Life's irritations

pendragon_arther

I'm not a great sports fan but one thing I do enjoy is watching the snooker. This is slightly spoiled by certain types in the audience. Why is it that this sport seems to attract the most coughers I've ever heard? I don't think I have watched an entire frame without one or more coughers hawking away. Can't they hand out Fisherman's Friends or cough mixture to these spoilers?

Any other irritations?

shaun_from_Africa

I'm sure that in reality, the actual percentage of people coughing at a professional snooker match won't be any higher than any other sporting event and in fact, may well be far lower because of some people being aware of not wanting to make too much noise.

The only difference is that the ambient sound around the snooker table is far lower than most, if not all other sports, hence the coughing is far more noticeable.

The main sporting irritation for me is the high dB grunts at many female tennis matches.

daytona0

But the coughing is probably the most interesting part of the snooker!

ElefantEd

Snooker was always best on the radio, though if you had a black and white set it was sometimes hard to tell whether the green was behind the red or the other way round.

pappa_golf

Ted Lowe commentator , Lowe uttered the occasional on-air gaffe, one of his most famous quotes being, "and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green

maninthestreet

We have another two weeks of BBC2 schedules being full of men poking balls around on a table using a stick.

pendragon_arther

Cough...

Cough...

Cough...

Cough...

sujman

Maybe the coughing is secret messaging between the audience member and the player on how to pot the balls...

George_Michael

Personally, I think that televised snooker was quite entertaining in the 1970's and 1980's when you had players like Dennis Taylor, Alex Higgins, Jimmy White, Terry Griffiths, Ray Reardon etc and although they were very good players, they were also entertaining both on and off the table.

Nowadays, the game is so clinical and although the standard of play has improved greatly, very few of the current crop of professional players seem to have any sort of character and in my opinion you may as well be watching robots potting the balls.

bod1467

Didn't you realise that he was called Steve "Interesting" Davis ironically?

George_Michael

I think that Steve Davis was actually better to watch than quite a few of the current snooker elite.
Yes, he was usually very slow at choosing and taking shots but when he was on form, it was unusual for him to lose.
I can still remember the 1985 world championship between Davis and Dennis Taylor. A 35 frame match that went the distance and I might be wrong but I think it still holds the record for the number of viewers for a televised snooker match.