Running: The Autobiography Read online

  RUNNING

  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  Ronnie O’Sullivan

  with Simon Hattenstone

  To Lily and little Ronnie, with all my love

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to the following: Mum, Dad and Danielle, Lily and little Ronnie, Laila for their love and support; Damien Hirst, Antony Genn, Sylvia, Irish Chris, Scouse John and Little T for being in my corner; Jimmy White and Stephen Hendry for showing me the way; Django and Sonny for their management skills; the farm and the pigs for keeping me busy and sane; Tracey Alexandrou, Chris Davies, Terry Davies, Barry Elwell, Amanda, Mark, Terry McCarthy, David Webb, Alan, Sian, Claire, Jason Ward for being the best of mates: the brilliant Dr Steve Peters for teaching me how to cope; agent extraordinaire Jonny Geller, Alan Samson and Lucinda McNeile for their editing skills; and Simon Hattenstone for his friendship, ability to get into my head and for being as bonkers as me (it takes one to know one).

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  List of Illustrations

  Prologue

  1

  Getting the Buzz

  2

  When Life Kicks You Up the Arse

  3

  I Fought the Law

  4

  The Barry Hearn Revolution

  5

  Comeback Kid

  6

  Me and My Chimp

  7

  Top of the World: Sheffield 2012

  8

  Self-imposed Exile

  9

  We Are Family

  10

  Mum & Dad: Inside Story

  11

  Me & Dad: Outside Story

  12

  Heroes

  13

  Dodgy Dealings

  14

  Back on Track

  15

  Ronnie’s Handy Running Hints

  16

  Mad Moments

  17

  My Greatest Wins

  18

  The Whore’s Drawers

  Index

  Also by Ronnie O’Sullivan

  Copyright

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Me when I was little Ronnie and Dad … Dad has been a powerful presence in my life … and a powerful absence. When he went down for murder, I was in pieces.

  Me and Mum … When we went into business together, I said to Mum, whatever I earn and whatever you earn we’ll pool together.

  With Stephen Hendry back in 1996 when we both looked like kids … for me, Hendry is the greatest player ever. When we fell out it hurt, but it was my fault. (Louisa Buller/PA)

  2004 … winning the World Championship and celebrating with a pair of Dracula teeth. Everyone thought it was a tribute to Ray ‘Dracula’ Reardon, but I’d promised my mate Scouse John I’d stick ’em in if I ever won the World again. (Rui Vieira/PA)

  Me with six-time world champion Ray Reardon … I love Ray, he’s the funniest man I ever met and a great coach, but I started playing too cautiously. (Trevor Smith Photography)

  The great snooker cover-up … 2005, UK Championship, I put the wet towel over my head because I couldn’t bear watching Mark King play. (Eric Whitehead)

  Giving Lil a kiss after winning the World Championship in 2008 – my third world title, and a lovely feeling. (Getty)

  Me and the trophy in 2008. I was so gaunt everyone asked if I was ill, but I was just super fit. (Anna Gowthorpe/PA)

  Me and little Ronnie in 2012. To go from barely seeing the kids to having my little boy sharing that moment with me was just perfect. It couldn’t get any better. (Getty)

  Me and little Ronnie 2013. What a way to cap off the craziest year in my snooker life. After my self-imposed exile, I came back and won the World Championship for the fifth time. (Rex)

  Me, Sylvia, Damien and little Ron partying after I won the 2013 Worlds – Sylv is Damien’s assistant and part of the gang.

  Me and Damien Hirst, giving the world the finger. He makes me look almost civilised!

  Running … my religion, my belief system, my way of keeping calm. (Mel Fordham)

  Me and my personal trainer Tracey Alexandrou … she’s a brilliant athlete and has been a constant in my life. Tracey gives it me straight. If I’m not fit, she won’t pretend otherwise.

  At the farm … I loved working there during my year away from snooker, but cleaning out the pigsties didn’t half put me off my ham. (Tom Jenkins)

  On my way to victory in the Lactic Rush assault course … it was bloody murder, but I was determined, especially after I heard one fella shout out to his mate, ‘You can’t let a snooker player beat you.’ (Mel Fordham)

  Running in Birmingham with the great Ethiopian Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba. She couldn’t believe the miles I was putting in. (Alan Walter)

  Me, Chris Davies, his family and friends. They promised me I’d do my PB in France and I did.

  Me and Chris Davies and his wife Amanda in France. All the family are incredible runners, and I loved the fact that I became part of their extended family. Happy days.

  At Woodford Green athletics club with Alan Rugg, Barry Elwell, Bernadine Pritchett and Terry McCarthy … none of them cared that I played snooker, and most of them didn’t even know. They just accepted me as a runner. (Tom Jenkins)

  Me, Chris Davies’s dad Terry and his mum Lyn in France … we were staying in a hotel for £18 a night, running every day, eating pizzas, talking about running, and I thought I’d cracked life.

  Love this pic … me, Lil and little Ronnie. Everything that makes life worthwhile. I took my year off the game to make sure I could get quality time with the kids.

  Me, Damien and Irish Chris … vital men in my corner. Lovely fellas as well.

  I’ll tell Irish Chris how shit I think I really am at snooker and he just looks at me as if I’m mad. That’s friendship! But here we are with a nice little world trophy.

  In the first half of my career, it was drink and drugs that kept me on the straight and narrow – crazy though that sounds. This time round, it’s been the running that’s kept my head straight. Or at least as straight as mine will ever be. (Tom Jenkins)

  PROLOGUE

  I wasn’t sure what to call this book. It was a choice between ‘My Year Out’, ‘The Comeback Kid’ and ‘Running’. The first two are pretty self-explanatory – I took a year out for reasons I’ve not gone into until now after I won the World Championship in May 2012 and returned in May 2013 to win it again. It was the first time I’ve won successive Worlds in my career, and I was the first player to do so since Stephen Hendry, whom I regard as the greatest ever, did so in 1997. Happy days.

  But in the end I opted for Running because this book is about what has sustained me through the second half of my career. In the first half, it was more drink, drugs and Prozac that kept me on the straight and narrow – crazy though that sounds. This time round, with the not so odd exception, it’s been the running that’s kept my head straight. Or at least as straight as a head like mine will ever be. It can’t have done me too much harm, if I’m being objective about it. When I wrote my first book 12 years ago I was 25 and I’d just won my first World Championship. Nobody expected me to take that long to win it – with the possible exception of me. Until then I’d become known as the greatest snooker player never to have won the World Championship. And, believe me, that was a big old albatross to hang round my neck.

  I was relieved when I finally won it, but there was always the worry that, despite the other big tournaments I’d won, when it came to the Worlds I’d be a one-hit wonder. Now I’ve won five, and only Steve Davis and Ray Rear
don with six and Hendry with seven have won more. Despite all my talk of retiring (and whatever people think, it’s not just talk – if I tell people I’m getting out, I believe it when I say it) I still reckon I could overtake their records. This year at Sheffield I overtook Hendry for the number of centuries made at the Crucible in the final against Barry Hawkins (131), and that was a great feeling. I also scored six centuries in that final, another record. So slowly but surely I am writing my way into snooker’s history books.

  Without running, I reckon I would have given up on the game a long time ago. Running is my religion, my belief system, my way of keeping calm. Running is painful and horribly physical, but it’s also probably the nearest I get to a spiritual high. I want to share my running buzz with everyone – those of you who are already on the buzz will hopefully recognise what I’m writing about; there might even be the odd bit of decent advice here. And it might encourage others to get out in the fresh air, put your foot down and get a serotonin boost.

  It made sense to me to write a book about running – not only is it my hobby/obsession, but it’s been a recurrent theme in my life. As the sports psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters will tell you, I’ve spent loads of my life running away from shit, and running to shit – be it drink, drugs, bad people, good people, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, running clubs, family, food, TV cameras, the snooker authorities, my own demons, you name it.

  But, of course, this book is also about snooker – my game. The sport that I sometimes detest so much I can’t bear to look at a cue; the sport that has been the love of my life. More than anything, the book documents the year between May 2012 and 2013 – even by my standards the craziest 12 months of my life. In 2012, I won the World Championship for the fourth time. It was the greatest feeling ever at the end – my son, little Ronnie, came to join me on the stage at the Crucible and I threw him in the air, the roars were going up and it was just pure bliss. Straight after I announced I was quitting the game, and I did – for 11 months. Then I agreed to come back for the World Championship to defend my crown. I don’t really know what I thought I was going to achieve – after all, nobody had successfully defended the title since Hendry in the 1990s. I’d played one competitive match the whole season, my ranking had slipped down to 29th in the world, and even though they still made me one of the favourites I thought that was just crazy. Until I went into practice six weeks before the tournament started, I’d barely hit a ball all year.

  Throughout Sheffield 2013 people asked me why I’d quit, why I was back, and though dribs and drabs emerged I knew I couldn’t tell the story properly in a few sound bites. Some of them sounded daft or unconvincing in an ‘Ah, that’s just Ronnie’ way – when I said I’d come back to pay the kids’ school bills everybody laughed and said, how could you not have money for that? They thought I was joking. But I wasn’t. So this book is to set the record straight.

  What I want to do is to give an insight into a sportsman’s life, and show how difficult it can be to balance family and professional life. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t asking for your sympathy – I know just how lucky I am to be gifted, to have a huge following and to be able to make money and travel the world playing the game that I love (when I’m not hating it that is). And, yes, in one way it is a very glamorous life. But sometimes, if things don’t work out as you’d hoped in your private life, it becomes impossible to keep a happy balance between family and work, and sometimes you’re forced into choosing one ahead of the other.

  1

  GETTING THE BUZZ

  ‘Wednesday, four miles, 30 minutes, six x 400m, off 30-second recovery, times of reps was 72 secs, 71 secs, 70, 72, 73, 71.’

  ‘Oi, Ron, get up!’

  ‘Ah, Dad, give us a break, I’m knackered.’

  ‘Come on, son, time for a lovely little run. You know you want it.’

  Jesus. I was about 12 when I started running. Dad made me run, and it was like the Chinese water torture. I hated it. I was always talking about leaving school early to play snooker. And Dad said, you’ve got to be disciplined about it – you’ve got to go to bed early, do your three-mile run every day, keep fit. Healthy body, healthy mind. He said if I was physically fit I’d be able to focus better when I went down the snooker club. Dad realised I was already capable of winning little tournaments if I could have the edge of being fit. Back then snooker players didn’t bother with fitness. The opposite, in fact. Hurricane Higgins would always have a fag on the go, and a pint of Guinness at his side. The Canadian Big Bill Werbeniuk even got a sick note from the doctor saying that he had to drink beer when he was playing to control the tremor in his arm. That was his excuse anyway. As for all the up-and-coming kids, most of them spent their time playing fruit machines and gambling rather than keeping fit.

  Sometimes when I ran, Dad followed me round in the car. It was horrible. I was always a bit scared of him – certainly too scared to say no to him. But there was sense in what he was saying. I wasn’t fast, but I was okay – I was a bit porky, but I could get round three miles easily enough, and keep going.

  In the end I stayed on at school till I was 16, when I turned professional. I also kept up with the daily three-milers. Not that I had any choice. But it all changed when Dad got banged up for murder. As soon as he was charged I stopped running and training. I stopped doing everything really. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. My mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t believe what was happening to my world, or that my dad could be charged with murder – let alone be guilty. I was in pieces. Then he came out on bail, and he insisted I went back to the old routine.

  ‘Just because I’ve been away is no excuse for you to stop the running, is it, Ron?’

  No excuse? What, he’s been in nick for months, I’m in pieces for what the police say he’s done to some poor fella, and he’s having a go at me for not having a jog. Bloody cheek.

  ‘No, Dad,’ I muttered.

  ‘Right, let’s go, son.’

  So I got my running shoes on, he got the car out and stalked me for three miles.

  Bloody hell. I thought I was going to die. All it takes is a few months off the pace, and it’s like you’ve never run in your life. My heart was going like crazy, my legs didn’t belong to me and my feet were already blistering.

  ‘See, not that bad, was it, Ron,’ Dad said with a huge grin.

  ‘No, not bad,’ I puffed. Not bad, my arse.

  But Dad was right about body and mind. When I ran my snooker was better, and I did better in pro-ams, where both amateurs and professionals compete. Pro-ams are a long day; you’d get picked up at eight in the morning, get home at midnight if you got through to the final, and you had to keep focused throughout. Somehow, when I wasn’t running, my mind wandered all over the shop.

  Also, weirdly, running helped me with my sweating problem. I’ve always been a hairy fella, and I’d find myself sweating under my arms, through jumpers and shirts. It was horrible; embarrassing. I found that when I wasn’t running my armpits were squirting like the Trevi Fountain. If I wasn’t running, I’d forever be in the toilets, drying my pits under the heater. As soon as I started again the problem would disappear. I sweated while running but afterwards I was fine. It’s like a detox – it just flushes the shit out of you. There were other advantages to running, too. My legs wouldn’t rub together and cause me chafing hell because they were slimming down.

  Dad was in custody for nine months, and then he came out on bail, and the first thing he said was, you’ve got to start with your running again. I’d put on a bit of weight, but not changed drastically – except in my attitude. I’d become a procrastinator: ‘I can’t be bothered, I’ll do it tomorrow.’ So I started running again while he was out, and then when he was finally convicted for murder that was it. Boom! The end. I fucked it off for about six years. I swapped running for bingeing – on drink and drugs.

  I knew I was losing it but I didn’t realise I was turning into a right porker. By the time I was 20, I’d got myself u
p to 15½ stone, a 37½-inch waist, and I could have fitted two 15-year-old Ronnies in my playing pants. I’d become huge – a rhinoceros of a fella – and I wasn’t even aware of it. I just naturally grew into it, and nobody said anything to me about it.

  I was out one night at a club with a mate, and someone said to this girl: ‘That fella’s Ronnie O’Sullivan.’

  She looked at us and said, ‘Is he the fat one or the skinny one?’

  I was like, well, I know I’m not the skinny one because this geeza I was with was skinny. And I just thought, fuck, I must be fat. I’d never thought of myself as fat at all. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. But that really hit home. If I could see the woman now I’d thank her and shake her hand and say, you’ve done me a massive favour. The next day I started training. I felt heavy, slobbish, gross, and I knew I had to sort it out.

  So I started running regularly and got my weight down to a decent level. I lost three stone, and felt so much better for it. I’d had a big wobbly belly and now I’d started showing muscles. Wow! That was a mad feeling because it seemed to happen overnight. Until then, I couldn’t see any results. Then one day, after about three months, I looked in the mirror and thought, fuckin’ hell, I don’t recognise that bloke. It was 1997, I was 22, and now I’d gone from 15½ to 12½ stone. Result!

  I kept the running up for six to seven years. There were times when my head was in pieces – too many times to remember, to be honest – but I always think it would have been that much worse if I’d been doing no exercise. I’d go down the gym, run, get a swim in, play football occasionally. But nothing extreme. It was just a way of keeping myself in decent nick.