he came from. There was no room for plan B. We had plan A, and plan A had to work. And that was it, really. There was no question of what happens, what are we going to do if this doesn't work? Remember, we had, I'm sure it's a thing in the States, but definitely in the UK, you have the thing where, whilst you are still at school, the careers officer comes in to see all the kids. You know, what are you gonna be? What do you want to do? Because you, you know, you've got to make some decisions soon about what subjects you want to major in and this, that, and the other. And I didn't know this, but the head of year at the time, a guy called Mr. Perkins. Isn't it funny how you still refer to your teachers by Mr. or Miss, isn't it? That's weird, isn't it? I remember I couldn't tell you what this guy's Christian name was. It was Mr. Perkins, that's what I know him as. I didn't know, but he'd already had words with this careers officer who came in for the day. And, you know, we were sat in the waiting area, and the kids were going in and out of her office all day long, and it got to my turn, and we went in. She went, Right, what are you into? Snooker. Right. Don't know much about snooker. What skills do you need to be a snooker player? Geometry and this, that, and the other, and blah blah blah. I said, No, you know, seven hours a day practice, six days a week, she'd do it. And she's like, Well, I don't really know how to deal with this person. She she went out to get Mr. Perkins and he came back in. He said, I did tell you you would have a problem with Murphy, didn't I? I did tell you. And it was very much like that. I've all I wanted to be was a snooker player from being just, you know, old enough to see over the table. I was totally fascinated with it, totally hooked with it. Alison, I'm sure, will have told you or will tell you, you know, stories of 12-year-old me chasing her around Ron's Q Sports. It's not true. Asking her all sorts of, you know, mind-bendingly boring questions. You know, Alison's world champion at the time, and she's having to deal with me. How do you, Alison, how'd you do this? How do I what should I do in this? Will you leave me alone? Go, you know. No, not at all. You never said that. You never ever said that. But like I had my dad in my ear. My dad was in my ear going, You've got one of the best players on the planet in the club now. Why are you s why are you sat here with me talking, you know, non go and ask her how to do it. She knows. She's got all the answers of how to do what you want to look. Go and ask her. Go and hound that woman and find out the answers. That's cute. And that's true. That's that's exactly what happened.

Mike Gonzalez 3:46

Do you have any specific recollections of some of those uh me?

Allison Fisher 3:50

I remember him as a young boy. I do remember him as a young boy. And then the last time I saw you in person, I think it was in Shanghai. Yes. I came to snooker tournament. We happened to be there for a pool tournament, and I noticed a snooker tournament was on, so I definitely got over to that building to see all the old snooker players, and we went out for a drink, didn't we?

Shaun Murphy 4:09

No, that was lovely.

Allison Fisher 4:10

That was a long time ago, but yeah, it feels like a couple of years ago, but it was it was probably more than that. Yeah, it was definitely more than that. And I think you were with Steve Davis, there was yourself. Who else was there? Can't remember. But we were having a couple of beers in the chat, catching up.

Shaun Murphy 4:25

Yeah, nice. Good. Yeah, it's really nice. They're nice memories to have, they're they're lovely times to think about, you know, especially as I say, it somehow for me. I mean, talk about luck. Mark Wildman, again, who bought the club where I played and his influence in the game, brings the World Ladies Snooker Championship to my snooker club. Like, you know, it just couldn't be any better for a young kid trying to learn how to do things to have the best players on the planet in the club for a week. It was just it was just too cut off. I seem to, I think I was still at school then, but I don't think I went to school that week. I seem to remember living in the snooker club, watching, listening, learning. He used to teach Karen Corr, didn't he, Mark Wildman? He did. He did. He did. The best one was an I listened. He he may well listen to this podcast, I don't know, but there was a billiards player, very good billiards player, English billiards, a prodigy of Mark's called Roxton Chapman. Do you remember that name, Alison? I don't know that one. I think he still plays a bit. He was from the Peterborough area, so similar neck of the woods to Karen. I think she was in down there somewhere.

Allison Fisher 5:31

Correct, Lincolnshire.

Shaun Murphy 5:33

And this guy, Roxton Chapman. Well, there can only be one person in the UK with the name Roxton, and it was him, their name. And he had two brothers, this guy. And his brothers were called Rupert and Rudolph Rockman. Which is just as a kid, I found that just it's what it's one of the things I've remembered from being a boy. Now this guy was Roxton Chapman was an incredibly good English billiards player. I don't think he reached his potential, I think he went off and did some of the things. Wonderful company, great guy to be around, but I could never get over the fact that his brothers were called Rupert, Rupert and Rudolph. I just couldn't. What kind of parents do they have, huh? Mr. and Mrs. Chapman, given of three boys named them Rupert, Rudolph, and Roxton. I was just it was just too much for me to take, I have to admit.

Mike Gonzalez 6:26

So remind us uh of the year you turned pro, 97-ish?

Shaun Murphy 6:30

Is that correct, yeah, 97, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 6:33

So you run through, you win three straight UK under-15s, you turn pro in about 97. Last a year, you say, they just made it almost impossible to keep your card if you're talking like a PGA tour professional, keeping your card, right? So you go back on the amateur circuit for what what sort of period of time? Because you won uh the English under-21 championship in 98.

Shaun Murphy 6:55

I was, well, it when I when I realized my year as a pro was going down the pan, I I sort of played on the amateur circuit at the same time. That was a strange idiosyncrasy of the tour at the time. I could they allowed you to play on both almost as a saver. So you can play on the amateur circuit at the same time, just in case it goes wrong, and then you'll get you're automatically sort of re-elected to the tour. Neither of which worked. I got booted off the pro tour, and I think I finished the top 20 of the amateur tour, got promoted. I think I finished 21st, something like that. It was painful anyway. So I I spent, including that season where I played both, I had three seasons back on the amateur circuit. You know, came very close a couple of times to walking away from it, you know, where I was just like, you know, this, this just isn't, this isn't what I thought it was going to be, you know. This this hasn't gone how I thought it was gonna go. You know, we've we've all put there's a lot of people put a lot into this. Just hasn't worked, you know. We've we've given it a good go. But I was never playing it, I never wanted to play it to just make the numbers up. I wasn't, I, you know, becoming a professional snooker player was never a goal of mine. I wanted to win the world championship. That would that I wanted to be a winner. I didn't, you know, you get some people, they go, oh, well, if I could just turn pro, if I could just be a pro, that would be my goal. That was never a goal for me. It was never a target. So I took very little out of those two or three seasons on the secondary tour. I found that very hard while some of my peers who we'd grown up together and frankly they weren't as good as me, were doing better than me. But you know, they were they were they were far ahead and they were winning matches that I wasn't. And ultimately, that's that's what you're judged on, isn't it? It's not about potential or how good you used to be. It's did you win that match? Like there were there were guys who we'd grown up with as kids who, as I say, they they they weren't as good as me as a junior, but through their late teens and early twenties, they accelerated past me a little bit. And I think that kicked me into gear. I remember thinking, really, you know, I should be I should be doing better than X fill in the blank. Let's go and work a bit harder and manage to get back on the tour then after a few years.

Mike Gonzalez 8:59

Yeah, well you mentioned that first. You you admitted your game really wasn't ready.

Shaun Murphy 9:04

Well, no, not at all.

Mike Gonzalez 9:05

So, you know, particularly for the pool playing listeners that we have who may not know a lot about Snooker, try to relate it to pool if you can. But what aspects of your game weren't ready? I mean, what really differentiates the sort of the really fine amateur player from an elite professional?

Shaun Murphy 9:21

Well, I would say it's probably what what would differentiate, you know, a good nine ball player from a an average good nine ball player, uh, you know, a world beater to everyone else. It's it's probably the defensive strategic part of the game. Uh, you know, I I'm not an expert on nine ball, I would have to hold my hands up from the start and say that, but I know enough about it to know that you know, I think if I walked into a game with a with a a very average pro nine ball player, uh, you know, I probably wouldn't win it. You know, I I might be better at potting balls as a snooker player. But your your ability to make the game difficult for your opponent, you you know, to to the tactical side of it, to stop your opponent from potting, would be what would be my that would be my Achilles heel in nine ball. And it was my Achilles heel as a kid playing snooker when I turned pro. You know, I was I remember my first pro match was against an Irish pro called Dermot McGlinchy, who you'd have to be a real snooker geek to know the name Dermot McGlinchy.

Allison Fisher 10:19

I think I think I remember that name.

Shaun Murphy 10:22

And his family had come all the way from Ireland to watch this match between Dermot and I at the Plymouth Pavilions, where these qualifiers were. Not to watch Dermot, but to watch this young, you know, half-Irish snooker player they've heard of demolish their son. And that's not how it went. Spoiler alert, that's not what happened. You know, because whilst this guy he couldn't pop balls like I could, he couldn't make sentries like I could, but he could stop me from doing it. He had a side of the game that I just hadn't encountered as a junior player. There was nowhere in my early life I encountered that type of game. Yeah, yeah. So Dermot was tying you up in knots, was it? Oh, oh goodness me, he was playing shots that were just they were just cruel. And you just like to play offense. I just wanted to, yeah, I just wanted to attack. And I was like, well, eventually I'm gonna run enough balls here, aren't I? I'm just gonna I will beat him. I think I lost 5-3, shook his hand, and that was it. We went and got fish and chips outside. It was unbelievable. It was just it was it was an awful baptism into the pro tour. Okay, well, I remember being 3-1 behind at the interval. My dad met me in the you know players' lounge backstage. He said, How how how are you feeling, son? I said, not enjoying it to be honest. Don't like it. Don't like it at all. Yeah. And it took me, I know I said it jokingly earlier on, I mean, I still would always err on the side of attack rather than defence. That's just it's just who I am. If we go playing golf tomorrow, I will be going for every pin. It's just it's just how I play sport, it's just who I am. But it took me a long time to learn in Snooker that you've got to be as good at that as you have at everything else. You know, uh you've really got to have that. It's not just about potting balls, there's a lot more to the game than that.

Allison Fisher 12:16

I think it's a mindset, isn't it? Because you've got one of the straightest Q actions in the world, you're known for that. So if I could pot balls like you, I'd be attacking, of course. At your level, the safety game, like I've watched Mark Selby a lot. There's just that little bit extra, isn't there, that's nailing it to the rail or behind another ball where they can't get to the reds at the end of the table. It's just another dimension, isn't it? The safety game.

Shaun Murphy 12:41

I mean, whilst we're talking about Mark specifically, I mean, his his his knowledge of the angles and tactical play and when to play that shot versus that shot is better than almost anyone. But what doesn't get spoken about enough, in my opinion, is his ability to predict. Let's say he's snookered and he can't see the ball he's got to play. His ability to get out of the snooker and hit two or three cushions and accurately predict where the object ball's gonna finish and leave it safe is like it's otherworldly.

Mike Gonzalez 13:14

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 13:15

And he does it that often that you have to say, do you know what? That's not luck. There's some skill in that. He's practiced that. He's able to go two, three cushions, work out exact and he knows where that ball's gonna finish. Whereas the rest of us are just going, well, I just want to hit the ball. He's trying to get you in trouble from being in trouble. It's a different you know, it's different.

Allison Fisher 13:37

He's like the Efren Reyes of kicking.

Mike Gonzalez 13:39

Exactly what I was thinking about that brings to Snooker, it's amazing. Mark, I mean, uh for a lot of time probably people were saying, Oh, this Efren Reyes kid, he's just so lucky, but but when you repeat that and repeat that year after year after year, you realize, no, no. That's another worldly skill. It didn't take that.

Shaun Murphy 13:58

Yeah, there's no luck in it

Mark Wilson 14:00

he brought a dimension to pool that had never been witnessed before because I was around it and assured from all the other top players that, you know, the Americans are the best in the world. And I wasn't nationalistic, but until Efran came, that had been true. And then I'm seeing shots played where he's not just kicking, but he's kicking to a particular side of the ball that creates separation and angles, and and sometimes he can score them and he's confident with it that you'd never witnessed. Before that, we just bludgeoned into him and tried to hope that something happened, you know. So as hard as you can. But part of it is that it's not a glamorous side of the sport, you know. And so Sean's talking about he wants to knock in centuries, and that's fun, and it's very gratifying. You know, when it hits the pocket, you feel that where when you hit a good safety, there's no exuberance. You don't say, oh, look at that shot. It's not a 50-yard field goal, you know. So we tend to not practice it because you don't get that immediate reward that you would like to feel.

Shaun Murphy 14:58

I I mean I I I know Mark Selby, for instance. I know he practices that, you know, at the end of every practice session, he'll spend an hour working on kicking and getting out of snookers and laying snookers, and that's why he's so good at it. Fantastic. You know, I'm practicing these lumps and these exciting entertaining shots. He's not.

Allison Fisher 15:19

You do have some entertaining shots too. I've seen of quite a few of those, those reverse English ones where you're making balls in the side pocket and crazy stuff.

Shaun Murphy 15:28

Yeah, there's a few out there. Yeah, there's a few out there. Um of course we've just sadly lost one of our big commentators over here, John Virgo. He just passed away and he's on all of these clips. You know, his voice is gonna live forever, and a couple of these clips they've gone viral over the years, you know, sort of semi-trick shots that are played from a snookered position. And he's commentating on them. So they're nice to see, and it they're also nice to hear his voice, you know.

Allison Fisher 15:52

Yeah, definitely.

Mike Gonzalez 15:53

All right. So, Sean, at the top, as we talk about your professional career, um, of course, Dally mentioned that uh you had won the career triple crown of snooker. Now, a pool player may not fully appreciate how significant that is. Winning the world championship, the UK championships, and the Masters. That's a big deal, isn't it?

Shaun Murphy 16:11

It's a big deal in Snooker. Yeah, it's you know, it's it's our Grand Slam, you know, in in in other sports, certainly tennis, golf. You know, if you've won all four of the majors, you've won the Grand Slam in in Snooker. If you win the the three, basically it's the three events that are on BBC, you know, filmed by the BBC here in the UK. Obviously, they're on the syndicated around the world. You can watch them all live now anywhere in the world, which is a big change. Certainly even since I've turned pro, you know. You can watch Snooker anywhere now. That didn't used to be the way of it. But yeah, if you win the three majors, the three triple crown events, you're deemed to be a triple crown member, I suppose.

Mike Gonzalez 16:49

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 16:50

And when I beat I beat Neil Robertson in the 2015 Masters final, the first thing he said to me was, Welcome to the club. I think at the I think at the time I became the the tenth player to to join that club. So it's it's you know, when you think about all the players that have played, and of course, you know, if you go back far enough, the triple crown wasn't a thing. You know, it's a commercial idea that's fairly new, but you know, there aren't that many players who've won all three of those majors, you know, growing up in the UK in the 80s, 90s, those BBC events were seen as like the holy grail of Snooker. You you know, we have between 20 and 25 other events around the world, you know, throughout the season. Some of them massive in their own right, both in terms of stature and prize money and all the rest of it. But the BBC majors are seen in just that little bit higher esteem, I think. They've got that historical element, certainly here in the UK. And anyone in the States, for instance, listening to this who might have been a snooker fan throughout the 80s when it was very niche, you know, they would have got their snooker love from the BBC events. That's where it would have come from. So those events are very special and they remain so. And yeah, so to be one of the only eleven players now in the history of the game who've won all three is um yeah, I'm very proud of that.

Mike Gonzalez 18:13

So amongst the members of that exclusive club then, I mean, you do you have a secret handshake, or do you have a jacket you wear, a medal, or a lapel pin, or uh Well, we have we have uh this year will be our second, but last year we totally ripped off the Masters Golf and have the we had the inaugural champions dinner the night before the tournament started last year at the Crucible. Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 18:36

That's and we do have a jacket. It's not as nice as the green jacket. I did ask them why they hadn't made the jackets out of the snooker cloth that we use. I thought that was a good idea. But we've got we've got these black, they're like black velvet jackets with the World Trophy emblazoned on them. They're, you know, we we've only done that for a year. It does beg the question why has it taken so long for something like that, a champion's dinner, to be a thing. I think they were worried about be just copying the Masters Golf, but eventually they've cracked and thought, you know what, that's a good idea, we're gonna do it. So this year we'll be number two. In fact, today I just sent off my menu choices for the dinner. There's a heavy Chinese influence in it this year with our defending champion Zhao Zintong choosing the menu. Yeah, there you go. So yeah, it's a bit of a stab in the dark.

Mike Gonzalez 19:25

Does he have to pay the bill, by the way, the defending champ? Do they have to have to pick up the dinner tab or not?

Shaun Murphy 19:30

I don't think he does, but you know what? He's earned that much this year. I think if you are. He should, he should chip it. I think he could add that. I think he could manage it.

Mike Gonzalez 19:38

Yeah. All right, so over 700 century breaks career-wise. Alison, how many do you have?

Allison Fisher 19:46

No, nothing like him. That's incredible. It is incredible. What's it mean to you when you make a century now? You know, is it uh it's just a century or is it always a big deal?

Shaun Murphy 19:59

It means quite a lot to me for a couple of reasons. I mean, I I sort of really I don't like particularly singling myself out. But I I I do something when I make a century that it sort of seems to be unique at the moment in Snooker. You know, I I I sort of interact with the crowd a little bit. I always think it's weird when the crowd applaud and the player doesn't sort of acknowledge the crowd, at least. You know, imagine Phil Mickelson makes the birdie and he gets his birdie and he tips his hat, and it's just normal, isn't it? It's normal for if you went to the theatre and applauded somebody at the end of an aria or an end the end of a what and they just walked off the stage, you know, it would be weird. I always think it's weird when a snooker player makes a sentry break and doesn't even look at the crowd. So I make a deal of it now. When I make a sentry and the crowd, you know, cheer for the century. I always sort of look in the crowd and applaud thank them and nod nod you know as an appreciation, and then if you make a total clearance again, there might be a trick shot at the end of it or whatever, and just interact with them a little bit. I think that's good. I think it's good to thank the crowd for their appreciation.

Mike Gonzalez 21:01

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 21:02

Secondly, and far more importantly, I used to be a patron of the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. I'm I'm now a patron of the Rainbows Hospice for Children in Leicestershire. And I again copied Phil Nicholson. Yeah. Who unknowingly has become a bit of an influence in my life over the years. Every century break I make, I donate a hundred pounds to the Rainbows Hospice.

Mike Gonzalez 21:25

Nice.

Shaun Murphy 21:25

I mean listen, you know, it's not life-changing money. Uh maybe I I need to convince John Trump to donate for his centuries because he makes far more than me. But I made 58 last season, so they got a check for nearly six thousand pounds. Uh lovely. If that makes a small difference for somebody somewhere, then it's worth it, isn't it? I'm I think I'm up to fifty this season. So I'm I'm on track to donate more this year than last year. Um that's that's far more important than it is. It's a wonderful thing to do. Message to everybody. Yeah. And you're

Mike Gonzalez 22:00

Your maximum break number now is how many?

Shaun Murphy 22:02

Do you know what? There's a bit of a debate about this. It's nine or ten.

Mike Gonzalez 22:06

I've got ten, but I thought maybe you've added to that count.

Shaun Murphy 22:09

No, I haven't. No. I I I think, well, you've got ten. Let's go with ten. Let's go with ten. Let's go with the bigger number. Yeah, it's funny. I've made a few in the last few seasons, actually, and it and it's sort of that number's increased quite rapidly. I was sort of I think I'd only made a handful maybe ten seasons ago, and then I I made quite a few in in quick succession. Something I worked on with an old coach, Chris Henry, who, again, you know, is a snooker player at heart, but has been in the world of motivational speaking and character development and all that type of thing. And he really came at it when we started working. Like, what do you want to achieve? How are we going to work at it? It was very specific-led, you know, that kind of targeted approach at becoming better at certain things, and making 147s was one of them. It was something I'd always struggled with getting towards the 147 and being a bit twitchy about being a bit nervous about it. You know, I nearly made one at the world championships once I'd like I couldn't stand still to hit the ball long enough. You know, I was so nervous, it meant so much.

Allison Fisher 23:06

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 23:07

But uh I thought I've got that under control more in the last year.

Allison Fisher 23:10

I was gonna say, what was it like making that first one? The very first one, Maxi.

Shaun Murphy 23:15

Yeah, it was yeah, it was it was just as you can imagine, totally nerve-wracking. Like just, you know, you look back at some of the greats that have done it, like O'Sullivan's Ronnie O'Sullivan's maximum in 1997 at the World Championships in five minutes, eight seconds.

Allison Fisher 23:30

Insane.

Shaun Murphy 23:31

Like it's just ridiculous. I mean, I I made one at the shootout a few years ago. A shootout, for those that don't know, is a timed event. You only have 20 seconds a shot for the first five minutes, and then it's 10 seconds a shot for the remaining five minutes of a 10-minute match. When that event started, they said, Well, no one will ever make a hundred break in it. I think there's been 20-something hundreds in it over the last few years. And then a few two seasons ago, I had a 1-4-7 in it, and bearing in mind that's timed, it's against the clock, and it was still slower than Ronny. Oh, wow. His was still faster than mine. That's incredible. Yeah, madness. It is madness. Yeah. The 1-4-7s, I think a bit like a hole in one or a nine-yard finish or whatever it might be in, you know, in other sports. They're magical, you know, they're special.

Allison Fisher 24:19

They really are.

Shaun Murphy 24:21

And the only thing in Snooker that comes close to the buzz of a 1-4-7 is winning the tournament. You know, winning a match here or there doesn't come close. Great performances don't come close. The 1-4-7, the only thing better than doing that is the buzz of actually being there stood with the trophy at the end. That's that's how special they are.

Mike Gonzalez 24:37

Yeah. So for the pool, again, the pool listeners that we have on the podcast who may not know the game of snooker, briefly explain what a 1-4-7 is or the whole in-one equivalent in Snooker.

Shaun Murphy 24:48

Yeah, so a 1-4-7 is the the the sort of biggest standard break that you can make. You you you pot each red ball in turn, followed by a coloured ball, the black being the highest available, the highest value. So if you pot 15 reds with 15 blacks, then followed by the remaining six colours in sequence, that comes to a 147, and they're very rare. I mean, you you you see them more now than you ever have done, purely just because everyone's better than they used to be. And I think players are going for them now. The tour now offer prizes, they offer bonuses if you can make two of them in in any of the three majors, the the three triple crown events. You know, there's quite a big bonus if you make two in any of those three tournaments. Jackson Page, a sort of mid-ranked pro, made two in one match last season in a World Championship qualifier to win the bonus, the the World Champs being one of those events. He he won the match, which might have it might have netted him £10,000 for winning the match. And he got £147,000 for making the double 147.

Mike Gonzalez 25:50

Wow.

Shaun Murphy 25:50

Although that's how rare they are. He had two in one game.

Allison Fisher 25:54

That is incredible. Two in one game, two in one match.

Shaun Murphy 25:58

Yeah. Two in one match. Now Ronnie, Ronnie equaled that this year in the Saudi Grand Prix. We're out in uh Jeddah or Riyadh, whichever one it was, he was playing Chris Wakel and he had two 147s in one match, best of 11. I mean, that's just crazy. Then he came off and said he wasn't playing very well.

Allison Fisher 26:15

It's typical, right? Just for a couple of games he was, not the rest of it.

Mike Gonzalez 26:20

He played all right there. So uh would you say you're at the top of your game now? Would you say the top of your game is was at another time? Where would you compare your game today to your career overall?

Shaun Murphy 26:33

Yeah, I it's funny because you know I I won the World Championship as a 22-year-old in 05, the UK's in 08, and the Masters in 15. I managed to add the Masters again last year up in higher ranked than I than I am now. I think I'm third on the one-year list, but I was officially number three a few seasons ago. But right now I feel like I'm the best I've ever been. I feel like my game is the best it's ever been right here today, talking to you right now. And, you know, perhaps that goes against some of the indicators, but I definitely feel the best for me in my game is still to come. I think I think the brightest moments and days are still to come. And I think that's partly what keeps me going. That's why I still practice with such vigour and such passion. Because I I do I do genuinely believe that I'm I'm I'm a better player, I'm a more rounded player. I've got those parts of my game now that I didn't used to have. I don't like using them as much as some other players. I much prefer the aggressive style and going for going for my shots, but I do have that tactical game now that uh that you need to win at the highest level. And I think, you know, if it if it all if it all comes together and the moon's in the right house and everything's pointing in the right direction, I think I could still do it.

Mike Gonzalez 27:40

Yeah. Alison, why don't you comment on that? Because you've you've played both sides, the pool side and the snooker side. Are you more likely to excel at an older age in snooker or in pool, would you say?

Allison Fisher 27:52

Um well it's interesting looking at snooker because from a distance, when you see that we talked a little bit about the class of 92, which is John Higgins, Mark Williams, who else? Ronnie is a little bit uh younger than that, isn't he? I think. And so Mark, John, and who's the other one? Ronnie. Ronnie.

Shaun Murphy 28:10

Well, they're all 50 now.

Allison Fisher 28:12

They're all 50, but they're still in the top 10, are they still all of them? Yeah, it's amazing. It's incredible. But like you're saying, I think as you got older, you've got all parts of the game that maybe some of the younger players don't have. So there's a maturity with the experience and you know, okay, if I don't do that, I can do that sort of uh way to look at it. But I don't know in pool. I mean, if I look at older players in pool, I'm not so sure that that's that can be said the other way around. I'm late 50s now. And you know, I've I've won tournaments in every decade, and I recently was at third in the World Championship. So there's definitely something there, but it's I don't feel like I'm in my prime. My prime was quite a while ago, I think for consistency, but I also don't compete as much. Uh what I love about your snooker tour is there's probably more tournaments now than there's ever been. Would you say that that's true?

Shaun Murphy 29:09

Yeah, pretty much. I think we're when when Matroom took over the majority shareholding of WPBSA a few years ago, there was a an explosion of events. They basically took all the savings that were just laying low in the bank account and said, Well, why have we got all this money in the bank? You know, well, let's let's create more tournaments. So there was an explosion of events, and we've actually got a few less events now than we had, I think, at our peak. We were up near 30. That's a lot, isn't it? I mean, there was a season. The season after I won the world champions in 05-06, there was only six ranking tournaments plus the Masters, which is an invitational event. So there were only seven events to play in as a professional. So we've, you know, we've we've we've we've come a long way from there, and it's great. I mean, you're seeing the explosion. We we're still seeing this explosion in China, for instance, happened in Snooker 20, 30 years ago. And we're still seeing the shockwaves of it. You know, the world champion is is Chinese. We've got untold amounts of young Chinese players now in state-funded academies across the UK, state funded by the Chinese state. You know, they're they're funded to come over here and iron sharpens iron, isn't it? If you want to be the best, you've got to go where the best players are, and the best players are still in the UK, despite that explosion in the Far East. The UK is still the place to come.

Allison Fisher 30:23

That is that is the other side of it, isn't it? That's that's another incredible thing, really, when you think about population. You know, China over the years in poor has become very dominant and Asia in general a dominant force, but it never took over, or it hasn't taken over Snooker. You know, so I'd love to see that. That you know, Britain still remains the stomping ground, I think, for great play.

Shaun Murphy 30:48

I think, you know, will it we're the same, will that be the same in 20 years' time? I wouldn't like to I wouldn't like to say. I don't know. I what I do know is that you know, from a from a club scene, the the the landscape has changed in the UK quite a lot when I first started. Certainly when you were playing Allison in the UK, you know, there was a snooker club on every corner.

Allison Fisher 31:05

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 31:06

Well somewhere you could play snooker now, that that that has changed. We had the smoking ban 20 years ago, that changed everything.

Allison Fisher 31:12

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 31:14

If you go in any snooker club in China, be it in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, any of the tier one, tier two cities over there, you know, Hong Kong, wherever you might go, whether they're playing snooker, three three cushion billiards, Chinese eight ball, whatever they're playing, nine ball, there'll be a there'll be a waiting list.

Mike Gonzalez 31:33

Yeah.

Shaun Murphy 31:34

You know, every table will be in action, you'll have to wait your turn to play. That must have been that could be 30 years ago that that was the case in the UK, the club where I grew up playing, you know, there'd be a waiting list twice a week, but there's a waiting list every day, every night in these clubs in China. So it's coming, you know, the the the the the takeover is coming, certainly in a world where, you know, just to put my politicians' hat on for a moment in the UK, you know, we don't have any state funding here at all for Q Sports at all. Not a penny. And so when you sort of compare that to countries that do, like China, for instance, it's amazing that we're still holding our end up, really.

Mike Gonzalez 32:10

Yeah. Or or probably other other European countries do have some state funded teams, don't they?

Shaun Murphy 32:17

They do. I mean, even even next door in the Republic of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland government donates the wrong word, but they contribute 100,000 euro a year to their snooker system.

Allison Fisher 32:30

Scotland? No, no, they don't.

Shaun Murphy 32:34

Tristan. I think the government in Scotland is devolved. I think you know they report to Westminster, but they're a devolver, but no, to my knowledge, they don't. UK is steadfastly against giving money to Q Sports. You know, I think if maybe if we were an Olympic sport, or certainly in the summer games, I should say, if we were if we were in the games, or if Q Sports were in the games at all, that might be different.

Allison Fisher 32:58

Thank you for listening to another episode of Legends of the Q. If you like what you hear, wherever you listen to your podcast, including Apple and Spotify, please follow, subscribe, and spread the word. Give our podcast a five-star rating and share your thoughts. Visit our website and support our Fall History project. Until our next golden break with more Legends of the Cube. So long, everybody.