Fazzinchi

It’s Just Not Cricket

I was flicking between channels at the weekend and caught a little of the UK Snooker Championships on BBC2, well, about ten minutes if I’m honest.  I fell out of love with snooker many years ago (much the same as many people it would seem) and I now barely keep an eye on any of the tournaments or results.  It’s odd to think that this was such a popular television sport here in the UK so (relatively) recently but I guess, as the pace of televsision in general has quickened then the capacity for this kind of event to entertain a casual viewer has diminished somewhat.  It brought to mind the series of sketches in the latest That Mitchell and Webb Show series with the commentators stuck in the booth talking nonsense for hours on end as a tedious frame after frame was played out in front of them.  However, a little channel hopping later and I stumbled across the Mosconi Cup coverage on Sky.   Pool is essentially the same game game as snooker… cue, cue ball, potting the colours, etc. but with one distinct difference: it’s good fun to watch.  The frames can be over in minutes (in fact you can win off the break), the crowd are whipped into a frenzy to create an electric atmosphere and there are some larger than life personalities on show.  The Mosconi Cup is probably the finest example, running along golf’s Ryder Cup model, the USA take on Europe with a point of offer for each match, the difference being it the USA that generally has a stranglehold over the cup.  Here again, Europe managed to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory allowing the Americans to retain the trophy.  Organisers, Barry Hearn’s Matchroom Sports, must be delighted with the product on offer, it could just do with a little more publicity or fanfare.

Tags: bbc2, Matchroom, Mitchell-and-Webb, Mosconi-Cup, Pool, SkySports, Snooker, Sport

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Sport . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.