13
‘Sunday morning, Epping Forest, easy eight and a half miles. Did not enjoy my run, lost my love for it at the moment, it feels like an effort.’
When you’re involved in a sport you hear all sorts of rumours about what’s going on. I think there are elements of corruption in any sport. In snooker, there must be players who think they could make more out of this match than they could probably make out of my whole career if they just take a bit of a fall. We’re all doing maths with our careers. And there will be players who say, I could give everything to my next five years and if I’m lucky I’ll make £50,000–£100,000, or I can throw this match or frame and make £100,000, maybe get away with it, and continue playing as if nothing happened.
That’s how I reckon some snooker players must think. They like their money, they like their gambling, they like a certain standard of living. If they can get away with it, they will. I could think of seven or eight who have done it. I reckon 80–90 per cent of it is at a lower level, then there are a couple at the top level who would do it.
I was shocked when I saw the story in the News of the World about John Higgins apparently agreeing to chuck frames. It was a sting operation, undercover in a hotel room in Kiev, and the paper alleged that he had agreed to lose four frames in four different matches for €300,000. John issued a statement the day the story came out saying he’d only agreed to it because he was shitting himself and wanted to get out of the room alive. He reckoned he was talking to the Russian mafia and didn’t want to end up swimming with the Kiev fishes. In the end, he received a six-month ban for giving the impression he would breach the rules and for failing to report the approach made to him and was fined £75,000 but was cleared of corruption charges. ‘If I am guilty of anything, it is naivety and trusting those who I believed were working in the best interests of snooker and myself,’ he said when he was banned.
In a way John had a bit of a result. He could easily have been thrown out of the game for longer, perhaps even banned for life. His manager, Pat Mooney, looked like the guy who was instigating it, but obviously John was there in the room and they’ve got him on camera saying: ‘Oh yeah. Frame three I’m going to lose, yes, yes’, and that was never going to look good, whatever his excuses.
To be fair to John, I don’t believe he would ever throw a big tournament.
I wasn’t only shocked when the news about John came out, I was also upset. John and I have always been close – as friends and rivals – and he’s a hero to me. Only Hendry has ever played the game like him and an even bigger desire to win. In the post-Hendry generation, I suppose it’s often been me and John fighting it out for the major tournaments. Our families have also got on well. I’ll never forget how generous he was the first time I won the World Championship, and how the first thing he did was pass on his congratulations to my dad. So I’m glad he’s managed to put the News of the World sting behind him. I’m sure it taught him a lesson.
In October 2012, Stephen Lee was suspended by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association after allegations of irregular betting patterns. It wasn’t the first time there had been allegations made against Stephen. In February 2013 the WPBSA dropped charges against him in relation to matches played in 2008 and 2009. The charges all related to betting and entering into an agreement to influence the result of the match.
It’s a shame that he’s got himself suspended because he’d got his form back, he got back up to number eight in the world, won £200,000–£300,000 last year, was doing well for himself. His form was as good as it had been for years. Stephen has denied any allegations of wrongdoing through his lawyer, Tony Miles. ‘He does not accept that he has been involved in any breaches of the rules and regulations and is gravely disappointed that a decision has been taken to bring proceedings against him.’
While I sincerely hope Stephen is found innocent, if he is not he obviously wouldn’t be the first player to succumb to temptation. I’m not sure what goes through their minds, but throwing matches is never going to end up well.
There had always been rumours that this kind of thing went on. I remember the South African snooker player Silvino Francisco being arrested in 1989 after he’d lost 5-1 to Terry Griffiths and it was discovered there’d been heavy betting on that score, but he was released without charge (though he was later jailed for three years for smuggling cannabis). But all the gambling stuff was hearsay till the John Higgins sting. Then, when Barry Hearn came in to run snooker, he said, we’re not going to tolerate this; we’re going to police the game properly. Barry actually put a superintendent on the investigating panel looking into betting scandals. It was a deterrent as much as anything – he was saying that if anybody was tempted to break the law, they would be caught out.
I was once offered money to throw matches, but I said no chance. Someone rang me and said he’d like to meet me over in the forest and have a walk through the woods. I knew the fella, and it was someone you don’t want to mess around with. I thought, fuck me, what have I done wrong here, I’m in trouble. When people say that to you, you think, hold on, am I going to come back alive?
Typical that it was Epping bloody Forest, too. The same place I went to run to get my peace of mind.
I met up with the fella because I didn’t know what it was about. I was nervous. There was just the one fella. ‘Alright, Ronnie, how you doing?’ he said.
‘Yeah, I’m sweet,’ I said, though I felt anything but sweet.
‘We’ll just go for a little walk up here,’ he said. Jesus. I thought, okay we’ll just go for a walk. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of these people. They’re nice enough as people, but you still don’t want to piss them off. I try to have nothing to do with them so they don’t have any reason to dislike me.
‘You’re playing in the Premier League,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘And we’ve got people who can put big bets on.’
Oh, great, I thought. Just what I need.
‘If you lose this frame and this frame we can get enough on it to make some money. We’ll give you this out of it.’
What they were offering me, 20 grand, I could get for a couple of nights’ work. Not that the amount would have made any difference. I just didn’t want to be there, let alone talking about throwing a match. So I told him straight I couldn’t do it. They were perfectly nice about it.
‘No problem, Ron, fair enough, we respect your wishes.’
The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes. He was good as gold. I think he respected me for being straight and upfront. That all happened about 10 years ago. It was the only time I’ve been approached, and I came away thinking, blimey that was a bit weird.
If anyone could get away with it, I could. I could just play one-handed, or left-handed, or just put a towel over my head and pretend I was going nuts. But it’s not something I would or could do. I couldn’t live with myself; I’d feel that I was robbing somebody.
I think my honesty goes back to when I was a kid and I was a bit of a liar. I’d get in trouble at school, lie about nicking money out of Dad’s wages – those little packets that came through the door, I’d take a fiver out of them. And I got to the point where Dad slippered the lies out of me. In the end, I just couldn’t lie, and that has followed me all the way through. In some ways I wish I could lie. Everybody else seems to be saying one thing but meaning another. Dad is basically honest, but whereas I say everything I’m thinking, he’ll be like, no you shouldn’t say this, you shouldn’t say that. I suppose I’m a compulsive truth teller. I find it difficult to be any other way because then I just feel as if I’m spewing out words.