Reap the whirlwind - Jimmy White interview

Having kicked drugs, drink, gambling and women, Jimmy White tells Richard Bath he's rediscovered his love of snooker

YOU CAN come through anything if you retain your sense of humour and perspective, says Jimmy White, and he should know. He's endured bankruptcy, cancer, a drink-driving conviction, arrest for possession of Class A drugs and marital strife. He's overcome addictions to gambling, women, fags and booze. He's seen both his parents and his beloved brother Martin die. His hair transplant operation went wrong and his bull-terrier Splinter was dognapped and ransomed. He was even thwarted in his attempt to change his name by deed-poll to James
Brown so he could be sponsored by HP Sauce.

Jimmy "The Whirlwind" White can cope with the extraordinary, it's the ordinary which is a struggle. Which is why the next few days will be a trial to be endured rather than enjoyed. For this week the George Best of snooker finds himself at a largely deserted Pontin's in Prestatyn. From tomorrow until Thursday he will be confined to a cubicle where he will do battle with his fellow would-be qualifiers for next month's Royal London Watches grand prix at Glasgow's SECC.

It's some comedown for one of the most popular figures in snooker. White is, after all, the Cockney legend who has made six world championship finals, losing all of them and establishing himself in the popular imagination as comfortably the most talented player never to have won the world crown. But these days he languishes at 65th in the world and is spending far more time than he'd like in North Wales.

Yet the 46-year-old grandfather isn't about to jack it all in just yet. He's had fun "setting fire to six million quid", but wants one last shot before deciding whether it's time to give up on the game which has defined him.

"It's very difficult because every sportsman has to come to the end of his career," said White, "but I feel like I know that I still have the game so I can't put down my cue, not yet. I love to go and do exhibitions, I love travelling, and I love playing once I get there. I feel I'm capable of playing to a good standard. The belief is still there.

"People say that I'm the best player never to have won the world championship but I've won 10 ranking tournaments and 27 invitational tournaments. I wasn't exactly an early-to-bed person so I've done really well. As a kid my ambition was to be a snooker player so I'm living the dream. I still love the click of the balls and the noise around the table. I love this game and my passion for it is still there. As long as I still love the game and people still want to come and see me play then I'll carry on."

And people do still want to watch him. At the last bout of qualifying, when he won three games to make it to the Northern Ireland Open, virtually every one of the 100-odd spectators turned up to see The Whirlwind. The problem for White is that virtually all of them turned up hoping to see him lose. "All the other guys in qualifying are right up for beating me," he says. "For many of them this is the biggest match they'll ever have, so they bring their A game every time. They also bring their families: we play in very small cubicles with room for 30 spectators, so that usually means my friend and driver plus 28 of the other guy's friends and family. If I don't get myself out of there (qualifying] this year I might just go off and play golf."

Despite his obsessive love of the links, that still seems unlikely. Snooker has been his life since the age of 11 when he became a habitual truant from the Ernest Bevin Comprehensive in Earlsfield, South London. His hours of study came at the Pot Black Club in nearby Clapham, where he and childhood friend Tony Meo honed their skills. At the age of 13 his headmaster Mr Beattie offered him a deal: come to school in the morning and he could play snooker all afternoon. By the age of 15 he was "earning fortunes, so much money we didn't know what to do with it" as they travelled the South East taking local champions to the cleaners. For three years he raked in "bundles of it" but he'd just give 90% to his mum and go gambling with the rest of it.

It was the beginning of a gambling habit that became all-consuming. "I was compulsive," he says. "In one day it would be dogs, then horses, then cards, then casinos. I was a binge gambler and I only stopped when I went skint, which I did a few times." From 20 to 30 he played snooker mainly to make money to gamble. Often he'd lose the money so quickly he couldn't get home. When he lost the 1994 world championship to Hendry in particularly traumatic circumstances, he went straight out and blew the prize money of £128,000 at the bookies.

However, television hypnotist Paul McKenna has "helped cure me of drugs, drink, gambling, smoking and women" and White has begun conquering his demons in his own inimitable style. He lost his club in Richmond when he went bankrupt but now has a stake in the unfeasibly smart Royal Surrey Snooker Club in Morden in London's deep south. It nestles between a bookies and a pub, but White gets enough action inside the club which doubles as a poker club that hosts the monthly "Jimmy White Freeze-out" poker sessions where 64 punters pay £500 each to gamble all night with the great man.

White has become something of a poker aficionado. He even won the inaugural Poker Millions Masters tournament in London, starting as one of six celebrity makeweights and beating 30 of the best professionals in Britain to win the first prize of $150,000. He and Steve Davis, who also made it to the final, saw off the Hendon Mob, an elite group of full-time players which includes Joe "The Elegance" Beevers, Tony "The Lizard" Bloom, Bruce "Elvis" Atkinson and "Barmy" Barney Boatman when they got there.

Not that White has any shortage of friends. He is particularly close to Priory habituee and Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, and to Ronnie O'Sullivan. "The Rocket" may play with the whipcrack verve of White and Alex Higgins, the other two members of snooker's holy trinity, but O'Sullivan is a different beast, a dedicated athlete who runs 50 miles a week and can run sub-four-minute miles. In a neat inversion of the expected relationship, he provides a role model and mentor for White, trying to wean him off biryanis and onto salads.

It's very different from White's heyday, when six-day benders with Higgins starting in Dublin's Gresham Hotel were commonplace. In fact, White's whole life was one long bender, occasionally with hilarious consequences. When he lost his brother Martin to cancer, the night before the funeral got out of hand and when the family's bar bill hit £4,600 Jimmy became obsessed with repatriating his brother and taking him on one last pub crawl.

So Jimmy broke into the undertakers and took Martin on one last night out. Five hours later a taxi driver twigged and the police became involved, although at first the driver just said "he don't look too well Jimmy".

The non-stop partying undoubtedly prevented White becoming world champion. "When I was drinking I'd only go to bed when the laughing stopped but the problem was that I always had such a good time that the laughing went on all night. I'd find places that gangsters couldn't get to open. I had that knack of getting landlords and nightclub owners to open or to stay open. It was carnage but I had a good time."

These days Jimmy is older, wiser and poorer. He practises all day, sees his son at dinnertime and plays poker every evening. But he also retains a burning desire to prove he can still cut it. "My addiction is snooker now, but I don't just want to play, I want to compete. I have that dying ambition, not necessarily to win the world championship but to get up there and give it one more big shot."

Does he, I ask, regret the way his career panned out?

"Of course I wish I'd done things differently, but you can't go back and change things to the way you wanted them to turn out. Then again if I'd been a bit more focused then maybe I'd have put my cue away six or seven years ago, like Stephen Hendry did. But I've got no complaints: I've had a fantastic life, I've met fantastic people, and I like to think I'll be remembered."

He has no worries on that score.

WHITE'S WORLD FINALS

1984: lost to Steve Davis 18-16

White trailed Davis 12-4, fought back, but eventually lost by two frames

1990: lost to Stephen Hendry 18-12

White couldn't stop Hendry becoming the youngest ever world champion

1991: lost to John Parrott 18-11

Parrott's sole world title success came at the expense of White

1992: lost to Stephen Hendry 18-14

Despite leading 12-6 and 14-8, White lost after Hendry won a 10-frame streak

1993: lost to Stephen Hendry 18-5

White suffered the second heaviest reverse in a final in the modern era

1994: lost to Stephen Hendry 18-17

Agonising. White led the deciding frame 37-24 then missed an easy black off its spot