Big Willie Style

	In the end my gambling had a bigger impact on my career than any advantage from having a shiny head

‘It was September 1996,’ remembers Willie Thorne, drawing a deep breath. ‘My playing days were over and I was commentating at the Regal Masters in Motherwell. After a match, I was having a Chinese with Dennis Taylor when in walks John Parrott to get a takeaway. He’d just flown in from Heathrow and someone had broken into his car at the airport and nicked his cue. He knew I was a big punter and looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t back me tomorrow, Willie, whatever you do!”

‘I had a hard-on immediately. Pound signs flashed before my eyes. I was virtually skint and running out of credit and here was the opportunity of a lifetime. No snooker player can play without his own individual cue. Cliff Thorburn once had his nicked when he was ranked in the top 40 and he lost 5-0.

‘I got on the blower and started spreading tips and money around so no-one would get wind of the coup I was planning. I piled on to Parrott’s opponent, Ken Doherty, with bookies Mickey Fletcher, Dudley Roberts, John Banks and mates ‘Racing’ Raymond and Nigel Trough. I knew all the rails bookies, all the private bookmakers, all the high rollers. I tipped off everybody I owed money to, asking them to put on a grand for them and for me – over 20 phone calls accumulating a £38,000 stake on a Doherty victory. I got most of it on at 6/5, although by 10:30 the next morning the price had closed to 4/7; the old flip-flop favourite! Then betting was suspended when the news about the cue came out.

‘I commentated on Parrott’s match and was on the ultimate betting high, really smug and trying to control my excited commentary. I was babbling in the box, making comments like “John is shaking his head… it looks like the world is on his shoulders”. All I could think about was my windfall of over £30,000, settling my losses and getting a lump sum together to start winning again.

‘I reckoned all Doherty had to do was to “stand up to win”. Parrott went 2-0 down, but then started to rally, clawing his way back into the game. He went level at 2-2 and during the interval I phoned all my contacts to calm their nerves. During the Parrott continued unconvincingly. He didn’t score more than a 50-break in the entire match! But he still made it to 5-2. Then, the eighth frame went to Doherty and I saw a chink of light, although I was bathed in sweat and felt like being violently sick.

‘The final frame was the hardest I ever commentated on. I put out all the standard waffle like “Parrott’s playing some gutsy snooker”, but I couldn’t think straight. Then the inevitable happened. Fate turned against me and – against all the odds – Parrott won the match. All my available cash had gone on the bet. Bankruptcy was very definitely on the horizon. And my friends weren’t too pleased – about half a million quid had been lost by people I tipped off.’

Down the sink

Rewind to 1968. Willie Thorne, future snooker superstar and gambling legend, has just started playing snooker at the age of 14 at the Anstey Conservative Club on the outskirts of Leicester. He’s there because his father – an ex-miner laid off in a pit closure – is helped by a family friend to become steward. Soon, Thorne senior develops a taste for the licensed trade and takes on the tenancy of the Shoulder of Mutton pub in Braunston, a massive, ‘frightening pisshole of a pub’ in the middle of a council estate. Downstairs, Mum and Dad turn the boozer into a profitable venture. Upstairs, Willie installs a table and starts slotting balls with aplomb. Within a couple of years the youngster is dominating national youth championships, beating contemporaries Joe Johnson, Tony Knowles and John Virgo. At the age of 21 he becomes the youngest snooker professional in the world. A pro with the taste for a big punt.

‘My first punt was early doors,’ admits Willie, in his trademark fast and frank patter. ‘The biggest problem was that when I grew up there were no snooker clubs. So if I didn’t play at the Conservative Club or the pub, I went down to the local billiard hall. Everyone in there was a gambler, a vagabond or a thief. Let’s just say that if you ever wanted a cheap telly, that was a place to get one! Anyway, soon I was introduced to the horses and found the buzz of backing a winner incredible. Someone once asked me, “What’s the best feeling, backing a winner or having a jump?” I answered “backing a winner, because you can always have a jump when you get back home!”’

Let the good times roll

But enough – for a couple of paragraphs at least – of punting tales. Because with all his colourful gambling escapades, it’s easy to forget just how good a snooker player Thorne really was. At the height of a career that took off in the Seventies and exploded in the Eighties, he won the Mercantile Credit Classic (1985), the Hong Kong Masters (1986) and became Matchroom Professional champion (1987). He should have won the World Championships at the Crucible in 1982 (when Alex Higgins carried off the trophy), but exited instead at the quarter-final stage – distracted by tabloids who had caught him pants-down with someone else’s wife… and the death threats of her angry husband.

For all his extra-table action, however, Thorne still managed to pot more 147 maximum breaks than any player in history – just shy of 200 – earning himself the media monicker of ‘Maximum Man’. No one, not even O’Sullivan or Hendry, who are probably his nearest rivals, has admitted coming anywhere close.

The 1980s were the heady days of TV snooker, of course; a time when cuemeisters were massive celebs and pocketed comparatively huge incomes. Thorne was one of the biggest stars, generating a phenomenal audience of 12 million viewers for a Masters final with Cliff Thorburn, a figure only bettered when Dennis Taylor won at the Crucible with 18.5 million watching.

Big Willie’s outgoing personality, shiny pate (The Sun once famously claimed it put off his opponents) and bushy moustache made him instantly recognisable. Or, in the words of 1980s pop hit Snooker Loopy: ‘Old Willie Thorne, his hair’s all gone and his mates all take the rise. His opponent said cover up his head ‘cos it’s shining in my eyes. When the light shines down on his bare crown, it’s a cert he’s gonna walk it. But it’s just fair giving off that glare… perhaps I ought to chalk it.’

‘In the end, though, my gambling had a bigger impact on my career than any advantage from having a shiny head,’ insists Willie. ‘I had some massive touches, particularly in Ireland, where I made the finals two years in succession. I won 40 grand on myself one year and 80 grand the next. I never minded the added pressure of betting on myself in cash. My first big problems came from credit betting – the numbers started to mean less and less. For instance, I backed myself in the UK championships for £100,000. I played Steve Davis and ended up missing a really easy blue. You have your wins and your losses, don’t you? Ouch!

Bouncing back

‘In the 1980s I was earning loads and it was easy come, easy go,’ he adds. ‘Then, when I started slipping down the rankings, money became more of a problem and I started falling behind, betting to try and get out of trouble.

‘Gambling cost me the World Championship – my life’s ambition – without a doubt. A couple of years I went to Sheffield so far in trouble that mentally I was a wreck. I never gave myself the chance I should have done. Gambling cost me my first marriage, with three children.’

In the end, one suspects, Thorne’s irrepressible good nature allowed him to escape – just – the inexorable fall from irresponsible gambling into financial disaster. He now reckons he burnt upwards of £3.5 million at the bookies. ‘That’s nothing, Jimmy White’s done more,’ he claims. (In fact, you can read Jimmy’s story in the next issue of InsideEdge). Seeking professional help, Willie learned not to go on the chase so badly, and to curb his appetite for a winner in every race. He still has a punt, although only occasionally and ‘not for a while’.

It’s testament to Thorne’s courage and strength of character that he speaks so openly and without hypocrisy on a subject which almost finished him off. He remains as permanently upbeat in life as he does during his expert TV commentary. Then again, that smile on his face might have something to do with going home every night to second wife Jill, a former Miss Great Britain.

‘What she saw in me, I’ll never know,’ laughs Willie, stroking his trademark moustache. Despite everything – the massive losses, the snooker ups and downs – it seems he’s had at least one lucky break.