"Murt" O'Donoghue - Unsung Master
"Murt" O'Donoghue must rank as one of the best ever performers at both Billiards and Snooker and yet is one of the least known in the history of the game. Whilst the great billiards players from Roberts to Russell have become familiar names to all enthusiasts, it is only during the last decade or so that the name of O'Donoghue has taken on a familiar ring in the western hemisphere. When Joe Davis made his 147 maximum in 1955 it was widely reported that he was the first player ever to do this. In fact, O'Donoghue had made a snooker maximum 147 in 1934, playing in Griffith, Australia against a man called Morrie O'Reilly - a break which was witnessed by more than a hundred spectators and later officially recognised. Robby Foldvari himself World Professional Billiards Champion in 1986 and once a pupil of O'Donoghue, tells the story of how some years ago, by a quite amazing coincidence, he met O'Reilly who recalled the occasion clearly. During the late twenties and thirties when Billiards was still a relatively 'big' game and the deeds of Newman, Smith, Davis, and Lindrum were given column inches such as these days are given only to the Paul Gascoignes of this world, O'Donoghue did not figure though a nursery cannon player and a thousand break man still playing well below his potential which he would have achieved only by pitching himself in against the very best. That he never did so is a pity. As a young man his work as a billiards marker led to his being declared a Professional, Debarred from Amateur Tournaments he became something of a hustler with the life of a touring professional having no attractions for him. He must surely have been a tough opponent, playing for money -especially ones own money - tends to produce players who are hard to beat.
Murt O'Donoghue was born in 1900 on the North Island of New Zealand. He displayed a marked aptitude for the game from an early age, he soon made his first century and claims to be the first Professional to have made a century at Snooker when he made a 102 in 1919. But Billiards was his first love. He spent years studying the methods of Claude Falkiner, Clark McConachy and, above all, Walter Lindrum. He became very friendly with Lindrum and learned much from the Great Australian. He gradually refined his game to such an extent that his first thousand break made in 1930 included a run of 278 nursery cannons. As a young man Murt performed as a bareback rider in a circus, rode in galloping and trotting races, he was an excellent swimmer, and as a cyclist once won a 15 mile road race. He played Rugby Union for a good number of seasons and the story goes that as a fullback he only ever missed one tackle and finished up breaking his wrist. It is a wonder he ever found time to play billiards though during his working life he was the proprietor of more than 20 billiards rooms and clubs at different times and in different places in New Zealand or Australia. He certainly found time from somewhere as his feats include a break of 1192 including 607 at the spot end without going to hand; a 500 up which he won in just two visits (255 and 245*) and a game of 1500 up which he won in one hour and eight minutes making successive breaks of 724, 274 and 502.
In 1973 O'Donoghue claimed to have evolved a new method of scoring at the top-of-the-table. The method is a system of 'Floating white,' and there must be some doubt as to how new it was. The stroke sequence is set out in his book, "Advanced Billiards," This sequence is used extensively by Mike Russell, Peter Gilchrist is also very good at this type of play, whilst oddly enough, Robby Foldvari who spent some time studying the game with O'Donoghue, seems to favour the Postman's Knock. Be all that as it may, Murt made his own personal best of 1326 by this method when he was 76 years of age. In all Murt has made 19 breaks of a thousand or more. This magazine is intended as Billiards only but any talk of Murt O'Donoghue would be quite incomplete without at least a mention of his prowess as a snooker player. He claims to be the first Professional to have made a century (102) and the first to have cleared the table in one visit (134 in 1928.) He made breaks of 138,130, and 118 in three consecutive frames in 1928, and in 1938 made seven centuries in ten frames a feat vouched for by Eddie Charlton. Clearly he must have been a brilliant player and, if he had ever travelled to this side of the world and shown such form, then the great Joe might have had more of a match on his hands in the World Championship than he sometimes did.
Robby Foldvari relates that O'Donoghue was, to use Robby's own words, "Fantastic." He would often grab Foldvari's cue and demonstrate difficult shots with astonishing ease. Foldvari says he was particularly adept at gathering strokes and at close play and there were some positions where he (Foldvari) just couldn't seem to get the same results. Murt O'Donoghue is the only man alive to have the claim to a maximum at Snooker and a 1000 break at Billiards. (Geet Sethi?) Living now in New Zealand, he still takes a keen interest in the games, truly the Grand Old Man of Billiards. The Billiards Quarterly Review is grateful to Ray Balderston editor of "Small Chalk" for much of the above information.