I Caught the BBC’s biography of Alex Higgins the other week and found it quite hypnotic. Here was a great, great sporting talent, just like his contemporary, George Best, hell bent on personal destruction; of career, of relationships and of his prodigious talent. Yet I found myself glued to the screen, knowing that all was lost yet unable to walk away. Something akin to a Shakespearean tragic character whose fatal flaw all can see, except of course, the leading protagonist himself. You loved him, you loathed him, you despaired of him, yet when he re-emerged at the final scene, withered and broken from cancer, from booze and from gambling, you could not but help fall in love with him all over again.

The story of the snooker Hurricane was indeed hypnotic and I knew I must read his own account in order to get a more complete picture. The problem with autobiographies that are co written by ghost writers is to know what is authentic and what has been conjured up in order to make the story more compelling. There are a couple of very interesting paragraphs that left me wondering whether this was the real Higgins speaking or his co writer, Sean Boru. Either way, the Higgins story is a whirlwind of genius and destruction and I’m sure there is enough of Higgins in the book to make it an authentic account.

The first point of significance in Higgins life is his Northern Ireland upbringing. It was uncompromisingly working class, socially and economically hard, and like all young lives in Northern Ireland, blighted by the all pervasive Six County sectarianism. Over and above the hardships there appeared to be a loving family that stuck with him to the very end. In particular, his three sisters never gave up on him despite a million good reasons for doing so. Higgins describes his early childhood thus: We had a firewood round in the week where we would, or rather I would, collect fruit crates and other kinds of wooden boxes, chop them up with a hatchet, reducing them to small sticks, and then sell them to neighbours to start their coal fires. If it wasn’t firewood it would be something else. By myself or with a mate, I would sometimes go around collecting scrap metal and sell it on in order to pay for the cinema and other teenage pursuits. Another great idea I had was to run regular weekly raffles. All the locals knew me and that I was honest with my raffles. I would sell the tickets all week and divide the money fifty-fifty. My reputation for being honest was my greatest asset and I used to make a small fortune to buy presents for the family. P9

This theme of honesty reoccurs frequently throughout his story. Whenever there was a dispute on or around the snooker table, Higgins is at pains to state that he was the honest party and it was the other bloke, the referee, the opponent or the interviewer who had it in for him. When it came to a disputed call, Higgins insists he never knowingly tried to cheat his way forward. Higgins is at pains to convince the reader that whatever other failings he may have had, dishonesty was not one of them. Unfortunately protestation of honesty runs a little hollow when you consider the number of times the hurricane was well and truly under the influence. Honesty is often the first casualty when the faculties are impaired by the demon alcohol.

There is nevertheless a refreshingly childlike honesty in the Higgins narrative whether it concerns his drinking, his womanising, his violent outbursts or his chronic gambling. I suppose it is this childish vulnerability that in the end endears Higgins to his readers, that, and his undeniable genius at the snooker table. Occasionally Higgins rises above the mundane to give a hint of a wider consciousness, though one has to question whether it is Higgins actually speaking. One of my favourite passages concerns the way Higgins saw the new world that was emerging in the 1960’s: For almost three decades society had been rebuilding itself. It had been torn apart by a world war within living memory and by the mid 1960’s society had started to change its perceptions. We had the first signs of revolution with the age of the hippies, the transcendental meditation experience, free love, sex, drugs and rock and roll. As we entered the seventies, the young people of the next generation were looking for their own identity and they chose sport. We lived in the age of the sporting hero as well as the music idol. Georgie Best has arrived, and now Hurricane Higgins. Fans were looking for guidance from people like us. We were the ones they were seeking to emulate. After all, we were of their generation and, as John Lennon put it, we were all working-class heroes, the people’s champions. P57

This is a rather naive view of the 60’s and 70’s. I suspect John Lennon was rather more referring to those young people out on the street fighting against the US military machine and the machinations of the old colonial powers than in the party-going sporting superstars that were just starting to emerge. You certainly won’t find any mention of Vietnam, Rhodesia or Black civil rights in the US in the Higgins story. Plenty of booze and free sex but nothing to say on the real pressing issues of the day. Even in his own back yard, Higgins is strangely silent when it comes to the Irish civil rights struggles by the nationalist community in the North of Ireland. All this groundbreaking social history must have passed the hurricane by in an alcoholic haze. Higgins admits as much: I am not trying to reinvent history here. I did drink too much from time to time. I did get into scraps. Stupid ones. I was foolish and sometimes unpleasant. I know that. Plenty of stories in this book prove it As for the womanising, again I’m not suggesting for a second that I was an angel. I had flings. I had the odd one night stand perhaps more than the odd one. I am not proud of that. P162

Is it enough that Higgins brought flair, excitement and controversy to the game of snooker? Without doubt Higgins, in his own indubitable style, revolutionised the game of snooker. Certainly there has been nothing like him since. The dull sporting brilliance of the likes of Steve Davis, Eddie Charlton, Dennis Taylor, Ray Reardon and Steven Hendry hardly get the pulse racing. Probably the nearest to a real larger than life character to follow the hurricane was Jimmy White though even Jimmy was tame by comparison. I hear there is a new kid on the block that is getting the snooker world in a buzz, though it is probably too early to say whether a new snooker hurricane is about to be whipped up. In the meantime I will allow a more sober and reflective Alex Higgins to have the last word, penned perhaps in one of his many Belfast offices, or should I say, betting shops.

Despite what some may think, Northern Ireland hasn’t only produced infamous people on both sides of the political battlefield. The country I was born in and love has produced many talented people, who were also great ambassadors. The most obvious is George Best and of course myself – but let’s not forget the pentathlete Mary Peters who won Olympic gold in 1972, author CS Lewis, actor Kenneth Brannagh, world famous flute player James Galway, musician/songwriter Gary Moore, actor Stephen Rea, and my dear, and very sadly missed friend Derek Bell a multi talented musician and composer and member of The Chieftains. I am so proud of the fact that when people from all over the world start talking about Northern Ireland and its famous sons and daughters, my name is lumped in with the greats, such as those I have just mentioned. P286

The Hurricane has finally burned itself out but at its peak it sure whipped up a storm. While the Hurricane now rests in peace the snooker archives are immeasurably enriched by the snooker genius and tantrums of Alex hurricane Higgins.