Jude Collins

Monday 26 July 2010

Alas, poor Alex...

Embassy World Snooker Chamnpionships Sheffield 1986 Alex Higgins who died today (24/07/2010) aged 61 after a long battle with throat cancer. World Champion in 1972 and 1982 Higgins blamed the cigarette manufacturers who sponsored the sport for his illness Photo Roger Parker Fotosports International Photo via Newscom
I recall seeing Alex Higgins in the flesh, as they say, on two occasions. The first was about eight years ago on a flight to England. He sat at the front, spoke briefly to someone who came looking for an autograph and looked like a seriously ill man. The second was about two months ago, as I passed his pub in Sandy Row. He was standing outside it, listening to another man, and looked even more frail than the first time I saw him. Given his once-fiery temperament, it was like a memento mori to see him on both occasions – a reminder that just beneath the skin, for all of us, lies a grinning skull.

I can’t say I liked the man - he lacked the boyish charm of George Best, with whom he was often compared. Best too burnt his life out early with drink and women. And there’s a violence link as well: Higgins told Coalisland-man Dennis Taylor that he would have him shot, and Best is reputed to have beaten his wife. But while, no matter what you heard of him, it was hard to dislike Best, it was always fairly easy to recoil just a little from Higgins.

He was found dead, we’re told, alone in his flat in Sandy Row. Maybe, unlike Best, he stayed too close to his roots, too close to an out-dated culture that told him being a man meant being a brawler, a boozer, someone with a whiff of the vicious. For all that it’s sad to see the gifted spark which lit up snooker world for a decade and more finally quenched. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam - May he rest in peace.

4 comments:

  1. 曹季恩曹季恩 - you know the point you're making, but do most of my other readers? And then there's me...

    ReplyDelete
  2. looks like porno spam to me, jude

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nobody knows the truth. The only thing we can do is to find a lesson in his death for ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  4. A lot of new learned for themselves, even outlook has changed. Reading your articles start to look at people, relationships, and the overall situation is different.

    ReplyDelete