Robert Marshall - World Champion

Career Highlights

• World Amateur Champion 1936, 1938, 1951 and 1962
• Runner Up 1952, 1954 and 1985
• Australian Amateur Champion 21 times and Runner Up twice out of 23 times entered
• Australasian Amateur Champion 1952
• Australian Amateur Snooker Champion 1956
• Indian National Billiards and Snooker Champion 1962
• Life Member of Australian Billiards and Snooker Council
• Inaugural inductee to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame

Walter Lindrum congratulates Robert Marshall on winniny the 1936 World Amateur Championship (Johannesburg)

Marshall

We were early. We had arranged to call at 2 p.m. but it was only 1.45. Would he be waiting for us? How would he look just six weeks after undergoing a multi-bypass heart operation that had been fraught with complications? We rang the bell and waited anxiously outside his big, modern home set on a five acre block 45 minutes drive north of Perth.

His wife, Jean, opened the door, invited us in with a smile and guided us into the kitchen. There he was. Standing at

the sink. Bob Marshall, four-times word amateur billiards champion, 21 times Australian amateur champion, was washing the dishes.

He looked surprisingly fit for a man who had undergone such a serious operation so recently; looked younger than his 82 years.

"Come in, come in", he greeted us with a big smile. "Sit down and make yourselves comfortable. I'm just finishing my chores. Be with you in a minute."

Chores complete, Bob pulled out a huge scrap-book, containing hundreds of pictures and newspaper cuttings, and sat with us on a chair overlooking his immaculate billiard table surrounded by black and white pictures, trophies, books and memorabilia.

Fifty-six years ago, in 1936, Bob Marshall made his mark on the world billiards scene when he won the World Amateur Championship in Johannesburg, beating England's Joey Thompson in the final. He was to repeat that success in Melbourne in 1938, in London in 1961 and in Perth in 1962. (He was also runner-up in 1952, 1954 and 1985, the only other times he competed in the world championships) The conversation flowed easily as the affable Bob, his memory as sharp as a tack, took us back in time. "see that picture?" he asked pointing to a big framed print on the far wall of two men shaking hands, "that was taken in Perth in 1936 after I'd won the world title. That's Walter (Lindrum), on the left and me."

"It took 10 days to get to Freemantle (Perth's port) from South Africa in those days. When I got home, Walter, who had retained the world professional title in the same year, was waiting for me. He had travelled to Perth from Melbourne just to congratulate me.

"Neither of us touched alcohol and we toasted my success with lemonade. I remember Walter shaking my hand and asking if I realised that he, the World Professional Champion, and I, the World Amateur Champion, both come from the same town?

It was a remarkable fact. Both were born in the remote Western Australian gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie, 350 miles east of Perth - Lindrum in 1898, Marshall 12 years later, but they never met there because Marshall's family moved to Perth when he was 11.

But it was in Kalgoorlie that Bob Marshall played his first billiards on a table his father, a hairdresser, kept at the side of his shop.

"Dad would close his salon on Wednesday afternoons and leave the tobacconist side of the business for my mother to look after," he said. "On Wednesdays I would always try to get home from school early and if there was nobody using the table I would have a bit of a game."

The family moved to Perth in 1921, bob reluctantly following his father into the hairdressing business.

"I never really liked hairdressing and never wanted to do it for a living," he said. "I always wanted to be a carpenter but a friend of my father's advised me against the job because of all the heavy tools I would have to carry around with me all my life.

He told me I should take up hairdressing then I could always help my father. I took his advice and trained in Perth.

My father became ill soon after I got my diploma and I took over the business. "at least his friend was right on one count."

Bob began taking billiards seriously when he was about 15 and started playing at the Prince of Wales Billiard Hall in Perth.

"Unknown to me the owner, Frank Sparrow, realised I had some natural ability and let me play there, although I wasn't really old enough." But Bob says he really learned how to play the game when he was 20 years old - from Walter Lindrum's nephew, Horace, who he met in Melbourne in 1931.

"I went to Melbourne to meet Fred Lindrum, Walter's elder brother. My father, Robert, had played Fred in Kalgoorlie and he told me to look him up, introduce myself in the hope he might give me some lessons."

Bob finally found Fred in the Lindrum family's billiard hall in South Melbourne. Fred welcomed him and told him that his nephew, Horace, who was 15 months younger than Bob, had just beaten Fred Smith in Sydney to win the Australian Professional Snooker Championship, and if he brought his cue the following day he knew Horace would be delighted to play with him.

(Horace, born Horace Morrell, was the son of Walter and Fred Lindrum's sister Violet, and when he showed promise at billiards and snooker was encouraged to change his surname by deed poll to Lindrum.)

"I met Horace the next day and we played together for about three weeks and became great friends." Although Horace was the professional snooker champion he was also a very good billiards player and taught Bob a lot about the game.

"Until that time I had always been a red ball player but after watching Horace I changed and became a top of the table player." said Bob. "Horace opened my eyes to top of the table play and from that time on I never played anything else. The three weeks we spent together were the foundation of my whole career."

While practising together, Horace invited Bob to play with him during an exhibition he was giving at the Albert Park Yachting and Angling Club in Melbourne.

Bob laughed as he remembered playing in front of the 200 members: "We surprised everyone I think when he beat me at billiards (Lindrum 804, including a 439 break; Bob 683, including a 193 break) and I beat him at both frames of snooker.

"Soon after the exhibition several people came to me and urged me to challenge Horace for his title. They said I had proved I could beat him and couldn't understand why I wasn't prepared to challenge him. But he was the champion. I was happy to play, watch and learn. I didn't want to challenge him.

But Horace's mother thought I would eventually change my mind and thought I was learning too much from Horace. She told him to end our friendship.

We never fell out but after that whenever I visited him or tried to arrange to meet him he always seemed to be busy."

When Bob returned to Perth he put what he had learned from Horace into practice.

The WA Billiards and Snooker Association was formed in 1936. That year Bob became the first State Champion. In the same year he also won his first National and World titles.

And the rest, as they say, is history.