Jimmy White on playing cricket for Eric Clapton and why he is still competing at 63

The winner doesn’t always take it all. Sometimes, sport’s romance is whisked away by those who didn’t win the trophy. Jimmy White remains a champion of the people, a man whose six appearances and six defeats in the World Snooker Championship final captured hearts and minds, even if the Silver Lady still eludes him.

Facing Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry — winners of 13 world titles between them — in their prime on five of those occasions at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre could be considered unfortunate.

But to be the best, you have to beat the best. And in 1992, White was planning his victory speech in his head. Up 14-8 against Hendry and with the title four frames away, his nerveless opponent clicked as White stalled, losing 10 consecutive frames.

Further misfortune and a sense of futility were added to his story when the pair met two years later for the fourth and final time in a final. It came down to a deciding frame — again White was in control, until he missed a routine black (the highest-value ball in the game) — before he was forced to endure watching a ruthless Hendry clear up. It heightened the public affection for one of sport’s most endearing nearly men.

On the baize, White was impulsive and swashbuckling, daring yet vulnerable. The same traits could be applied away from it, especially as his appetite for self-destruction and addictions to booze, betting and narcotics took hold.

Now 63, the Whirlwind of London town may be calmer these days, but he isn’t done yet.

“I’ve lived a bit of a colourful life,” says White, a close friend of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, with diplomatic understatement. “I was nursing hangovers for like 30 years. Now I can get up and practise. It’s not like tennis, football or boxing. As long as your passion’s there still to practise and if you still have the game, you can still play.”

White agrees that not winning the world title during his wild heyday may have been a blessing — had he done so, his life may well have spiralled out of control.

“There was a good chance of it because I was, like, experimenting with everything. I was in Vegas one week, Amsterdam the next week. I was like, completely nuts, but I was enjoying myself.

“I survived it. I’m refocused, I’m very, very lucky to still have my game together. I’m still making 147s, I still compete at the highest level. I’m obviously not as consistent as I’d like to be, but that’s a work in progress.

“I still love the game. Even in all my mad times, I never lost the love for the game. But because I was nursing so many hangovers and so many financial ruins through gambling that it was very difficult to sort of get it together, but that’s all gone now.

“I never played snooker for money, I played snooker for the love of the game. I’ve met some amazing people along the way, and I’m still firing on all cylinders. So, yeah, I’m very lucky.”

Ranked 123 in the world, White last qualified for the main event at the Crucible in 2006. Without the distractions of old, he says his game is in as good a nick as ever, and while he was eliminated by Gao Yang in the first round of qualifying this year, he is determined to grace snooker’s biggest stage before hanging up his cue.

“I only lost 10-9 to the boy. My game’s in good shape and I know I can still compete. So I’m going to keep going while I’m still enjoying it, but mainly because I still think I can win.

“If I didn’t think I could win, I wouldn’t play. I’d go and play bad golf somewhere.”

If the thrills and spills of his career weren’t enough, White has survived cancer and now plays the role of doting family man.

With three of his grandchildren playing sport — his 18-year-old cricketer grandson Ralphie Albert is a promising all-rounder for Surrey — he is a large part of their lives, taking them to training, watching them play and passing on pearls of wisdom.

“My granddaughter, she’s a top county hockey player. And the other grandson, he plays football for Loughborough. And then you’ve got Ralphie, who’s playing cricket for Surrey.

“My daughter’s husband, John, he was a very good cricketer, so cricket in that family is huge. Ralphie’s fantastic. He’s a left-handed finger spinner — his debut for Surrey (he took two wickets and scored 68 runs) was incredible.”

“I give all of them advice. Make sure they don’t do what I do, shall we say.

“I’ve always told them, you have to give 100 per cent. They’re all completely dedicated. My daughter spent her whole life in the car park waiting for them to finish training.

“Because I was a little bit of a control freak and I come from a different background altogether, a completely different world. We were gambling as kids for money and then, all of a sudden, you get loads of money and you think that you should set fire to it.

“It’s always been about preparation for them and giving it 100 per cent and not switching off. Make no mistake, when they go out to play, they are in the zone straight away.

“So that’s a little bit to do with me, but mainly to do with their mum and dad. Obviously, my daughter has watched me. And as much as I’ve achieved, I could have done better if I would have, shall we say, gone to bed at a reasonable time. But that’s gone. And I’m very proud of all three of them.”

White, a Chelsea fan who describes himself as a “sports nut”, once chanced his arm as a batter.

“I played cricket once for a charity match for Eric Clapton a thousand years ago. Frank Bruno was at the other end and I walked out to bat in front of about 1,500 people. The first ball, they bowled me out. They let me carry on for an over and I hit a four.

“It’s a brutal game, cricket. I’ve watched it for the last 10 years or so. If you’re not focused for a second, it can cost you the game.”

For now, White — who is an analyst for Discovery+ — has his immediate focus on the World Championship as it reaches its conclusion. He is delighted to see the tournament stay in Sheffield until 2045.

“When it gets down to one table, it’s like Centre Court at Wimbledon, like boxing in Madison Square Garden. Certain venues for certain players, it’s a dream to play there,” he says.

“When it’s two tables, at the beginning, it can be off-putting because if you have the applause from the other side. But once you get down to the one table, there’s no other place to play.”

And should White grace snooker’s biggest stage again, it would be hard to imagine a more popular sight.

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