It was Thursday 12th March 2020, a fortnight before things got serious on the Covid front, when I was invited to the press launch of Q Shoreditch: a new pool club cum cocktail bar in a swish casino-style setting on East London's Tabernacle Street, as far removed as can be from the dingy snooker clubs I'm better used to.

I readily accepted the invite, being a life-long cuesports fan (blogged a few years ago about meeting Ronnie O'Sullivan, and tweeted only last week my Crucible ticket for the cancelled World Championship, and having to settle instead for a BBC rerun of an old Steve Davis match.)

Handily for me I was already in town that afternoon for a Puressential press conference at The Ivy (eat your heart out Alan Partridge) so was able to arrive early doors for the Shoreditch opening, which I also made sure of after finding out a certain six-time World Championship snooker finalist (and my mum's favourite ever player) was in attendance for the evening.

I recently interviewed Premier League pundit and retired striker Jason Roberts at his Foundation headquarters in hometown Stonebridge, for an article in The Independent on the fall and rise of the west London high school we both attended. With the initial education-related questions answered we were free to discuss all things football for the remainder of our one-hour meet, during which he opened up about his career highs and lows encompassing his eventful tenures at Wigan and Reading, scoring a winner at Highbury and almost signing for QPR. Faithfully transcribed below:


What would you say was the best goal you ever scored, or that you’re most proud of?

(Pause) A header for Reading against Southampton. (Clocks quizzical reaction) Exactly - a header, you think ‘really?’. If I scored more than five headers in my career that was a lot – it wasn’t the kind of goal I scored traditionally, and this one was purely on instinct. There was just something about the ball hitting you in the head or face that I never felt comfortable with.

There’s not that many of your goals on YouTube that aren’t jerky footage from the stands. Have you never thought of uploading some yourself or getting someone to?

I never have but now that you mention it! There are a couple on my official website. But I’m proud of my goalscoring record, to have scored at every level. And when you’re the lone striker in a 4-5-1 for a Premier League side who’s relatively, you know - survival is the priority? If you score double figures you’ve done incredibly well. Many times I sacrificed my goalscoring record for the team.

To mark Ronnie’s latest Crucible final appearance, this is a short video I knocked up of his record fastest-ever maximum break at the 1997 World Championship pared down to only the shots without thinking time so it seamlessly unspools at half the time of its original 5:20. 

It’s one of a few remix/mashups I’ve made during downtime over the past couple of months, primarily because more of the positions I’ve been applying for require basic video editing and creativity in that area, but also, as in any branch of art, because it’s quite fun bringing conceived ideas into being and ready for broadcast within a matter of hours. And ever rising YouTube view counts are always good for the former. (Some of my Britpop-movie mashups here).

I met Ronnie exactly 10 years ago, while covering the 'Pot Whack' snooker boxing match between Mark King & Quinten Hann in East London. For all his faults his heart's in the right place I've always said, even though his head's often all over the shop. 

He's threatened to quit so many times over the years but never does, and now looks like the only player who'll ever beat Stephen Hendry's 7 world titles record. Will be a disappointment for the sport and its fans if he retires before doing so.

(postscript: after losing the final to Mark Selby he's gonna have to wait another year for #6...)


links: my biggest break + snooker moth incident

For my first blog post I thought I’d recount the bizarre turnaround I experienced a few weeks ago after losing my wallet, with a good moral to the story.

I’d met two mates at a busy Shepherds Bush pub for a rushed pint before the QPR-Barnsley game, and basically left my wallet on my chair, realising only when approaching the stadium almost a mile away. 

With only minutes til kickoff, rather than leg it all the way back I quickly googled and rang the pub to ask with clenched hope if a kind soul had handed it in. The bar manager I spoke to went to check and returned a minute later with the inevitable shitty news: no, and it was nowhere to be seen at the pinpointed table and chairs. 

As ever with a lost wallet it’s not so much the cash loss that grates most but the bank cards, driving licence and in my case a recently topped-up Oystercard and return rail ticket. So I wasn’t a happy chappy as I took my seat at kickoff, the usual matchday atmosphere lost on me. As I didn't want to wait til HT to cancel my card in case someone went to town on it I had a surreal mid-match conversation with a call-centre clerk from my seat as thousands bellowed and cursed around me.

QPR tried their best to worsen the afternoon, not the team but the usual supporters’ bar shambles which makes you queue from almost 10mins before HT until the 2nd half whistle for just a beer (why not pour them en masse before HT like at music festivals instead of individually per order when hundreds arrive at once?)

Thankfully the team won 2-0 – a defeat would’ve been the last straw. But the walletless cloud lingered and I was no longer up for the planned post-match session. On a whim I swung by the earlier pub before hitting the underground to ask if anyone had handed it in since – nope, sorry – so as a last throw I returned to our previous table for a final scan.

Unbelievably the wallet was there, exactly where I’d left it, camouflaged against the chair leather. The table occupants who’d been unwittingly sitting beside it for the previous two hours couldn’t believe it when I picked it up with incredulous laughter then summarised the story for them. The relief rush was tempered by slight anger though as I returned to the bar and waved it pointedly at the manager who’d supposedly had a search – it had been camouflaged to the incognisant drinker’s eye but would’ve revealed itself to anyone looking with purpose.

Anyway, with it retrieved and spirits instantly lifted I reinstated the evening's drinking plans with renewed gusto and was duly a mess by 10pm when I called it a night. The hangover though wasn’t half as painful as it could’ve been. 

​Moral: if you leave something in a pub, go back and look for it with your own eyes. Some people are fuckin' blind.