Just an ordinary Eastender
It’s time once again for the irregular interview slot ‘Answers on a Postcard’. This time it is actually more literal than most as the subject, World Snooker supremo Barry Hearn was actually on his holidays when the interview took place.
I should offer in advance my apologies to anyone who may be unfamiliar with Cockney terminology and I hope that this guide to the way people from London speak may help you a bit as you read through this bumper interview.
The piece gives a rare insight into the mind of a madman, I mean a man mad about new ideas and innovations. You will find out how Barry knows what pushes people’s buttons, his rules of engagement in the business world, the real truth about Steve Davis and ’that slapper’ from Barnsley and what his real long term plans for the World Championship are.
Be warned, he pulls no punches and this is not for the faint hearted. But what else would you expect from Bazza? At least I think it was him, it’s hard to tell on Skype and during the interview one of his ‘people’ did refer to him as Mr Hagman. Whoever he is.
So Bazza, if I may call you that……
(interrupts) Listen son! You can call me anything you like but say it to my face. I don’t want no person calling me behind my back. I grew up in the East End of London. We were hard back then. Hard but fair. My best school mate’s mother had a client who used to go with another prossie whose milkman delivered to the Krays. We like straight talking, no nonsense. Pounds, Shillings and Pence. You got nothing for two in a bed except possibly the Andy McNabs and that’s the way I like it.
OK, Bazza I’m hearing you. I’ve been trying to get an interview with you for ages but you always seem to be busy, don’t you think at your age you should have a day off now and again?
Listen mee ol’ mucker. Age is a number and I’m top bananas with numbers, I’m a Chartered Accountant for gawds sake. Give me a number?.…..OK, double it..now you take a quarter and I’ll take the rest.…..see how this all works now son? See how easy it is? Age is just a number too. I have three hours sleep a night. I’ve lived two lives, so effectively I’m half my age. You do the sums, it don’t take no genius. I’m told that we’re in a recession and you’ve gotta look outside the box. Well, my box don’t have no inside, I don’t have no days off and I don’t expect nobody round me to have them neither.
I don’t want to go on too much about your age but with due respect, you’re no spring chicken. So how come an old geezer like you reckons he knows so much about what the kids want these days from their snooker then?
Listen me ol’ Cocker Spaniel, I’ve been in this game longer than any of these new saucepans. They don’t know what they want! I grew up with the game in mee blood. I was born with a piece of chalk in mee hand. My old mother gave birth to me on a bloody snooker table for crying out loud. Her waters broke when she was on the backswing of a tricky blue and I was delivered there and then by Safe Hands Lenny (who owed Mum a favour or two) on Table 13 at the Romford Billiard Hall in London. I popped mee head out down the end where the cheap colours get put back and I liked what I saw. I know what these nippers want cos I was one of them.
You say you want to make snooker more appealing, well, my new best mate Steve Davis says you have a little pond in your back yard and you take notes on all your fish, that’s not exactly exciting is it?
Listen me ol’ next best matey, it’s not a pond it’s a bleedin’ lake! That’s what it is and no mistake! It’s bigger than the old Thames for Christ sake! Davis hasn’t got a scooby. The fish are just the tip of the iceberg. I want all the players tagged and chipped before the start of the 2013/14 season. I want to know where they are, where they’re practicing, what they are moaning about and who they’re banging. I want to know the in’s and out’s of a ducks arse when it comes to them. I want to know where they’re getting the ducks from and what they’re doing to ‘em.
I can’t have them walking about talking to all and sundry giving it the Bertie Big Bollocks without me knowing about it. On the table, I want their heart rates beeping on the screen on the final black. I want stats on how often their little tea towel holders twitch in pressure situations. I want bookmakers laying the spread on Stephen Lee’s thrombo’s at the Crucible. Information is king these days and I want it as soon as it’s available, especially if I’m on a reckie to the Gold Coast or somewhere that’s breaking snookerwise.
Bazza pictured at his pond
I know that no players are allowed to have a bet these days and also that none of their friends, relatives, Facebook friends, Twitter followers or people that have actually seen them on TV are allowed to have a flutter neither, but it’s important that our Sponsors are looked after, just in case they should actually find a punter who is allowed to bet on our great game.
Now then Bazza, I reckon me and you are cut from the same cloth, we both speak our minds and tell it like it is, so come on give us your thoughts on all these whingeing players that just never stop moaning about everything and name a few names so that they’ll all get angry at you.
Listen mee ol’ baker boy. I ain’t got no gripe with no player. We’ve gotta look at the bigger picture. The world is where I see us in 5 years time. Not just Coleridge Road, even though that is part of the world I know. These young carpet grippers need passports and lessons in how to speak proper at press conferences. They need to learn other languages like Chinarin and Welsh so that when they go to these places they can talk at the locals. I’ve been checking out a few top class resorts, ermm, venues for this game. Places like Mauritius, Bali and The Seychelles, undiscovered markets, full of people with the pence. The ground work is being done here and now and it’s being done by yours truly. That’s why I’m dictating this from the pool at the Le Touessrok and not sitting in some poncy office in Bristol giving it large but producing nothing! I want an event on every second day of the year. I want qualifiers on Xmas day and shootouts on New Year’s Eve. If these adult toys are committed then they’ve got to be with me all the way, apart from the trips abroad.
I once saw you on telly and you said the phrase ‘Big Time Charlie Potatoes’ is he a friend of yours?
Listen mee ol’ china. Charlie’s a good geezer! He’d bash Quinten Hann and Mark King around the ring any day given half a chance. The potatoes scam was unfortunate. He’s learnt his lesson and he’s moved on. The video was a set up I know that and so does Charlie. There’s no way he’d have sold ‘em to Pringles. It’s still at the disciplinary stage but it don’t look good for ‘im and we are looking at a 5 or maybe 6 year ban from the game. So he’ll probably be out in time for this year’s Worlds if he comes clean.
Now then Bazza, you can’t go on ruining snooker forever and a lot of people reckon I should take over when you get bored and move onto your next hobby, so can I have a job with you?
Listen mee old Doughy Doughnut, I won’t be bored with this little number for at least 2 years or more, or maybe less as it’s a buyers market my son and you have to act fast to catch the monkeys. OK, so I’ve been seen entertaining the Chairman of the WKA (World Kabaddi Association) but it’s early days so don’t hold your breath. If there’s an opening one day for you then give me a tap on the shoulder and I’ll see what I can do. But I ain’t makin no promises, that ain’t my game you gotta listen to what the market tells you son, you learn that and you’ll make the monkeys, but not before I get there first with me barrow.
I have a lot of ideas Bazza and I’ve had one for a game called Coconut Snooker. All I need is a bit of backing and some money to buy coconuts and paint (Gloss, Dulux is my preference and there is an offer on at B&Q on the big tins), any chance you can help me out here as with it being Xmas I’m running a bit low on funds?
Listen me old matey. That’s a fucking shit idea! I can’t go wanking away the hard earned on any old hair brained scheme that gets offered to me. Coconut hair or not, you’re gonna do your proverbials in on this one my son. You mark my words. It’s like I said to that Powder Snooker bunch. I said to them “You won’t have a pot to piss in lads by the end of this” but did they listen? Did they Fuck!
Look.. Listen .. No, Look, I listen to all ideas that are laid on my desk, but mine are the best by a fucking long chalk. That’s all you or I need to know son.
But if you can’t take no for an answer then I’m your man to promote it. You’ve come to the right place. That much I do know and now you know it too. I’ll do the commercial and image rights for the coconuts, shampoo commercials for the hair. I’ll set up the TV contracts with Eurosport and arrange a site meeting at the Shy Arena. We go halves on the whole shebang and caboodle. Straight down the middle 75/25, the old fashioned way. Mark my words by the end of this we’ll have a lovely bunch of coconuts. It’s a fantastic idea, let’s get down to business.
Likely Lads, but is it the real Nugget?
Steve Davis made you loads of dosh didn’t he? You didn’t even have to do anything except count it all, money for old rope – respect for that. Anyway, I interviewed him recently and told him that this was the only reason that you liked him, he got a bit upset but it’s true isn’t it?
Listen me ol’ Brown Noser, we go back a long ways me and the Ginger Magician. Longer than the Krays. It was Davis who invented snooker in the 1920′s. I thought he would have looked a bit older when I first met him but anyway I liked him immediately. I liked him cos he did what I told him to do and he didn’t stick his oar in. Ok, so he had no mind of his own but that was a good thing in a way, in every way. He was knocking the crap out of the old bowtie brigade at the time and I was telling anybody who’d listen that he had the biggest gonads out there. The best thing was that all the other players fell for it!
Next thing I knew we had a monster on our hands. He became World Champ and the old Dog and Bone never stopped ringing. He was working 24. 7. 365. But I knew we could do more. I put 2 and 2 together and came up with a million. We got a top defective Russian scientist on it. He was a genius, at one stage there were 5 Davis automatons out there maximizing his image rights and earning potential. We’d hit the jackpot. We were the Dogs and we were living it large. We won two events on the same day during the 80’s, one in Sydney near Australia and the other in Oldham somewhere past Milton Keynes. It was great. I had one robot picking up some medal from the Queen of England while another was doing an exhibition at the Romford United Services Club. We were raking it in.
Then a bloody tragedy happened. One of them started to get a mind of its own and was caught with some old slapper in a B&B in Barnsley. She blubbed and it got in the News of the Screws. The real Davis had been at home all week but when his missus read it she went ballistic. Apparently the robot had short circuited and nailed the floosie seven times before the motherboard crashed. It was the beginning of the end. The other robots got wind of it and wanted in, so to speak. Before long they’d all gone on strike and started hanging around Stringfellows and the like which left the real Davis holding the fort. Poor ginger bastard was clocking up mileage by the mile. He did OK for a while, knocked in a 147 in the Mercantile Credit Classic in Warrington and in between shots was doing a book signing session in Telford Shopping Centre but something had to give. In the end it was his long shots that suffered. That was the only reason that young Sweaty overtook him in the rankings.
Not sure what happened to the other robots. I think one does commentary for Iranian Sports and another was spotted recently playing in a Poker event in Vegas. I don’t know if any of them play snooker anymore but the door is always open, if they pay their money then they can play in the PTC’s and enter the Q School. Nobody is barred not even women. The only problem is that I was told they mustn’t meet the real Davis, something about space time continuum or just bad luck as the scientist sort of explained.
Walter: Currently Dead.
Right, I’ve got a mate on Twitter called Walter Donaldson, he’s dead at the moment but he seems to know his stuff. He reckons that all matches should be a minimum of best of 155 frames, what are your thoughts on that?
Listen mee old Famous Grouser. These people are living in the past. We can’t give protection to these established players forever, apart from Davis and even he’s on borrowed. What I want is ranking points rewarded for winning shorter matches not longer ones! That way they can play in more events and win more ranking points. And what do points mean? Prizes! Points Prizes, enough said. I reckon by 2014/15 we can do away with money completely, that’s the aim. We’ve upped the prize money from £3.50 2 years ago to over £7.05 this year in real terms and I want to see it get to £10.00 before inflation and before I get my bus pass. When it does we can then start converting this prize money directly to ranking points and then I think you’ll find that worries about the length of matches will be a thing of the past. Shorter and faster with less emphasis on prizes and more on points, that’s all your mate Wally needs to know at this stage.
Is it true that part of your long term plan is to shorten the World Championship by 16 days?
Look … Listen mee old Tree Logger. The game is evolving. Yes, it would be good if we could have it done and dusted within a day. Then we could have another World Championships the very next day. We could have 17 World Champions every year, that’s nearly 100 every 5 years, you do the sums and double it, it’s a no brainer as all of them will have ranking points coming out of their ears.
But more important than that, we need refs to stop putting the balls back on the table once the new kids on the Michaela (Strachan) have walloped ‘em in a gap. I’m actually thinkin’ that the game would be better if we do away with the reds on the table completely. Look how long some of ‘em take to get rid of em all? Also, there’s not enough gaps cut into the bumpy parts of the table. This is something that has to be addressed. We need more gaps and also sponsored gaps nearer the balls. Remember, we have to keep the sponsors happy and give them value for their bunce. So I’m bringing in an innovation, I’m making the revolutionary decision next season to put holes in the cloth. That way even if the balls don’t reach the gaps they might fall down a hole somewhere and we’re shut of ‘em, no replacing, no refs, just good old school stuff, hard and fair, straight and true and what your man on the street wants to watch with his pie and mash supper after a day at the factory. We’ve also gotta make it harder for the top players to win. It’s no good seeing the same tired old boats at every event threatening to retire and then they don’t. We’ve gotta keep ‘em all hungry. We need players who say that they are not going to retire and then they do. The papers have their story, the sponsors are sweet as peas and we can all move on. We need new blood in the game not another wave of UK players. OK, the boy Trump will be getting full points win or lose but the rest of ‘em will have to sing for their supper. And winning is not gonna be enough. So next season all the top 34 UK players are not gonna be allowed to have the leathery bit on the pointy end of their sticks.
Talking of innovations Bazza, we all thought Power Snooker was shit, but what did you think? And I’m really good at spotting liars.
Listen mee ol’ Fridge! … Was it Power? Thought it was Powder? Anyway.
It was OK I suppose, the players got loads of ranking points apart from the Rocket who allegedly bucked the current trend and took the money but I think they missed a trick by not having a dartboard in the shot on the overhead camera. They should have hired a couple of the Legends of Darts who could have thrown a couple of rounds or two, like Phil “The Power” (which was a no brainer for me) and the other one who’s shagging that football presenter.
Look….Listen. It’s no good wasting all that music, dry ice and dolly birds with big tits on a snooker event if only for the fact that the players and the audience are all bloody sober, which means that you’ve gotta hire better looking birds and that comes off your bottom line. It’s just bad business.
It gets on my nerves when people say there are no characters in the game anymore, what about JP, The Nugget, Dennis, JV, Jimmy, Cliff and Willie? They don’t know what they are on about do they as they are all characters?
Listen mee ol’ Butterscoth Biscuit. You ain’t got a fucking clue what you’re on about. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying. We’ve gotta educate these little shits that it’s not just about getting the balls in the gaps. It’s about being a personality. Jimmy Cliff was a great example. He didn’t just stick to snooker, he was a top notch throat warbler as well. The sooner these spoilt brats wise up and realise that they should stop wasting their time day after day rehearsing all the snooker poses and get a proper job, the sooner I will be able to find ‘em work off the table, which is where they need to be.
I had a chat with a couple of my pals and I reckon you should bring Indoor League back to our screens, what d’ya say? Go on, you turn your hand to any old shite so this should be a piece of cake?
Look … Listen mee ol’ mucker. I can’t say much on this subject as I’m currently taking legal action against the WBBA (World Bar Billiards Association) for plaguerism or something like that. My brief is currently tied up with “Potatoes” and the chippy in Bournemouth but in a nutshell the WBBA have trod on my patch. OK, I’ll give em the mushrooms, that was a nifty idea that I haven’t thought of yet, but my lawyer says they’ll be blowing bubbles up their arse just like the Hammers will be after he’s finished with ‘em. That’s good enough for me.
Bazza aint got time for Xmas
My mate Steve Davis said he thought the shot clock was ‘fucking shit’ live on the BBC, are you going to fine him?
Listen mee ol’ barebacker, if it wasn’t for the shot clock, Davis would still be attempting the break off in the 2008 premier league, that’s the one where I gave him a loyalty points wildcard. He’s entitled to his opinion but the boy’s got shit for brains. I’m not actually sure he’s the real one to be honest. Some days he doesn’t seem as boring as I remember him and also the crowds clap and sometimes even want him to win when he walks out instead of booing.
Anyway, this shot clock, we need faster shots not slower ones. I’ve got unfinished business with this game and I haven’t got long before my boy Eddie takes over the Matchroom business and sends me to that home he keeps showing me the brochures for. Admittedly it’s a nice place; we’ve been there for a day visit just to check out the seating arrangements and perimeter boards. It’s got Eurosport so I don’t have to listen to Willie Thorne rabbit on about flat back packs and drawers and every credit under the sun, but in all honesty I like it where I am here in Romford in London. I don’t want to resign just yet. Actually, thinking about it, I can’t resign… I own the company.
Well, I think that’s all I have time for Bazza, I’d just like to wish you a Merry Xmas on behalf of the readers and myself.
Let me tell you something about Xmas mee ol’sack rustler. It’s for kids, it’s for wimps and it’s not what I’m in this business for. I’m here to talk about points and prizes, not presents and pheasants. If you want your Xmas you go and have it, but you ain’t hoppin on the gravy boat with me once you’ve finished with your chestnuts, I’ll be long gone by then son, mark my words.
And as quickly as he appeared on the screen he was gone, no doubt off to broker another deal on another corner of the globe. Good old Bazza.
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