ALMOST TWO DECADES on, Ken Doherty can still recount exactly what was going through his head.

“As I was potting the final balls, I felt 10 feet tall,” Doherty tells The42. “The images of Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor lifting that famous cup came flooding back to me.”

A lifetime of practice, hard work and sacrifices were justified. All the doubters were again being proved wrong. Doherty was now the world snooker champion.

But it was an unlikely victory for several reasons.

Doherty lifting the World Championship trophy in 1997. Source: EMPICS Sport

“My form was absolutely terrible going into the tournament,” Doherty recalls.

“I lost 6-1 to Steve Davis in the semi-final of the Masters, I then lost to him by the same scoreline in the first round of the Irish Masters, before losing 5-3 to Michael Judge in the British Open first round.”

Heading to the Crucible, Doherty was under pressure – he was at risk of dropping outside the top 16 in the rankings – which would leave the Ranelagh man facing the dreaded qualifiers to gain entry into the ranking events for the following season.

In order to get much-needed match sharpness before the championship, Doherty practised with the then rising star of the game, 21-year-old Ronnie O’Sullivan, who was placed on the other side of the draw.

“I was very nervous at the start of the tournament, but when I beat Mark Davis in the first round, it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.

“I now knew my place in the top 16 for next season was secure. There was massive relief there.

“I then beat Steve Davis in the next round 13-3, with a session to spare, something that nobody managed to accomplish against him before.

“I was suddenly becoming more confident, I was feeling good and I could feel a bit of momentum behind me.”

A 13-9 last-eight win over John Higgins followed, before Doherty overcame Canadian Alain Robidoux 17-7 in the semi-final.

Only one person now stood in the way of Doherty becoming world champion – ‘The King of the Crucible’ Stephen Hendry.

“For me, Hendry is the greatest-ever,” Doherty says.

Hendry has won the World Championship seven times, a record in the modern era. Source: PA Archive/PA Images

“You have to remember, at the time he was unbeaten in the Crucible for the previous five years and he was going for his sixth consecutive world title.”

Indeed, the formidable Scot had only missed out on one world title between 1990 and 1996, ahead of Doherty’s showdown, and Hendry was the overwhelming favourite in the final.

“When you think of the good players we have on the circuit at the moment; Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy, they are not fit to lace his boots.

“I was the underdog for the final, there’s no doubt about that, I think I was maybe 3/1 or 4/1 with the bookies, but I knew how well I had been playing in the tournament, and I had a pretty good record against Hendry.

“I have always been a good safety player, and I knew he didn’t like that style of play.

“He preferred to get in and among the balls and make big breaks. I wanted to play him at a game that he didn’t like.

“I knew I may never get another chance to be a world champion. I remember thinking before the final, now is the time. Win it now.

“I started visualising the victory in my head.”

Doherty made a sensational start in the final, leading 5-3, 11-5 and then 15-7 in the race to 18, which included a ballsy double on the black in the 11th frame to snatch a potentially decisive psychological advantage over his opponent.

Victory was within touching distance.

But still his mother, Rose, back in Dublin, couldn’t bear to luck. She preferred to light candles in the local church.

Hendry, who became accustomed to dominating the Crucible in the early nineties, was beginning to feel the heat.

But like all great champions, he didn’t go down without a fight.

“I knew he would make a comeback. The final session is always the toughest, just trying to get over that line.”

With only one ranking title, the 1993 Welsh Open, under his belt, Doherty could feel the momentum shifting.

15-7 became 15-12, and the pressure began to intensify, as RTÉ took the feed from the BBC for the first time to broadcast the closing stages of an event that had captivated the Irish sporting public.

A costly missed red by Hendry in the 28th frame, opened the door for Doherty to notch another frame on the board.

“When he missed, I was like a greyhound jumping out of my seat. I won that frame and even though he had narrowed the gap, I was still 16-12 ahead, I felt good.”

Doherty, who failed to make a century break in the entire match compared to Hendry’s five, then won the next two frames to become the first player to win the world title at junior, amateur and professional level.

Relief and joy at the end was mixed with a poignancy, that his father, Tony, who helped introduce his son to the game with the television show Pot Black, could not share the pinnacle moment in his career, after he died from a heart attack when Doherty was just a teenager.

“To win the World Championship was something I always dreamed of doing one day.

“My father had died 13 years previously, and when I lifted the cup, I knew he was looking down on me. He would have been so proud to see my dream come true.”

But it could have been all so different for Doherty.

As a budding player, playing out of Ilford, he was almost caught in the middle of a near-fatal domestic dispute.

The landlord in the B&B that Doherty was staying in decided to turn on all the gas rings on the cooker, before going to bed, unbeknownst to his wife.

Damien McKiernan, another Irish professional staying in the same location, returned home in the early hours after a shift in a sex shop owned by Ronnie O’Sullivan’s father, and quickly turned off the gas and opened all the windows.

The pair promptly packed their bags, relieved at their lucky escape.

“But the wife was great for making a nice breakfast,” Doherty jokes.

Voted Ireland’s Sports Personality of the Year in 1997, Doherty was treated to a homecoming that would usually be seen for the international football or rugby teams, as he proudly paraded the trophy on an open-top bus down O’Connell Street.

Doherty was welcomed back to Dublin by thousands of supporters.

“It was all a bit surreal, but I absolutely loved it.

“To be able to go down O’Connell Street like that with my friends and family, and people sticking their heads out the window with their flags to celebrate with me was unbelievable.

“Even just talking about it now still gives me goosebumps.”

And at a reception at Mansion House, Doherty was praised for not only his sporting triumph, but for his ability to prevent crime.

“I met the Chief Superintendent from Harcourt Street, he said ‘Doherty, did you know from 7-10pm, during the final session of the snooker, there wasn’t one call into central police station in Dublin?’

“People were going mad, they thought there was something wrong with the phones. But everybody was watching the snooker.”

Winning the coveted trophy also came with extra benefits that the then 27-year-old didn’t expect.

“When John Parrott won the title in 1991 he wanted to parade the trophy at Goodison Park, because he is a massive Everton fan, but they had no more home games left before the end of the season by the time he won.

“In the end, he took it to Anfield, and the Liverpool fans still embraced him as one of their own.

“I then said in my press conference after the win, that I would love to take the trophy to Old Trafford because I am a big United fan.

“Not long after I got a call from Alex Ferguson, who is a big snooker fan himself, and he invited me.

Doherty was invited to Old Trafford by United manager Alex Ferguson. Source: PA Archive/PA Images

“I went up with a friend of mine, and we got the VIP treatment and got to meet some of the greats like George Best and Bobby Charlton.

“I was then brought into where the players were having their lunch before the game.

“Ferguson stood up and said ‘and now I want to introduce a very special guest to you today, the new world snooker champion, Ken Doherty.’

“The players themselves were about to play West Ham and pick up the Premier League trophy. I don’t think they were too interested. There was an awkward silence for a moment or two.

“I thought maybe Roy Keane or Denis Irwin may have come up first because I would have come across them a few times, but it was Eric Cantona.

“I started to shake. He is such an imposing figure. There was such an aura around him. He came up to me and shook my hand, then the rest of the lads joined in.

“At half-time, I was invited onto the pitch and introduced to a crowd of over 55,000 people, it was unbelievable.

“I walked around the whole pitch. I got to the West Ham fans and they started chanting ‘you’re just a shit Jimmy White’, who would have been a Londoner himself, which was quite funny, but it was such an amazing feeling to be in the stadium that day.”

The following year, Doherty again struggled on the circuit, however, he was able to make it back-to-back World Championship finals, but just came up short, losing to John Higgins 18-12; the same score he beat Hendry the previous year.

Higgins got the better of the Irishman in the 1998 final. Source: EMPICS Sport

“In snooker terms, the next season wasn’t great. I suppose I was living in the moment of being the world champion and enjoying everything that comes with it.

“There was a lot more recognition. In reality, a lot stays the same in your life, but professionally with your peers, you know you are now the one to beat now. In every match, you’re introduced as the world champion.

“The hunger was still there from my side, and I didn’t want to give the trophy back.

“It had its pride of place on top of the TV in my mother’s home and she would polish it every day, and people would be walking by the house wanting to get a picture with the trophy.

“People were coming up to me and telling me where they were when they watched the final, and still do. I had such fun being world champion. I was really disappointed to lose it.”

The contrast was stark.

Doherty returned home to no press or fans waiting to greet him. His time as world champion was over.

Two years later, Doherty produced a moment that perhaps is more famous than his World Championship win, in some quarters, after he missed a straightforward black to complete his first-ever maximum break of 147 and a sports car valued at £80,000.

“I played it all wrong, I was too busy thinking about the colour of the car and how I would get it home,” Doherty says.

Although his first maximum in tournament play came some 12 years later in Germany, the added pain of back-to-back Masters final defeats, was lessened somewhat by a £19,000 prize for the tournament’s highest break as well as a runners-up cheque of £85,000.

In 2003, Doherty would reach a third World Championship final in the most dramatic of circumstances, playing a modern-day record 132 frames out of possible 136 throughout the tournament.

Final-frame victories over Shaun Murphy and Graeme Dott booked the Irishman a quarter-final place, where he raced into a 10-0 lead against his 1998 conqueror, Higgins.

The Scot pegged the score back to 10-7 before Doherty rallied to win 13-8.

Doherty’s next match, the semi-final against Paul Hunter, will go down in Crucible history, as the Dubliner produced one of the greatest comebacks the venue has ever seen.

Hunter died three years after the semi-final, aged 27, following a battle with cancer. Source: PA Archive/PA Images

A never-say-die spirit helped Doherty recover from 15-9 then 16-14 down to come out on top 17-16 in the most epic of encounters.

“I developed the attitude that they had to win this match, I’m not going to give it up – you’re going to have to work hard to beat me until the very last shot,” Doherty recalls.

“No matter what the score was, I always believed I could come back. I had the mentality of giving every single shot 100% concentration and focus.

“I wasn’t going to go down lightly.”

Doherty demonstrated yet more fighting capabilities in the final against Mark Williams, and after trailing the Welshman 7-1 and then 11-5, he pulled the match back to 11-11.

But in the end, the exertions over the previous two weeks took their toll, with Williams claiming his second world crown 18-16.

Doherty, whose most recent ranking event win came at the 2006 Malta Cup, says he considered hanging up his cue in 2009, after a poor run of form saw him drift down the rankings.

The routine of practice, play and travel is difficult to maintain.

Having only reached the Crucible in three of the last eight years, the six-time ranking event winner, memorably got on his knees in 2014 and kissed the carpet of the historic venue after making it to the first round.

The electric tension and dramatic battles that Sheffield produces is still unrivalled within the game.

“I know it’s a bit of a cliché but you do appreciate it more the older you get.

“I hadn’t planned anything, it wasn’t contrived, but I’d certainly to do it again.

“It’s our blue ribbon event, every person who has played snooker wants the opportunity to play at the Crucible, there is no better feeling.

“This is the place I love, and it has been good to me, helping me to create memories I will never forget.”

In 2015, the three-time UK Championship finalist faced what he describes as one of the most daunting matches in his career, when he came up against Reanne Evans, the 10-time ladies’ champion, in the first round of the qualifiers.

“I never felt as much pressure,” Doherty reveals.

“In reality, I was on a hiding to nothing.

“At the qualifiers, you wouldn’t really get many people watching, but for that match, it had a feeling that the vultures had gathered, waiting to see if I would get beaten.

Evans failed to cause an upset in the World Championship qualifier. Source: Tim Goode

“If I lost, I would never have lived it down. And that is nothing to do with Evans, she is a tremendous player, and there is no reason why a woman can’t make it to the Crucible one day, but I didn’t want to be the first player to lose.”

Now aged 47, the BBC pundit is still motivated by the game and feels there are targets to achieve, but they now revolve plans on when it will be best to call it a day.

“The snooker circuit is a lot harder now than it ever was, but there are a lot more opportunities – there are more tournaments and there is more money to be won.

“For a young player turning professional, it is fantastic.

“It has been a great journey for me up to now.

“It’s not my life as it was before. As you get older, your priorities change; you have a family and other commitments.

“You have to be honest, maybe the drive is not what it once was, but that’s natural.

“I still love the game, but no doubt the game is harder when you’re not winning. It’s frustrating, your confidence goes. Everything becomes a whole lot harder.

“In the qualifiers, you may be coming up against players that have never been in the top 16 before, they have the hunger.

“But I am still going to keep trying.

“Before I finish I want to play at the Crucible at least one more time. I don’t want to just fade away.

“I want to go out on a high – to finish by doing something people remember me by.”

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