Many of the sport hungry viewers joining ITV for eleven days of famine breaking live-action from June 1st will assume that the Championship League is a brand new concept. Think again.

By Phil Yates 

Since it began on an unseasonably mild and sunny day in late February 2008, this exclusively behind closed doors event, broadcast online around the world, has produced untold drama, still unbroken records, outstanding performances, and snooker firsts.

Phil Yates

The brainchild of Barry Hearn – pre-dating his reign as WST chairman – was put into operation by two of his invaluable lieutenants at Matchroom Sport, Sharron Tokley, and Luke Riches, beginning life in the grandly named baronial hall at Crondon Park Golf Club in rural Essex.

Two tables were installed end to end in a room that normally hosted weddings and, after just a few days of competition, it became apparent that tournament and venue were themselves a marriage made in heaven.

Back then, prior to the utterly transformative, unthinkably successful Hearn Revolution, professional snooker had soul-destroying gaps in its threadbare calendar. Understandably, the players were clamoring for more opportunities to exhibit their skills, and Championship League proved the ultimate nice little Header.

Kicking things off behind the microphone were Clive Everton, David Hendon, and yours truly. The somewhat cramped location used for commentating on table one was fit for purpose but calling the shots on table two literally required a visit to the loo.

Space was so limited, the only spot on which to perch laptop and/or notes was the actual toilet, with cover down of course. I know what you are thinking, the perfect setting for so much verbal diarrhoea. Guilty as charged.

Battling away in that trailblazing seven-man opening group were two world champions, Mark Williams and Ken Doherty, and five others who now have ranking titles on their c.v. Joe Perry, Ali Carter, Ryan Day, Matthew Stevens and Barry Hawkins.

Marco Fu won the title in 2010

Day won the group, Perry was the inaugural overall champion, beating Mark Selby 3-1 in the final, but perhaps the chief beneficiary was Carter, the ultimate Championship League stalwart, who after taking part in seven consecutive groups and making 13 centuries, arrived at the Crucible razor-sharp and duly reached the World Championship final.

At his press conference, after beating Perry 17-15 in the semi-finals, I asked Ali what role the Championship League had played in his run to snooker’s highest-profile match. “It was massive. I can’t tell you just how important. I came here feeling better prepared and more confident than ever before,” he insisted.

As the mass interview broke up, several of the reporters asked me with a bewildered look, ‘What’s this Championship League, then.’ I answered with the relevant information but could just as easily have told them it was one of the most enjoyable events I’ve ever had the privilege of being involved with.

Judd Trump has now captured 27 professional titles. Although he won the 2008 Masters qualifying event, his breakthrough triumph in an event featuring the tour’s cream was the 2009 Championship League.

Shining a bright light on his even brighter potential, Trump rallied from 2-1 down to beat Selby 3-2 in the Winner’s Group final, coming out on top in a vintage tournament which, that year, attracted such cross-generation titans as Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Ding Junhui and Neil Robertson.

A confirmed Championship League devotee, Trump returned to Crondon Park and lifted the trophy twice more, in 2014 and 2016, on the latter occasion edging Ronnie O’Sullivan 3-2. O’Sullivan fired in a couple of tons during that pulsating contest but didn’t pot a ball in the decider as Trump, thanks primarily to a run of 73, got the last laugh.

The move to the Ricoh Arena was a boon for John Higgins. His wife, Denise, twice sent him to Coventry and on both occasions John returned north of the border clutching the spoils, becoming the only player to successfully defend the title.

Scott Donaldson is the current champion

Last year, Martin Gould emulated Trump and Higgins as the event’s third multiple winner while the title holder is Scott Donaldson, who beat fellow Scot Graeme Dott 3-0 in the final at another new venue, Leicester’s Morningside Arena, back in March, shortly before lockdown.
It is fair to say that few champions have been required to defend so swiftly.

The opening afternoon at Milton Keynes will deliver the 2,500th match in Championship League history. Inevitably, such a bulk of snooker has generated some extraordinary feats, topped by Neil Robertson in 2014.

Remarkably, even though he was eliminated in Group Five, the heavy scoring Australian constructed 22 century breaks, a record for most centuries by one player in a single event which, unsurprisingly, remains intact.

Martin Gould is a two-time winner

That laid the foundation for Robertson’s 103 centuries during the 2013/14 campaign, another unprecedented albeit more vulnerable total given Trump’s blistering pace before the current season was so disappointingly suspended.

There have been nine 147s in Championship League annals, including the 147th maximum compiled in professional competition, by David Gilbert against Stephen Maguire last year.

In January 2017, Mark Davis entered break-building nirvana during a Group Three meeting with Robertson and, seven weeks later, replicated those heroics against John Higgins in the Winner’s Group. By doing so, Davis became the first, and still only player, to make a pair of 147s in the same professional tournament.

Occasionally on tour, small fortunes have been pocketed for particularly well-timed maximums. When Fergal O’Brien compiled his, would you believe against Mark Davis, at Crondon Park in 2016, he received £500, the relatively modest amount awarded to the highest break maker in each group that year.

Fergal O'Brien

And yet, I’m convinced no player before or since has ever derived such deep-seated, purely Corinthian pleasure from membership of the 147 clubs. The priceless expression on Fergal’s face when the final black found its target was one of undiluted joy, the look of a perfectionist who had found the Holy Grail.

I was commentating, solo, on that match and the immediate aftermath of the O’Brien max was one of my most enjoyable moments behind the microphone. Other gigs at the Championship League were unforgettable for less positive reasons.

One year at Crondon our commentary boxes were perched inside the rear of a pantechnicon. The show went on when a nasty storm rolled in, wind speeds hit 60 mph and our position was precariously rocked and rolled. That, though, wasn’t the worse of it.

Another season down at Crondon our boxes were outside in mid-winter. It was a tad chilly but an undoubted upgrade on the lorry until a Polar Vortex blizzard of epic proportions that snowed many in for the night, Marco Fu among them, left us commentators dithering. Technically, our pictures didn’t freeze, but we did.

That will not be an issue in the hermetically sealed, air-conditioned splendor of the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. Thanks to ITV and the undying ingenuity and drive of Mr. Hearn, the good old Championship League is about to be radically transformed.
Now, I’m not just happy to be involved, I’m proud.

Source: World Snooker