Taking a Punt on My Life

Willie Thorne: I was asked to fix snooker match
by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

SNOOKER legend Willie Thorne has revealed he was once asked to fix a match – and claims that the sport is still battling against corruption.

The green baize star was one of the most famous players in the world during the game’s heyday in the 1980s, winning 14 tournament titles.

But he lost a staggering £1.5 million after becoming addicted to gambling, an addiction that later led him to try to take his own life.

Now in a candid interview Willie, from Leicester, has told how he was once asked to throw a game for cash – and suspects other opponents may have been corrupt.

“Match fixing’s always been part of snooker, and I don’t know how you can stamp it out,’’ said the player known as Mr Maximum because of his record number of 147s.

“I was offered to go bent once in a match in the Benson & Hedges championship. But, even at my lowest ebb, I would never have given in to that.

“There have always been games that you knew the result of before they began, everyone in snooker did – and I know that a couple of my matches were bent from the start.”

Last year three-time world champion John Higgins, 36, was cleared of match-fixing.

The Scot had been targeted in a newspaper ‘sting’ when he appeared to agree to accept cash for deliberately losing frames for a Russian gambling syndicate.

The current world champ was later cleared by an independent tribunal on match fixing after claiming he had been intimidated into making the offer by the ‘gangsters’.

But Higgins was fined £75,000 and handed a six-month suspension for breaking rules over discussing betting and for failing to report an approach from a would-be corruptor.

Willie, 57, claims there have been other snooker matches, not involving Higgins, which have raised suspicions.

The BBC commentator said: “There was a match a few years ago where everybody in snooker knew what the score was going to be.

“That was when the balloon went up. Everyone said ‘Wait a minute, there’s something wrong here’.

‘‘But the problem has been here for years. There’s so much underworld gambling these days, and so many ways you can gamble, that I don’t think the authorities could ever stop it.

“It’s just too easy to do and too easy to cover your tracks, so I don’t know whether they could ever stamp it out.”

Gambling is something Willie knows all about, having battled a secret addiction that almost destroyed him.

He recalled: ‘‘The worst loss I ever had was £38,000 on one snooker match between John Parrott and Ken Doherty in 1996.

‘‘I had been tipped off that John had lost his cue, so I was sure he would lose – but he won.

“I was actually commentating on that match.

‘‘It was one of the worst feelings of my life, watching that happen in front of me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My heart just sank.

“At one point I was earning about £10,000 per week – and gambling the same amount each week.’’

Snooker players earned millions during the golden years of the sport, when top names like Steve Davis, Alex Higgins and Jimmy White attracted record TV audiences.

Twice-married Willie was a regular in the Top 16 for more than a decade, but when his snooker career ended in the 1990s the money problems started.

Before long the dad-of-three was in debt to violent gangsters.

“Suddenly, I was not Willie Thorne the snooker player anymore and the work dried up,’’ he said.

“I had no guaranteed income and yet I was betting like I used to when I did. It was madness really and I made some huge mistakes.

“I borrowed money off the wrong people, from loan sharks, and at my lowest point I knew I didn’t have the money to pay them back and D-Day to pay them back was rapidly approaching.

“I could not see any way out and I knew they would get a little bit naughty if I did not pay them back. But somehow I managed to in the end.

“The whole thing left me so ashamed, I had let everybody down. I was embarrassed with myself I hated myself, I really did.”

His secret double life was taking its toll, culminating in Willie trying to kill himself in September 2002.

He explained: “On the outside I was this happy-go-lucky character and I’d play that role very well.

‘‘But as soon as I got back to my house and was on my own I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was what a fool I had been over the years and how much money I’d wasted.

“That is the thing about earning a lot of money and gambling. You think you can control it. You don’t worry about it like you should, and then suddenly overnight it creeps up on you, your career ends and you have nothing left.

“I suffered from depression on a daily basis for years and I must have thought about killing myself 300 times.

“I just knew that one day I was going to do it, I knew a sticky end would come and I was just waiting for that moment. And, sure enough, it came.

“I thought this is it, took a load of sleeping pills and went to sleep.

‘‘I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d let so many people down; my mother, who I had loaned money off, my first wife and my children.

‘‘I hated myself and still do, to be honest. I am a coward and that was the coward’s way out.

“To this day I don’t know how I survived because I took enough tablets to do the job. But somehow I woke up in a hospital bed 24 hours later.

“Believe me, it wasn’t a cry for help – I wanted out.’’

And Willie, currently promoting a new autobiography, Taking a Punt on My Life, fears many other sportsmen are secretly battling gambling addictions.

“I genuinely hope that I might help other sportsmen out there who have this problem with gambling,’’ he said.

“The reason is because so many of them are so good at hiding it, just like I was.

‘‘I reckon that for everyone who has come out and admitted a problem there will be 30 others desperately hiding it, feeling ashamed and doing whatever they can to cover it up.

“And I was not even a compulsive gambler. I didn’t HAVE to gamble, I just thought I could, and that my money would never end. I didn’t think of the consequences.

“I would say to these people if you must gamble, gamble, but within strict limits. Because no matter who you are it will get you. It always comes and gets you in the end.”

Post snooker, trick shot specialist Willie has enjoyed a successful career on TV with shows like Give Us a Break and more recently Strictly Come Dancing.

He is currently married to former Miss Great Britain, Jill Saxby, who he met at the 1994 World Championships.

‘‘If there is such a thing as love at first sight, then it happened to me that night,’’ he said.

‘‘It might have taken me a while but I knew at last I’d found the perfect woman for me.

‘‘I knew I was lucky to have found her then – and that feeling has only strengthened in the years since.’’

Taking a Punt on My Life is published by Vision Sports, priced £18.99