I really hope the BBC make a proper tribute programme for him, similar to the one they made to honour Alex Higgins.
Before televised snooker really took off with the advent of Pot Black, Ted had been around from the start almost, when snooker began to supersede billiards as the more popular spectator sport. He was the manager of the
Leicester Square Hall, a venue somewhat comparable to
The Crucible in today's game.
If anyone's interested, there's an incredibly well written and thoroughly interesting book by Clive Everton -
The Story of Billiards and Snooker Even if you're just a fan of snooker, some of the statistics about the masters of billiards are so amazing I'm sure you'll enjoy the read.
Incredible to think (and having mentioned the fact above that people were watching more snooker) but it is a well recognised fact that billiards is unique in sport as the only game where its proponents became so good that it became boring to watch! I suppose the equivalent would almost be like watching a 147 in every frame of snooker, a perfect 9-dart game of darts every leg, or a perfect 300 at ten-pin bowling.
All throughout the history of billiards, as players began to improve, 'artificial' limits were placed on the methods of scoring to reign back the long breaks.
The first handicaps included limiting the amount of times the red ball could be potted in succession from the billiard spot (the black spot in snooker) - one early pro (John Roberts Jun if memory serves me correctly) became so adept at this repetitive method of amassing huge breaks that the table fitters had to put on a new cloth at the end of each day's play as he used to wear a groove in the cloth from the spot to the top pockets.
Most of the ensuing limits were placed on the number of successive canons (where the player's cue ball is made to strike both his opponent's white and the red).
The highest
break ever was made before any limit had been imposed. Having managed to manoeuvre the two other balls into the jaws of a corner pocket, Tom Reece compiled a break of 499,135 - a feat that took the whole length of the three week long match. Reece wasn't on particularly good terms with his opponent, who of course had to be there at all times in case he missed, and would occasionally wind him up by asking him what type of chalk he was using!
The scoring system in billiards makes this feat even more outstanding - a pot or in-off red scores three, a pot or in-off your opponent's white scores two, and a canon, the largest constituent of Reece's break, scores only two as well.
Later still, as the so-called 'Big Five' billiard pros (Willie Smith, Clark McConachy, Tom Newman, Joe Davis and Walter Lindrum) became so proficient at nursery canons (where the two object balls are nudged or 'nursed' along a cushion in a series of gentle canons) limits were initially placed whereby one of the three balls had to cross the baulk line every so-many points (first in every 450 points of a break, and later in every 250 points). These players were so good at controlling the balls - they could easily take the balls across a pocket and even change the direction they were 'nursing' - that these limits soon proved ineffective.
Eventually it was decided to limit the number of canons to a string of 75, after which the next shot had to involve a pot or an in-off; the rule is still in effect to this day.
An argument could be made, in my honest opinion, that Walter Lindrum, alongside his Australian compatriot cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, are the best two sportsman of all time, so great was their ability compared to any other who played their respective sports.
Anyway, it was at about this time that Joe Davis began to take an interest in snooker - not just as a player, but as a promoter (and definitely a 'self' promoter) that would make guys like Barry Hearn look like rank amateurs.
Various efforts had been made to popularise snooker - one even involved the addition of two extra 'colours' to improve the scoring, a purple and an orange ball were to placed on newly positioned spots, one between the blue and pink, the other between the blue and brown.
However, Davis really got the ball rolling by organising the first Snooker World Championship. He won the title himself, as well the trophy he'd bought from the entrance fees (the trophy they still use to this day) and pocketed the surplus prize money of £6.10/-
