Steve Davis
Steve Davis is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, DJ, electronic musician and author. He first turned professional in 1978 and dominated the sport in the 1980s, when he reached eight World Snooker Championship finals in nine years, won six world titles and held the world number one ranking for seven consecutive seasons. He also won the UK Championship six times and the Masters three times for a total of 15 Triple Crown titles, placing him third all time. He won a total of 28 ranking titles during his career, placing him fifth on the all-time list. He is the only snooker player to have won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, which he received in 1988. He was made an MBE in the 1988 Birthday Honours and elevated to OBE in the 2000 New Year Honours.
Davis became widely known for his role in one of snooker's most famous matches, the 1985 World Championship final. Then the defending champion, he led Dennis Taylor 9–1 in the best-of-35-frame final, but Taylor recovered to tie the scores at 11–11, 15–15 and 17–17. The 68-minute deciding frame ended in a dramatic battle on the last black ball that attracted 18.5 million viewers in the UK, still the largest British television audience for any broadcast after midnight and any broadcast on BBC Two. Taylor potted the black to win the only world title of his career. Davis's terse responses in post-match interviews became the basis for a recurring caricature on the satirical British television show Spitting Image, which gave him the sardonic nickname "Interesting".
Davis was the first player to make an officially recognised maximum break in professional competition, which he achieved at the 1982 Classic, and was also the first to earn £1 million in career prize money. During the 1987–88 season, he became the first player to win all three Triple Crown events in a single season, a feat that only two other players have matched. He won his last major title at the 1997 Masters, aged 39, but continued to compete at a high level and was still a top-16 ranked player at age 50. He made the last of his 30 Crucible appearances in 2010, aged 52, becoming the oldest world quarter-finalist since 1983. He retired at the end of the 2015–16 season, after 38 seasons on the professional tour, but remains active as a commentator and analyst for the BBC's snooker coverage.
Outside snooker, Davis competed in nine-ball pool tournaments, which included representing Europe in the Mosconi Cup eleven consecutive times between 1994 and 2004. A keen chess and poker player, he served as president of the British Chess Federation between 1996 and 2001 and competed in televised poker tournaments. In 2013, he featured as a contestant on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, an ITV reality television series. A fan of progressive rock, he has an ongoing career as a radio broadcaster, club DJ and musician; with Kavus Torabi and Michael J. York, he co-founded the electronic music band the Utopia Strong, with which he has recorded several albums. He has authored and co-authored books on snooker, chess, cooking and music, as well as three autobiographies.
Career
Early career (1970–1979)
Davis was born on 22 August 1957 in Plumstead, London, the elder of two boys; Keith being his younger brother. Davis's father Bill, a keen player, introduced him to snooker at the age of 12 and took him to play at his local working men's club. Bill gave Steve an instructional book: How I Play Snooker by the unrelated Joe Davis. They studied the book, Davis later basing his technique on it during the 1970s. He began playing at the Lucania Snooker Club in Romford. The club manager brought his talent to the attention of Barry Hearn when Davis was 18 and Hearn became his friend and manager. Paid £25 a match by Hearn, Davis toured the United Kingdom and participated in challenge matches against established professionals such as Ray Reardon, John Spencer and Alex Higgins. Around this time he was nicknamed "Nugget" because, according to Hearn, "you could put your case of money on him and you knew you were going to get paid."Davis won the English Under-19 Billiards Championship in 1976. One of his last wins as a snooker amateur was against Tony Meo, another future professional, in the final of the 1978 Pontins Spring Open. He defended his title a year later, defeating future rival Jimmy White 7–4 in the final. Davis applied in 1978 to become a professional and was initially rejected, before being accepted with effect from 17 September 1978, becoming the youngest of the professional players. He made his professional television debut on Pot Black, where he played against Fred Davis. He played in his first World Snooker Championship in 1979, having won two qualifying matches, but lost 11–13 to Dennis Taylor in the first round proper.
Early success (1980–1984)
At the 1980 World Snooker Championship he reached the quarter-finals, defeating Patsy Fagan and defending champion Terry Griffiths before losing to Alex Higgins 9–13. He won his first major title that year, the 1980 UK Championship, beating Griffiths 9–0 in the semi-finals and Higgins 16–6 in the final. After winning his first title, he won the Wilson's Classic in 1980, the Yamaha Organs and English Professional in 1981, and was the bookmakers' favourite to win the 1981 World Snooker Championship despite being seeded 13th. Davis reached the final by defeating White in the first round, Higgins in the second round, Griffiths in the quarter-finals and defending champion Cliff Thorburn in the semi-final. In the final, he won 18–12 against Doug Mountjoy to take his first world championship.Davis completed a 9–0 whitewash victory over Dennis Taylor in the International Open final and retained the UK Championship with a 16–3 win over Griffiths in the final, winning five events in 1981. On Monday 11 January 1982, Davis compiled the first televised maximum break at the Classic at Queen Elizabeth Hall in Oldham against John Spencer. As Lada were sponsoring the event, they offered Davis a car for completing the break. He reached the final, but lost 8–9 to Griffiths in the final. However, later that month Davis defeated Griffiths 9–5 in the Masters final, to win his first title.
His 18-month period of dominance ended at the 1982 World Snooker Championship, where he lost 1–10 to Tony Knowles in the first round. Despite this, he finished the season as the world number one for the first time. Davis lost to Griffiths in the quarter-finals of the 1982 UK Championship later that year. After those two defeats, he won the World Doubles Championship with partner Tony Meo. He overcame Thorburn 18–6 in the 1983 World Snooker Championship, regaining the title with a in the final. Davis led 7–0 against Higgins in the 1983 UK Championship final, but lost on a 15–16. At the 1984 World Snooker Championship, he was the first player to retain his title at the Crucible Theatre – the event's venue since 1977 – by defeating Jimmy White 18–16 in the final, winning his third world championship. Davis also won the 1984 UK Championship, beating Higgins 16–8 in the final.
1985 World Snooker Championship
At the 1985 World Snooker Championship, Davis defeated Neal Foulds, David Taylor, Griffiths and Reardon en route to the championship final, where his opponent was Dennis Taylor. Davis won all of the frames in the first, and the first of the evening, to lead 8–0 but Taylor recovered to trail 7–9. Taylor levelled the match for the first time at 11–11; after Davis took the lead again, Taylor fought back a second time from 12–15 to level at 15–15 and a third time from 15–17 to 17–17, forcing a deciding frame. With the scores close, Taylor potted the final to leave the. With Davis leading 62–59 in the frame at that point, the player who potted the black ball would win the championship. After several failed attempts to pot it by each player, Taylor potted the ball to win the title. The final was watched by 18.5 million viewers, setting all-time records for BBC Two and for a post-midnight audience on British television. The final, later called the "black ball final", was voted the ninth-greatest sporting moment of all time in a 2002 Channel 4 poll; Davis's disbelief and Taylor's triumphant, pointing finger have been replayed many times on television.Later World Snooker Championship victories (1985–1989)
Davis and Taylor met again in the final of the 1985 Grand Prix, but this time Davis won in a deciding frame. At 10 hours 21 minutes, it was the longest one-day final in snooker history. Davis trailed Willie Thorne 8–13 in the 1985 UK Championship final. Thorne missed a off the spot, which would have given him a 14–8 lead; Davis won the frame and seven of the next eight to win 16–14. Davis also won the 1986 British Open, with a 12–7 win over Thorne. At the 1986 World Championship, Davis defeated White 13–5 in the quarter-finals and Thorburn 16–12 in the semi-finals. His opponent in the final was Joe Johnson, who started the tournament as an outsider to win, with odds of 150–1. Davis lost the match, 12–18. At the end of 1986, he beat Foulds 16–7 to retain the 1986 UK Championship.Davis began 1987 by winning the Classic 13–12 against defending champion Jimmy White. At the 1987 World Snooker Championship, he defeated Griffiths 13–5 in the quarter-final and White 16–11 in the semi-final. Meeting Johnson again in the final, he established a 14–10 lead after three sessions. Johnson reduced Davis's lead to 14–13, but Davis took four of the next five frames to win the match 18–14 and regain the title, his fourth world championship. In December he retained his UK title with a 16–14 win against White in the final. Davis retained the Classic in 1988 before claiming his second Masters title: in the final he completed a 9–0 whitewash of Mike Hallett, the only such result in the event's history. He also won the World Cup with England and secured his fourth Irish Masters title. In that year's World Championship Davis defeated Hallett 13–1, Tony Drago 13–4 and Thorburn 16–8 en route to the final, where he met Griffiths. Davis established a 5–2 lead after the first session, but Griffiths levelled at 8–8 after the second. On the second day of the match, Davis took ten out of thirteen frames to win his fifth world title 18–11.
He won the first ranking event of the 1988–89 snooker season, a 12–6 victory over White in the International Open. During the same match, Davis became the first player to make three consecutive century breaks in a major tournament. In October, he won the Grand Prix final 10–6 against Alex Higgins and held the World, UK, Masters, Grand Prix, Classic and Irish Masters titles simultaneously. His four-year unbeaten run in the UK Championship ended in December with a 3–9 semi-final loss to Hendry. Davis did not win another major title until the 1989 World Championship, where he beat Hendry 16–9 in the semi-finals before the most decisive victory in a world final of the modern era: an 18–3 win against John Parrott, for his sixth world championship. He retained the Grand Prix in October, beating Dean Reynolds 10–0 in the final – the first whitewash in a ranking-event final. By the end of the 1980s, Davis was snooker's first millionaire.