Neil Robertson stood at 4-4 against Shaun Murphy after the first session of their best-of-33 semi-final of the world snooker championship and, if he goes on to win the title, is bound to be described as the first Australian to have his name on the 82-year-old trophy. This would, however, be inaccurate as in 1952 the name of Horace Lindrum was so inscribed – but he was not an Australian world champion in the sense that Robertson would be.
In those days, the Billiards Association and Control Council, a collection of largely well-meaning amateurs, was recognised as the governing body of both the professional and amateur games.
Among those who depended on the game for a living, though, discontent simmered, no less so when the BA&CC produced a balance sheet for the eight-day 1951 world final which showed that Fred Davis and Walter Donaldson were to share a mere £500 for their trouble.
The BA&CC high-mindedly declared that the championship was primarily a matter of honour and that financial considerations should be secondary, but the professionals did not see it that way and decided to boycott its 1952 championship in favour of organising one of their own.
With some residual vestige of deference to the BA&CC, they decided to call their own event the World Matchplay Championship but it was immediately recognised by the snooker public as the real thing.
Joe Davis, champion for 20 years, was still the best player and was effectively running the professional game but had retired from world championship play in 1946, thus devaluing the title. All the other active professionals competed in it, though, except Lindrum, three times runner-up to Joe but by then in steep decline.
The BA&CC stubbornly insisted on organising its own championship, come what may. Lindrum's mother, who was obsessed with "the Lindrum name" – which was ironic since the real name of this nephew of the billiards nonpareil Walter Lindrum was Horace Morrell – was among those who appreciated the commercial value of being the official world champion and encouraged him to enter.
He needed an opponent and the only one that could be found was Clark McConachy, an all-time great billiard player who could not beat Joe or Fred Davis even off a 28 start at snooker.
The BA&CC duly staged a farcical world snooker title match of a fortnight's duration at the Houldsworth Hall, Manchester, which Lindrum won 94-49, the "dead" frames being solemnly played out.
His name was duly inscribed on the trophy and for several years he toured Australia and South Africa as "undefeated world champion". Hardly anyone in those distant foreign lands knew enough to challenge this claim or set it in context.
He was nevertheless regarded as a renegade by the British professionals and only shortly before his death in 1974 at the age of 62 was his personal breach with Joe Davis healed.
