3
‘Wednesday: Went steady on the first lap, same on second, then picked it up on the last. Felt tired in the legs, hamstrings felt tired, lactic acid in the quads.’
In some ways it was a relief when Jo and I finally split up, but that’s when the shit really hit the fan in terms of the kids. We couldn’t agree on me seeing them so I got a solicitor. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn’t go without seeing them.
I was feeling sorry for myself, but this wasn’t straight depression. My life had been turned upside down; I’d not seen the kids much in 10 to 12 weeks. Altogether I’d seen them for probably 20 hours in three months and it was killing me. Initially I was granted five hours on a Saturday and two hours on a Wednesday. The courts said you can never mix access and money, but in a way that’s just what they seemed to be doing. It felt like a simple equation to me – you pay more maintenance, you see more of your kids. This went on for 18 months, then two years, and all this time the meter was running, so every couple of months I’d get a monster bill through the post. I couldn’t understand why we ended up going down this route. I always wanted to give Jo money for herself and the kids, and I wanted to see Lily and little Ronnie – and it shouldn’t have taken lawyers to sort that.
I started representing myself, which was disastrous. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing in there. I was shocking in court – the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. Laughable. They ran rings round me and I was paying for the privilege. After a while, the judge said: ‘I recommend you get a barrister, Mr O’Sullivan, because this is going to cost you.’ He had a point. I wasn’t doing myself any favours. So I got myself another solicitor, and said, do what you have to do. I said I wanted it resolved quickly if possible. But of course these things are never quick.
Money and lawyers brought such ugliness into my life. In the end I thought there was one simple, if drastic, solution. Stop playing snooker. If I stopped playing then I wouldn’t have any problem being with the kids on my Saturdays and Wednesdays, I’d get to see them grow up and I’d be more relaxed. Simple.
But, of course, there was a problem. It would also mean that there was no money coming in. When we finally settled on maintenance, the figure was based on 2008, an incredibly successful year. If I wasn’t winning major tournaments it would be impossible for me to keep up such a high level of maintenance, and if I wasn’t playing at all there would be nothing coming in. This didn’t just mean no money for me, it also meant I wouldn’t have money to pay for the kids’ maintenance or their school fees because they were both at private school. It also meant I’d struggle to pay the lawyers’ bill which had now topped £200,000.
I did feel angry. I’d spent all these years working hard earning money for the family and it was now being pissed away on lawyers’ fees. Anybody who’s been through this – and there are plenty of us out there – will know how it feels. And it didn’t make any sense to me. I hated the fact that because of the legal system my relationship with my kids had been turned into a cash-for-access deal. Perhaps the thing that upset me most was when I was playing, to earn for the family, it would inevitably mean sometimes not being available on Saturdays and that might prejudice my chances of seeing the kids more frequently. I even felt angry about the fact that I was angry. Because this ain’t me – I’m not an angry man by nature. I might be screwy in some ways, but I like to think the best of people.
I wasn’t simply a virgin in the family courts, I was a headless chicken virgin. I was getting advice from family and friends and didn’t know who I could trust. I didn’t have a clue if people were telling me sensible stuff or whether I was being taken for a mug. When you receive huge invoices from solicitors, you question why you’re now spending all your money on this. But once you’re on that wheel, you can’t get off. My mind runs a hundred miles an hour at the best of times – I think the same way I pot balls: bang, bang, bang. And I had all these thoughts going through my head at the same time, and it was driving me crackers.
All the legal stuff began to get to me after I moved out and I was playing in the Regal Welsh. I thought, I don’t even want to be here. I got to the semis and thought, you know what, I’ve had enough, I just want to go home. I felt lost, lonely in myself, and I just gave up in matches. I never threw matches, and would never dream of throwing matches, but I did give up. There’s a big difference – one is planned, illegal and something I would never contemplate. The other is unplanned, and unconscious. It’s often only afterwards that you look back and think, blimey, what was I doing there?
I did it in the Regal Welsh in 2010 and in the China Open, which was straight after, then I did it against Mark Selby in the World Championship quarter-finals. I felt ready to win the Worlds that year, I was playing well enough, but then I just reached a stage where I couldn’t bear to be there any more. It was mad, really – there’s nothing that means more to me than winning the Worlds, and there I was desperate to get the hell out. I just gave up mentally and started going for shots I shouldn’t have gone for.
When we were due to go to China I said to my manager, Django: ‘I don’t feel up for it, mate. I really don’t feel I can get on that plane and travel across the world. I ain’t got it in me.’
He said: ‘Well, there’s twenty-five grand for you, there’s a sponsor there, you’ve just got to turn up, shake a few hands, meet a few people.’
So we got out to China and the people were amazing, and you’ve never seen anything like the hotel. It was the best hotel I’ve been in my life. They gave us the top-floor suite, and I just sat there every night crying my eyes out. I felt so lost, so fucking sad, and that’s when it hit me. I thought, I should be buzzing, I’ve got a little girl and little boy, I’m staying in a fantastic hotel, top of my game, and yet I’m out here, feeling like death.
I was playing this fella, just after I’d been crying my eyes out in this hotel. And I said to Django, I’ve got to get out of here. I was going to pull out of the event, and he said, if you pull out there will be murder. They’ll fine you heavily. So I said, alright. But I knew I was in no fit state for anything, and just wanted to get back home. I thought, maybe when I get out there it will be better, and playing will do the trick. But when I did get out there I just felt worse.
The geeza could barely pot a ball, but somehow it got to 3-3, then he went 4-3. I knew I couldn’t play another day. I was desperate, frightened about what I might do to myself. In the next frame I was clearing up, and I had the black on the spot and I missed. It was a shocking shot. Not only did I miss, but I left the ball over the pocket. Lily could have potted it. In the end the geeza beat me 5-3 and he was in shock, but I just thought, I’m out of here, I’m done. I got in the car, boom, went back to the hotel, got my flight back the next day.
People had always said about me that there were days when I looked as if I wasn’t up for it; that I just couldn’t be bothered. And there was some element of truth in it, but nothing like this.
I never once went out saying, today I’m going to get beat, but I began to realise something was up when I read in the papers that I hadn’t won a first-round match for six months. I lost the first round in six consecutive major events. First round! Six tournaments on the bounce, and I wasn’t conscious of it until six months later when people were talking about it and saying it was unheard of. It was only when I read it that I thought, bloody hell, what’s happened to me?
I was so down – upset with myself and the family situation and my terrible form – that I decided to change my life completely, so I bought a boat and went to live on it. I was at Sheffield, 2010, and things were bad between me and Jo, and I’d just been in China crying my eyes out. There’s a canal in Sheffield and I went on someone’s barge, and I thought, this is nice, this is what I need. So I bought myself a boat, spent about 80 grand on it, and moved into it. It only lasted three months. Typical, really. I sold it for about £60,000 so I lost a bit on that. Again, typical.
I lived on a canal in Hertfordshire, and for a while it was great. Peaceful, looking at the water, feeding the ducks in the morning. A little family of ducks would come to my window at 6 a.m. every day for feeding. I thought, wow, I’ve lost one family but gained another! These ducks were like my children. I named them Lily and Ronnie.
There were around 15 residents living in my spot. The only problem was they all had jobs, so they were out working and I was left on the canal all day. I’d wait for them to come home at 6 p.m. and then I’d have company. It was miles away in Hertfordshire and I didn’t really know anybody there. I suppose, as so often, I’d not really thought it through. In the days I’d go and run down the canal – I knew if I didn’t run I’d fall apart, and that was one of the reasons I’d moved on to the canal in the first place. There was a gym round the corner so I’d do my run then go to the gym and another half-hour there. I was in good shape, but I needed to be, and I still lost my way a bit.
A good measure of how much I’ve been running away from stuff is the number of houses I’ve lived in over the past seven years – eight, and a boat! I should do Homes Under the Hammer! If that’s not a reflection on how unstable my life has been, I don’t know what is.
Meanwhile, I was in the courts so often that one time the judge told me I might as well rent a room round there. (That would have taken it to nine houses!) We’d gone through the early stages where you tend to spend about an hour in court each time, but when it gets to final hearings for the maintenance and access it takes for ever. What I went through was horrible, but I’ve heard it’s pretty standard when a separation is acrimonious.
I ended up going to Families Need Fathers for help. I heard them on the radio, and thought they sounded sensible. I found out where the meeting was and went to hear what they had to say. When I spoke to the guy there, he said, what you’re going through is standard – fathers have no rights, that’s why there are organisations like ours. He was great – really helpful – and I still go to him for advice. But ultimately I didn’t feel Families Need Fathers was right for me, either – talking to the other dads tended to make me more angry, and what I really thought was, I need to start afresh rather than obsessing with the past.
I never told World Snooker what was happening in my private life, and I probably should have done. They might well have been more understanding. Instead, as far as they were concerned they had a prima donna on their hands – a liability who simply wasn’t turning up for tournaments. I got loads of disciplinary letters and was fined. Not surprising really – they must have been well pissed off with me.
At first it didn’t matter so much because the tournaments I wasn’t turning up for were minor events. I was thinking, my main goal has got to be building up my contact with my children, and I could only do that by being there for them at weekends, and that meant missing tournaments. If I didn’t do that every time I went to court I would worry it might count against me when I asked for more contact.
I stopped sleeping properly in 2010. The solicitors’ bills and demands were mounting up, and every time I opened a letter it was something threatening; if I wasn’t in court there’d be costs. And I just panicked. They gave me a form E to fill out, and it’s like a 40-page document with dozens of questions on each page. There were 350 questions I needed to answer just on one section. It did my nut in. Then they wanted to know every bank account I’d had, every mortgage I’d had, how many things I owned that cost more than £500, what holidays I went on, what pensions I had, who I owed money to, who owed money to me. They wanted to know everything.
An investigative accountant was hired to look into everything, and would come back and say things like, ‘What about this American Express card you’ve got?’ And this was a card that I couldn’t even remember having, and it turned out I’d made one transaction on it in two years. So they said, no, we need to see the full receipts on stuff you’ve purchased with it, and I’m like: ‘Well, I bought a couple of tickets on it once and that was that.’ Then they said: ‘What about this company you’ve got in China? We need to see the accounts for that.’ And I’m like, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Then I remembered I’d set up a company with my manager Django for some potential work in China, but the company didn’t do any trading. And they said, no, that isn’t good enough, we need to see the accounts. The whole thing terrified me. I was going bonkers with it all.
I feel I lost three years of my life to a court battle, and got so distracted from my job that it allowed competitors to walk over me. I’d go to tournaments, and I was so brittle – lonely, sad, all the emotions you don’t want to be feeling when you’re going to do battle at the big events. And the worse I played, the more sponsors lost faith in me and pulled out of deals. It was a lose-lose situation.
But one huge plus is that I’ve now got maximum contact – every other weekend Friday through to Monday – and every Wednesday Lily and little Ronnie stay overnight and I take them to school on Thursday. As a result I’ve got a much better relationship with my children. I want to be part of their life, and they’re great to be around. Little Ronnie and Lily make me laugh. Don’t get me wrong: they’re hard work, and parenting, especially single parenting, isn’t easy.
Both Jo and I have come to realise that. There were a couple of times we got back together and she did say to me: ‘Ah, it’s a lot easier when there are two of us doing it.’ And it was. But the fact is we aren’t temperamentally suited to each other. That doesn’t mean we can’t still work as a team, bring them up together, even when we are not actually together as a couple. We just have to be sensible about it. I hope we won’t resort to the courts again because it’s crippling – financially and emotionally. Lawyers are not good for the soul.
In February 2013 I decided I’d return to snooker for the World Championship. As well as being bored and missing it, the money issue was crucial. I’d never really had to think about money before because I’d always lived within my means, and had always had more than I needed to get by. So it was all stacking up, waiting for a rainy day. But with maintenance for little Ronnie and Lily and their school fees and maintenance for my older daughter, Taylor, I couldn’t afford not to play. I think I had a romantic idea that somehow if I didn’t have money life would be simpler and everybody would start helping each other. But I accept now that was naive. Not forgetting one other little factor – however much I moan about it, however pissed off I get with the game, I do love my snooker.