Pot a little red, pot a black then another red, with just a little screw back
Chalk on the tip, then I'm gonna whip, the top rail with a black
Could have been a yellow but Hurricane's the fellow that won't go for little ones, Jack
I'm a-telling you won't settle for a two when I see my way through to the black.
One-four-seven, that's my idea of heaven
Got to keep trying, keep them all flying somehow
(Stick 'em down the middle now)
One-four-seven, it'd take a team of eleven
To stop me taking it, making or breaking it now.
Alex Higgins makes scoring a maximum break sound so easy in his 1982 country-and-western seven-inch single One-Four-Seven. Sadly, despite his undoubted talents, he would never make one in competitive snooker. He did become the first man to sink all 15 reds with blacks at the Crucible, against Steve Davis in 1980, but missed an easy green; instead, his reviled opponent would become the first man to achieve a competitive maximum, televised or otherwise, in the Lada Classic in 1983.
No matter, though, because he did manage to whack in the two greatest breaks in the history of the World Championship. One was the 135 that sealed his victory in the 1982 final over Ray Reardon: only Higgins could land the biggest prize in his sport with such a flourish. That was superlative, but the other was stratospheric.
On the verge of defeat in his 1982 semi- against Jimmy White, 15-14 and 59-0 down, needing every ball to stay in the tournament, he cleared up with a ludicrous display, rarely finding himself in position, knocking balls home from almost impossible angles, the white sent spinning around in a manner sure to defy scientists. After a decade of near misses since his first world title in 1972, and with Steve Davis ready to rule the 80s, Higgins must have known it was now or never. Teetering on the precipice, he mopped up the final frame and moved on to his destiny.
After winning the title, Higgins recorded his single, which although co-written by Mike Sammes, who arranged the chanting on I Am The Walrus and the backing vocals on The Long and Winding Road, failed to chart. Perhaps they should have released the B-side Life's in the Pocket instead. It's melancholic lyric – "Life is a game so they say/ It all depends how you play/With one foul shot you could louse up the lot … life's in the pocket, baby, life's in the bag" – could have slotted in at any point of Scott Walker's early solo albums, and you'd never have noticed the join.
Higgins might not have kept them all flying somehow against Davis in 1980, but a few have made it to his idea of heaven at the Crucible since. Jimmy White hit a maximum in 1992 against Tony Drago. Mark Williams made one in 2005 against Robert Milkins (who would make one the year after in qualifying against Mark Selby, not that it counts here). And Ali Carter walloped the lot in against Peter Ebdon in 2008.
Two men have managed it more than once, and they are, in no particular order, the two greatest players of all time. Stephen Hendry has made 147 at the Worlds twice, a late-era effort of trademark staunchness against Shaun Murphy in 2009, and perhaps the highest-pressure maximum of all, a clearance in the 1995 semi-final – the semi-final – against White, made despite falling hopelessly out of position on the black, making the pot with the white tight on the top cushion.
Ronnie O'Sullivan has, in trademark style, gone one better: in 2003 as he lost in the first round to Marco Fu; in 2008 against Mark Williams, and in 1997 against Mick Price, a preposterous effort that took a mere five minutes and 20 seconds. Five minutes and 20 seconds … you couldn't play One-Four-Seven by Alex Higgins twice in that time.
But for all Hendry's and O'Sullivan's greatness, nothing will ever match the original and best: Cliff Thorburn's trailblazing maximum against Terry Griffiths in 1983, the first at the Crucible and the first in World Championship history, started with a fluke along the top rail, punctuated by that pit-stop to wipe his hands of sweat, watched by his Canadian compatriot Bill Werbeniuk furtively peering round the partition, and rounded off by Jack Karnehm's timeless commentary: "Good luck, mate."
Poor old Jimmy White has had some misses along the way. When Alex Higgins pipped him in that 1982 semi-, as a 20-year-old, he must have thought his time would surely come. It never did. He would make six finals, but lose them all, snooker's bridesmaid.
It's difficult to decide which loss was the worst. He failed to perform in the first two sessions of the 1984 final against Steve Davis, but still managed to peg back a 12-4 deficit to 17-16. It was another case of 'maybe next time', as Davis fell over the line 18-16, having been gifted too large a lead to lose. He eventually beat Davis in 1990, but only in the semi-finals; waiting in the final was a young Stephen Hendry, who would soundly beat him 18-9.
It was the first in a run of five losing finals. In 1991, White started slowly again, losing the first session to the unfancied John Parrott 7-0. White couldn't recover and lost 18-11. In 1993, Hendry thrashed White 18-5 with no need for an evening session on the final day. And in 1994, the most heartbreaking of all, White missed an easy black from the spot in the deciding frame, allowing Hendry to mop up. "He's beginning to annoy me," grinned White ruefully in the immediate aftermath of his final disaster. Hendry, he would have tried his best to forget, was playing with a fractured arm.
But the biggest capitulation came in 1992 when, 14-8 up and cruising in the 23rd frame, he broke down when requiring one last red to make the frame safe. Hendry nailed a majestic red down the right-hand cushion and cleared up. White would not win another frame. Hendry sunk a stupendous brown in the last frame of the afternoon session to go into the evening 14-10 down, though nobody had ever overcome a four-frame deficit in the final session before. At the start of it, White missed a red that would have left Hendry needing two snookers, in a needless attempt to win position on the black, and watched his opponent clear up. The jig was up.
"To be honest with you, I feel great," smiled White after the match. "I just played someone who played fantastic snooker. This is the only time I've lost here when I don't feel sick." And there, you sense, lies the difference between a lovely chap, and a relentless winning machine.
There have been other classic comebacks, of course. The greatest, statistically speaking, was made in 1994 by the unassuming Nigel Bond, who found himself 9-2 down in the first round against the 1980 champion and 1983 break-building hero Cliff Thorburn, only to begin grinding The Grinder. Thorburn, by now a 46-year-old qualifier, had been playing well, chalking up a 139 clearance, but fell apart as Bond got his game together, clipping back frame after frame. At 9-7, the players were taken off the table so the game wouldn't run into the next session, which appears to have totally mashed Thorburn's head: despite having several opportunities to win the elusive frame, he lost two black-ball deciders and then the match 10-9.
The highest profile comeback was staged in the 2003 semis, Ken Doherty battling back from 15-9 down to beat the late Paul Hunter 17-16 in a one-sided final session. Doherty nearly matched the feat in the final against Mark Williams: at various points 10-2 and 11-5 down, he pegged the match back to 11-11 but could never quite edge into the lead, Williams eventually winning 18-16. Doherty had to console himself by setting a tournament record for frames played: his first- and second-round matches, and his semi-final, all went the full distance, while his third-round match ended 13-8. Factoring in the final, when only one frame remained unplayed, he competed in 132 frames, just five short of the maximum possible.
But the most meaningful was staged by a 150-1 outsider in 1986. Joe Johnson had never previously won a match at the Crucible, but made his way to the quarter finals with easy victories over Dave Martin and Mike Hallett, before seemingly reverting to type: at 9-7 up against Terry Griffiths, who invariably beat Johnson, he froze. Griffiths won five in a row to lead 12-9, at which point Johnson decided to aim for New York or bust. His arm loosened by lack of fear, he started thrashing in ludicrous shots from all corners, knocking in breaks of 104 and 110 while winning four frames in just over 50 minutes to make the semis. Johnson dispatched Tony Knowles with ease to make the final, where he dealt abruptly with Steve Davis in a drama-free 18-12 win. Johnson amazingly made the final again the following year, but that match marked the end of his brief imperial phase, Davis gaining revenge with an 18-14 win.
Despite winning three world titles, Ronnie O'Sullivan is in danger of being remembered more for his meltdowns at the Crucible than his majesty. In 2000, he was favourite for the title, only to throw away a 5-1 lead against David Gray, who won the last three frames of the match to progress. In 2003, he scored that 147 in his first-round match against Marco Fu, but still crashed out erratically 10-6. And in 2005 he let an 8-2 quarter-final lead slip against Peter Ebdon, losing 13-11, though at least he could cite the mitigating circumstance of his opponent's slow play; one of Ebdon's shots took three minutes and five seconds to execute.
This was his most stunning capitulation, though. Playing a semi-final against Graeme Dott – a player he had beaten 10 times in their previous 12 meetings, a run which included an 18-8 victory in the 2004 final – he stood at 8-8 before delivering a session in the club-amateur style, barely able to make a pot. Dott won all eight frames to go 16-8 up, as the Rocket spent the majority of the session sat in his seat with a towel over his face. O'Sullivan rallied to win three frames in the following session, but all reasonable hope was gone, and Dott crossed the line at 17-11, before going on to grasp the game's biggest prize after giving Ebdon a taste of his own medicine in an uber-tactical final.
For all the black-ball drama of the final deciding frame, what's often forgotten is how Taylor came back in this match not once, but three times.
Davis was 8-0 up, and a green ball away from making it 9-0, only for Taylor to pull it back to 9-7 overnight. Within range, Taylor eventually drew level at 15-15, only to seemingly let the match slip, Davis going 17-15 up, one frame away from victory. Again, Taylor levelled. And then the final frame. Everyone remembers the black, fewer the fact that Taylor had to sink the brown, blue and pink to stay in the frame. But that's what he did, before eventually sinking that historic black and wagging his finger like billy-o.
It was 12.19 in the morning, and 18.5m people had stayed up to watch it. What BBC2 – and snooker – would give for figures like that now.
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