Frame by Frame: My Own Story

by Dennis Taylor

`At 22 minutes past midnight on Monday, 29 April 1985 I potted the black to win a game of snooker. I'd done it thousands of times before. But never like this! So begins Dennis Taylor's own description of his dramatic last-ball victory over Steve Davis in the world championship, the most dramatic event of the sporting year. A record 18.2 million people (45 per cent of all householders in Britain) were glued to their television sets and went to work next morning red-eyed and buzzing with excitement. Back in Coalisland, County Tyrone, where Dennis had been born into a family of seven children, a band struck up as the whole town came out on to the streets, car horns blaring into the night. It had taken Taylor thirteen years to become an overnight sensation. His reward is snooker's fabled pot of gold. This is Dennis Taylor's inside story, told with the ready wit that has earned him the nickname of Clown Prince of Snooker and made him the most popular man in the game.

Dennis Taylor was born in 1949 in Coalisland, Northern Ireland. He became a professional snooker player in 1971. His first major tournament win was the Irish Professional Championship in 1982 when he beat Alex Higgins 16-13. In 1984 he took the Rothmans Grand Prix title winning 10-2 over Cliff Thorburn and also the Irish Professional Championship, again beating Alex Higgins, this time 10-5. The crowning moment of his career to date was his 18-17 defeat of Steve Davis in the Embassy World Professional Championship in April 1985 when he became world snooker champion. Dennis Taylor now lives in Blackburn, Lancashire with his wife, Patricia, and his three children.

134 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 12, 2020