Steiner and the Hypnotic Cue

CHAPTER 9 The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Training with Stephen Hendry was great. As was staying in the Gleneagles Hotel. David Noble covered the bill at the Gleneagles. We knew he was serious when he started forking out cash like this.

Who could have imagined that in just a few weeks I had gone from being a rubbish pool player to training with the best snooker player of all time? Sandwiched in the middle was my crushing defeat of the best player in Fife—David Noble, who was now paying for my room at the Gleneagles.

Even better, I wasn’t thinking about anything other than snooker.

It wasn’t all great. Auchterarder was a bit boring—too much like Aberdour. In the day I trained with Hendry at his house, and in the evening, Scott, David Noble and I played snooker to pass the time. The two of them also took time out and travelled back to see their families.

Scott was a pretty good player and beat Noble in a couple of games. There was no money on the table. Perhaps ‘The Boy Noble’ couldn’t put his heart into it when there was no money on offer.

Hendry taught me how to snooker opponents; how to get out of snookers; how to read the game; how to angle shots off cushions; how to come back from disasters. He explained over and over again about the need to stay focused and concentrate for the whole match.

He saved the best till last, of course—how to get a 147 break. The idea is quite simple: just pot a red and set it up to pot the black. Multiply this 15 times, pot the colours and then the final black: voila—147—as easy as that!

So guess what I did? Yes, I started notching up 147 breaks. Eight in two days to be exact.

It was going so well, I lost track of the days. So did Stephen. His wife, Mandy, didn’t. She was getting fed up with it all. At one point she said,  “Do you not think you  should play a few games with you own kids?” That was an awkward moment. Looking at his face, I think Hendry hated being embarrassed as much as me.

Well, that was pretty much the end of the intense, non-stop training.  But Stephen said he would still help to get the ball rolling for me.

That was the problem.

To play in the Pro-Circuit, you need a Tour Card. These need to be earned through the right competitions. Q-School was one way, but it had just finished and there was almost a year to wait. Besides, entry was based on merit and I didn’t have any. 

Another possibility was the Players Tour Championship. There would be recognition, but no cash. This was relegated to a back-up plan. Stephen said he had a brutal time when he was forced to play on the PTC.

Time was against us. We had to short-cut the process. The best way to do this was sensationalism we decided.