Willie Smith: The great All-Rounder
Willie Smith was by common consent, the greatest all-round billiards player who ever lived. He was unique among the giants of the Golden Age of Billiards: he played the billiards of the common man. His varied all-round game, using all parts of the table and keeping all three balls constantly on the move, was the game of the ordinary player in the club or hall. The difference being he played it to a very much higher level. He was the people's champion when they could not identify with the cannon specialists.
As the cue ball nudged red and object-white along the cushion, points could be gathered by "The Big Four" Lindrum, Davis, Newman and McConachy. They could do it twice as fast and with half the effort that Smith needed for his all round game. Fred Davis said of him: "I wonder how he was able to stand up for these breaks, he must have had tremendous stamina". It is ironic that as cannon expertise virtually killed the game as a public entertainment. Smith outlived the close cannon artists just as the all-round game came back into fashion.
Smith called them "Cushion crawlers" in much the same way as he dismissed the in-off specialist George Gray as "Not a billiards player at all, he could only play in-offs." Willie caused a sensation in 1911 when he beat Gray and this was effectively the start of his professional career. Willie won the World Professional Billiards Championship at his first attempt in 1920. Melbourne Inman, who had chosen not to defend the title he had won the previous year, referred to himself as "The undefeated champion". "Of course you are," said Smith, "If you don't enter, you cannot be beaten."
They played a great money match at Thurston's the home of Professional Billiards in Leicester Square, London. Smith allowed Inman (who had been heavily backed), to get a thousand in front. When Smith's backers had put all their money on, Smith flew by Inman to win by over four thousand.
Now No. 1 in the public eye. Smith saw no need to defend his title in 1921. He wanted to arrange matches all over the country on his own terms so that his supporters could see him play and not at the prices Thurston's charged. Willie had a contract with Burroughs and Watts and this very often brought him into dispute with the game governing body. In 1922 Smith and Tom Newman played a series of Test matches for what was the No. 1 position. Smith entered the championship again in 1923 and duly won it by beating Tom Newman with an average of 46.4. His entry for the 1924 championship was rejected because it arrived two hours late. In 1931 he had another go when "The Big Four" decided not to enter but again there as some confusion over entry dates.
The peak of Willie's achievement as his break of 2,743, still the highest break ever made without the aid of repetitious scoring methods, against Tom Newman in Manchester in 1928.
A backer gave Smith a £500 cheque to back himself against Lindrum in their forthcoming series in Australia. In later years Smith said, "I set fire to the cheque and said I'm saving you money. I've no chance, I could not make the points fast enough."
His observations were to prove all too accurate but in the series Smith won one game but the decider was left unfinished due to the death of Lindrum's wife. Back in England Smith and Lindrum played a series of matches. In the last of these games Smith averaged 109 per visit to the table, but Lindrum averaged an unthinkable 262 and beat him by the grotesque margin of 21,285. Smith had badly beaten Fred Lindrum in an earlier tour of Australia. As far as Lindrum was concerned family honour had been avenged in full. Willie and Joe Davis did not see eye to eye but they at last had a match in 1933. Joe won easily and it was the end of Smith's competitive billiards career. In a way it was all for the best because they became great friends again and Joe and Willie always had a week's match of billiards and snooker at Leicester Square Hall in the 1940's and 1950's.
Late in his career Willie played a little snooker and Fred Davis said "Willie was a cagey player and never developed into a fluent break-builder". Nevertheless, he did make many century breaks in public and in fact reached the World Snooker final twice - 1933 and 1935 - losing to Joe Davis on both occasions. Indeed, Willie was the opponent when Joe Davis made the first official 147 maximum break in 1955. Willie said that he was very pleased and very proud to have been there and it was the climax to his career. Rex Williams toured with Willie and even at 70 years of age, he was capable of 500 billiards breaks and big snooker breaks. Willie retired in 1960 when he was 75 years of age finishing with an exhibition at Burroughes Hall with Joyce Gardner. When asked his opinion of the 22 ball game he said, "they should change the rules," "Which ones?" "All of them." Willie Smith, shall we ever see his like again? I doubt it.