How often have you made a verbal arrangement to meet someone under the station clock and the other party has failed to make the appointment? Later, of course, you discover that one of you thought you were meeting on another day, at some other time of day, or even at a different station altogether.
Always get it down in writing. That is the lesson I learned at the knee of Bill Camkin in the early thirties when I was managing my own affairs, arranging tours, exhibitions and so on after Ernest Rudge, because of his own commitments, had given up his early work on my behalf. It was a lesson easier to apply then than it is today. Since the telephone was by no means universal there was nothing like as much temptation to make spoken agreements. True, a lot of letter-writing used to be involved, but I always found that it paid dividends in efficiency and in obviating subsequent arguments over terms, dates and the like. And only once did an arrangement collapse altogether.
I was not alone in conducting my business dealings myself. In those days managers of sporting celebrities, whatever the sport, were virtually unknown and sponsors were all too rare. You were on your own. Perhaps it is not too cynical to suggest that the lack of sponsors meant the absence of substantial rewards which in turn meant that there was no incentive for anyone (i.e. managers) to do all the donkey-work. Ten per cent of nothing is nothing. But, in any case, no manager could have arranged my work for me without personal contacts - the sort that one makes only through doing the job itself. Certainly, in the thirties, whatever success we pros had in finding engagements came through a mixture of hard work and knowing who was who. I must have written thousands of letters to friends and acquaintances in attempts to arrange exhibitions. And having once fixed a couple of games in a week I would then explore every avenue in an attempt to fill in the gaps with other exhibitions in the same geographical area. Many visits by the postman were awaited anxiously and I met with plenty of failures.
If there were not any sponsorships going it was not for want of trying on my part. I thought of every product that might conceivably - and sometimes inconceivably - have any bearing on billiards and snooker and then offered my services in endorsing them. I tried eye lotions and hair lotions, shirt makers and shoe makers without eliciting the slightest flicker of interest. The only contract for endorsing a product that I obtained in those days was for Churchman's 'Top Score' cigarettes which I then used to smoke - at a shilling for twenty.
It was therefore with enthusiasm that in 1931 I accepted a Sunday Express offer to write a series of articles, principally on the subject of snooker technique. This series extended for quite a time and led on to a similar series in the Daily Mirror until, ultimately, I took over as columnist on the News of the World when Tom Newman died, a job I held for many years.
This, then, was my way of life as both billiards and snooker champion of the world. I often reflected that there must be easier ways of earning a living; if only they were not so uncongenial....
Among the exhibition games that I fixed at that time were quite a number against the leading amateurs of the day. I had little opportunity when battling to the top of the profession to see the legendary amateurs such as S. H. Fry, J. Graham-Symes and H. C. Virr, but now I was able to play against such first-raters as Sydney Lee and Laurie Steeples. And later I encountered Kingsley Kennerley, Frank Edwards, who won the amateur billiards title five times, and Leslie Driffield who took it eight times.
Sydney Lee won the amateur billiards championship four times in succession, in addition to the Empire championship, before going over to the professional ranks. But although he carried everything before him as an amateur he was never afterwards a match for the top pros. It was Laurie Steeples, however, whom I considered the best of the bunch. He defeated Sydney in Australia for the 1931 Empire championship but soon afterwards had to give up the game altogether on doctors' advice. This was a great pity since I think Laurie had not yet reached the height of his potential.
He was another product of a pub billiard-room background, his father having kept the Grapes hotel in Dalton Brook, Yorkshire. And once or twice he handed out something of a hiding to me. On one occasion in 1930 when he was holding both billiards and snooker amateur titles I arranged to play him at a club in Bedford where I had managed to get myself an engagement; I thought it would be a novelty for the members to have the amateur and professional champions at both games playing on the same table. I received a goodish fee while Laurie, of course, played just for the enjoyment. And as it turned out he enjoyed the experience rather more than I did. At billiards, on an early visit to the table, he amassed a break of 500 or so and for the rest of the session I saw very little of the table. The members enjoyed my discomfiture hugely. Later, thinking that I would be able to get my revenge at snooker, I split the pyramid confidently - and then sat back while Laurie knocked up a cool break of 95. So that was that frame gone for a burton. To my great relief I managed to save face in the very next frame by making a century break, but I was not unhappy when the evening's ordeal came to an end.
Another character in the amateur world was Ben Stacey, a Sheffield man. He was not widely known outside the area but he was well known on my native heath as a publican. He kept The Moor in Sheffield and was a keen fisherman and a wit. He also used to referee matches locally and was in charge of various exhibitions which I gave over the years. But of all his activities the rod and line undoubtedly took precedence; day or night, rain or shine he would always be willing to hang up the sign 'Gone Fishing'. One legendary tale about him which circulated around the city was of the day when a shift worker, one of Ben's regulars, was walking past the pub at four o'clock in the morning with the rain lashing down. The workman was astonished to find his landlord sheltering in the pub doorway with his tackle in his hand, waiting for a crony to pick him up in his car.
Ben got in the first word. 'Where's tha goin?' he asked his customer.
'Ah'm off to work,' replied the other.
'What, on a day like this!' said Ben poker-faced. 'Tha' wants a job goin' to work on a mornin' like this! Ah'm off flshin'.'
Another tale of Ben the practical joker had him returning from Barnsley by car late at night. Before setting off he called in at a fish and chip shop which, to his dismay, he found packed full.
'Hury up missis,' he yelled, striding to the front of the queue, we ye got a train t'catch.'
'Nay,' said the chip shop lady, 'last train's gone from here long sin'.'
'Ah know that,' said Ben. 'It's waitin' for us in Sheffield. Come on.'
He was served straight away.
J.J. Ashley was one leading amateur who never won the snooker title although friends of his who, like him, were in the betting world considered him a very good player. One day in 1932 when I was playing at Thurston's one of his pals, a chap called Muggeridge, approached me to ask whether I would play Ashley at snooker, giving him four blacks (28 points) start. 'This isn't just for fun,' added Muggeridge. 'We'll back him for £100.' I said that I knew Ashley's play too well to rush around conceding such a start but I did offer to concede him three blacks provided that our match was a week long and was played at Thurston's. So Muggeridge went away to see whether he could fix it on those terms with Thurston's and Ashley.
Eventually the deal was agreed, with the obvious proviso that Ashley, as an amateur, received none of the gate money and provided that the match was played after the end of the season, professional games being given priority during it. And so, on the evening of Sunday, June 5th Muggeridge arrived by arrangement at the Arundel Hotel, just off the Strand, to deposit the stake money. I asked John Bisset, BA&CC chairman and manager of the hotel, to hold the cash for us but Muggeridge would have none of it. 'No, no,' he said. 'We know you well enough. You can hold our money and your own.'
I must admit that I thought the whole challenge was robbery without violence. I was on top form, having retained both titles, and was playing on the famous Thurston's table, which was really a second home to me. All in all I had the most tremendous psychological advantage.
The programme agreed by Ashley and me provided for six frames of snooker per session, and at the first session on the Monday I ran through the balls to win the first five frames at a canter. Such a massacre was it that for once in my life I was actually willing my opponent to win the next game. Luckily, he quite genuinely did - which pleased me and cheered him up as well. So both of us were happy as the evening session began. Then I got the shock of my life. Ashley performed like a world beater, knocking them in from all over the table to win five out of the six games. As a result we were all square after the first day.
I was confident that I would come through and that Ashley's show was simply a flash in the pan. Still, I wondered whether Ashley and his chums would feel the same. There was no harm in trying, so I despatched a friend to a club in Kingston which the Ashley camp frequented to see whether anyone would care to back their man again considering that the scores were level. However, they evidently agreed with my appraisal of Ashley's staying power and so I found no takers. We were all correct; Ashley never found the same form again and I finished the week the winner by 42 frames to 19.
All this was the bread and butter of my playing life at that time. But as the 1932-3 season got under way, with Walter Lindrum back in Britain for the third successive year, my main objective was to secure a match with the elusive Willie Smith.
In my early playing days he had been a mentor to me but following my defeat of Tom Newman in the 1928 billiards championship he had refused all my attempts to make a match with him. As doyen of British billiards, he was in the happy position of being able to pick his matches with care, ensuring the maximum enhancement of his prestige whilst avoiding the championship, except for his ill-fated entry of 1931, and living very comfortably off his Burroughes and Watts contract. I, on the other hand, was having to work hard for my living whilst doubts were expressed in some quarters as to whether I truly matched up to my position as champion; an opinion popularly canvassed was that Willie could show me a thing or two any time he chose. This was galling enough in itself to make me eager for a match but there was, in addition, the financial consideration. Matches between Willie and me would draw big crowds, net big gate receipts and so enable me to fulfil my earning expectations as champion. My thinking was that if we could only agree to play three two-week matches in big halls in the provinces we could easily attract five hundred people to each session. If the seats were priced at the then current rate of 35, 2s and 1s - quite modest charges which might be increased for such a 'needle' match - then at least £50 could be taken: £600 per week. Even deducting £50 each for a week's generous expenses this would leave Willie and me with £250 per week each: in all, £1,500 each for the six-week challenge. This was the sort of money I could do with, yet Willie was in effect denying it to me.
The road to the desired goal was a rocky one. I flung out a variety of challenges to Willie who tended to accuse me of cheap advertising and who always managed to find stumbling blocks - principal among them being his contract to play only on Burroughes and Watts tables. He also countered by issuing various challenges to me under totally unacceptable terms. At one stage, in 1931, I even offered, in effect, to submit the matter to arbitration by setting up a committee of five comprising three people nominated by the Sheffield Telegraph and a representative each for Willie and me. The committee would make all the arrangements for a match and if either player refused a condition laid down by the committee he would forfeit £100 to charity. Willie did not bat an eyelid. And so it went on, at an ever-increasing level of acrimony. Indeed, matters grew to such a pitch that when I challenged Willie to a match of £1,000 a side, he accused me, in a newspaper comment, of issuing a dud prospectus, alleging that I was already under a contract which precluded any possibility of such a meeting. This I could not let pass since in my contract I had specifically ensured that I could play Willie in the event of his accepting a challenge. And so I had to dig out my solicitors who wrote to the paper threatening libel proceedings if a withdrawal and an apology were not made forthwith. Thankfully, the paper verified the truth of my position and duly persuaded Willie to associate himself with their official withdrawal and apology.
This was hardly calculated to improve relations between us, but still I persevered and eventually the break-through came - though it was not so much a reward for my own powers of persuasion as a simple decision by Willie to rejoin the competitive play that he had eschewed for so many years. I suspect that the encomiums lavished on Walter Lindrum were beginning to wound his professional pride, making him determined to show his own mastery.
There then ensued a classic billiards match wrangle, conducted in the full glare of publicity and savoured by commentators and spectators alike. In my previous challenges I had offered Willie a wide variety of match conditions such as: a single winner-take-all match under neutral conditions; two matches - one on his terms and one on mine - with the full aggregate to decide the winner: three games - one on his terms, one on mine and one neutral - with the full aggregate to decide the winner, and so on. The permutations were endless, even without arguments as to precisely where these matches should take place. It was therefore not surprising that when the ice melted sufficiently for Willie and me to meet in the offices of the Sporting Life to discuss terms the conference took a long time. Willie had as adviser G. M. Watson and I took along Bill Camkin. But we all felt that we would ultimately fix up something; it was clear, as the politicians say, that the will to find a solution did exist. The atmosphere was thick with the handing out of what passed as olive branches, and at one point Willie joked: 'I'm sorry, is the argument getting heated? I'll take my coat off.' Which he did.
The upshot of it all was that we agreed to play three matches, each of a fortnight's duration, beginning at the Dorland Hall in Lower Regent Street, London (the first time it had been used for billiards) then in Manchester and Leeds. I had played Willie on level terms only once before, at Northampton early in 1928 when Willie won by 900 points, but this time there could be no question: we agreed to play on level terms for the first two matches and added the proviso that if either of us won the first two he would give his opponent 1,000 points start at the third encounter.
It was further agreed that we would play one match on a table selected by Willie, one match on a table chosen by me and the final match on a neutral table. We would toss a coin to decide who had first choice, but the other player would be granted the opportunity of inspecting the table before play commenced. In addition we agreed that after each session the pockets would be taken off the table and the angles checked for trueness before play resumed. And, as if that were not enough, well in advance of the matches themselves three lengths of billiard-table cloth were cut and then tied and sealed by a neutral person before being locked behind a steel door of a vault. There they kept company with six sets of billiard-balls which had been selected and placed in a strong-box.
The final condition was that we would adhere to the new experimental rule, laid down by the Billiards Association, which stipulated that the cue ball should cross the baulk line once every hundred points, the object being to eliminate the massive nursery cannon breaks of Walter Lindrum which were tending to be the new speciality of the game, dominating the play and often anaesthetising the spectators. Walter and the rest of us gave the rule a fair innings but we found it a slightly uneasy one. Whereas the earlier rules restricting specialist strokes had the positive benefit of curbing totally repetitive play, a good case could be made for saying that the effect of the new rule was negative in that it interrupted the flow and science of the game as played by skilled professionals. Not that the rule worried Walter too greatly; thumbing his nose at the BA&CC he soon afterwards took the balls two and a half times round the table in a run of 529 consecutive cannons - obeying the rule all the way. Eventually even the BA&CC admitted that the rule was too artificial and so changed it to the extent that the cue ball had to cross the baulk line once every 200 points. (This enactment in turn failed to meet its purpose since a player who crossed the line at the beginning of a break could score almost 400 points before having to cross it again, and so another alteration was effected, specifying that the line had to be crossed between each 180 and 200 points.)
I agreed that it was a blemish on the game to make a first-class player prepare for and execute a shot intended to achieve nothing more than making the cue ball cross the line to conform to a rule, before bringing it back to the area where he was operating. As Walter put it: 'What would they say in cricket if Don Bradman was told that after scoring four boundaries to the off he was compelled to make a boundary to the leg or he would be out? It would be making him play the wrong shot. And that is what we are doing in billiards.'
Willie, of course, was beginning to regret that he had not adopted the nursery cannon; his all-round play, though a treat to watch at its best, could not compete with nursery cannons in reliability and speed of scoring. He was therefore in full agreement with the Billiards Association, the only player who was, in its baulk line restriction. But when, by the time our first match was due to begin, even the Association had decided that the 200-point rule should supersede the 100-point experiment I thought it only reasonable to ask him whether he would consider playing under the 200-point rule. He, however, was only too keen to reduce any advantage that I might have and therefore took the legalistic view that he had signed articles to play under a certain set of conditions and would resolutely abide by them. He turned down my request out of hand. It was the last phase of the match preliminaries. Now was the time for action to commence. As the rather dated joke of the period had it: 'After the talkies, now for the movies.'
I was fully keyed up for the opening session, having gone into special training - a rare event for me. I undertook light exercise daily and submitted myself to body massage while an osteopath kept my hands in trim. And the hall itself, which had recently been the venue for Primo Camera' s training sessions, was packed to its 600 capacity on Monday, January 16th, 1933, when Willie and I faced up to each other after so long at loggerheads. But as is often the case, the match itself, refereed by George Nelson, was something of an anti-climax. Willie was a disappointment - certainly to me, and undoubtedly to him, but principally to the innumerable people who had backed him to win a fortune. (The side stakes on the match must have broken all records.) The plain fact was that in that first match Willie never got into his stride or seriously challenged me. His strength of shot was faulty and red winning hazards that appeared the simplest things imaginable hung on the brink of pockets to leave me very acceptable openings. When it was his forty-seventh birthday, hall-way through the proceedings, he received a shoal of letters, cards and telegrams commiserating with him on his bad luck. But as far as I was concerned luck was not involved; it was a victory for me, and a good one by 17,335 points to 12,706. Throughout the game Willie and I spoke scarcely a word to each other, but as the last stroke was made he came up to shake me by the hand and said: 'Congratulations, you played a fine game.' And the ice melted a little more.
In Manchester in the weeks beginning February 13th, the story was somewhat different, for Willie pulled himself together and scraped through in a desperately close finish. It was therefore all to play for when we met a month later in Leeds, but on this occasion I again romped home to put the whole issue beyond doubt.
The controversy was settled once and for all and we had both made good money. But, most of all, Willie had rejoined his brother professionals and he and I became, over a period, the friends which we had formerly been.