'Interesting' Steve Davis still playing for fun

By Robert Philip 08 November 2007 • 12:01am

'Interesting' Davis still playing for fun — Still lining them up: snooker veteran Steve Davis

In the time of the 'Hurricane' and the 'Whirlwind', it was easy to envisage Steve Davis as the 'Undertaker'; the man in black methodically measuring up his victims before despatching them with cold detachment, his features as blank as an unmarked grave. He gave us the shivers every time he rose from his chair and gently swept his hands over the immaculately creased trousers to remove any stray specks of chalk dust, before, at a suitably funereal gait, walking to the green slab where he would bury ball after ball after ball.

Still lining them up: snooker veteran Steve Davis

How little did we know him; his twin passions of chess and collecting 1960s soul records (yes, on vinyl) drew snorts of derision and so when his Spitting Image puppet cast an envious eye at Alex Higgins and Jimmy White and demanded a suitably dashing nickname of his own, he was awarded the moniker Steve 'Interesting' Davis.

Yet behind the velvet curtains of the Crucible, where he won the world championship in 1981, '83, '84, '87, '88 and '89, 'Interesting' was renowned for his sociability and sense of humour, invariably of the most withering self-deprecating variety. "In my younger days, I talked about snooker and little else," he recalls. "I played chess for my local club in Essex, and accumulated a hoard of old 45s. So I fitted the bill as a bit of an anorak, didn't I?"

Then a curious thing happened. Along came Stephen Hendry and suddenly Davis found himself transformed into the Queen Mum of snooker, beloved by all. Having recently racked up his personal half-century he is stil out there - this week in Belfast where he will also be promoting his new DVD entitled The Greatest Snooker Trickshots - even if the competitive fires no longer burn quite so fiercely.

"My last tournament victory was back in the days of black and white television but it's nice to still be in the world's top 16. No, I don't have the drive or motivation of old, which is probably a form of self-protection. Win or lose, I try not to get too uptight about it. I could never have envisaged that I'd enjoy such an extended life-span within the game. And I certainly don't think you could enjoy such longevity in any other sport. I get smashed up a few times but it's not like being an ageing boxer.

"I used to hate losing but the standard today is so incredible that players accept losing as simply part of the job. When I was at the top, opponents would make 16 then miss the third black off the spot. You gain strength from that, you become the master. I was a bully and I loved it; I loved sitting there thinking, 'You're weak, I'm strong'. But it's only when you're winning frame after frame after frame you can get into that mode of playing the part of somebody you're not. It's almost self-hypnosis, I suppose. During the Nineties, when I discovered I was more vulnerable than I thought I was, it became more and more difficult to keep that act going — I mean, you look pretty silly sitting in your chair getting pummelled 9-3 and looking intense. That would be a bit sad. 'He's intense,' you can hear the commentator saying, 'coz he's thinking about his journey home.' But 20 years ago, even if something funny happened, I'd never crack a smile. I'd try to stay completely dead-pan. I was worried that if I let that mask slip for even a second, then my concentration would be gone and I'd be vulnerable."

So how hard was it when young master Hendry (himself now something of a veteran at 38) brought Davis' reign of terror to an end? "It's a shock when it happens as, of course, Stephen has discovered in turn. Although I don't know how he copes with it behind the scenes, I have to say that Stephen appears to have dealt with it far better than I did. I like to think I was a good winner, but I really hated it - and I mean hated it - when I started losing regularly. It still hurts when I lose, as it should, or what's the point in competing? I now have a much more balanced view of things. The curse of the sportsman who's forever frustrated because his career has gone down the pan and he's never going to regain his former glory again is not a problem that I suffer from any more - but there was a time as recently as the Nineties when I really didn't like it."

As the tournament victories dried up, so Davis gradually won our affection. But, sensitive soul that he is, it would be surprising in the extreme if the unpopularity he experienced in the early part of his career, when spectators were known to boo when he sank a vital ball (albeit in suitably hushed tones), was not a painful memory? "Did it hurt? It's so long ago that I really can't remember. But I think the British public has a problem with younger people having success. Maybe they saw me as some kind of threat to Alex Higgins, Terry Griffiths, Ray Reardon and their other favourites. I tried to be polite and not come over as a smarmy, smart aleck. But you can't control your facial expressions and people accused me of being aloof and arrogant because that's the way you seem when you play."

Although his TV appearances on A Question of Sport and The Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special revealed a different side to his personality — mischievous, wryly amusing and with an engaging ability to poke fun at himself — the metamorphosis from tombstone-faced automaton to national treasure was brought about almost entirely by his alter-ego in latex.

"The fans who watched me play exhibitions had the opportunity of seeing a different side to me. But I have to say that Spitting Image was an essential part of the jig-saw. It's very endearing to have something like that happen to you. It was a godsend in that it marked the start of me being accepted by the public. As soon as you get tagged 'boring' then you're no longer a threat to the bloke who thinks he must be more interesting than you. And the fact that I could then play up to being boring got me a lot of laughs and acted as a shield."

And does he still play chess and collect records by only the most obscure groups? "I've given up pushing bits of wood around a board. As a chess player I was never anything above club standard. Computers can beat me without even switching themselves on. My cerebral activities now revolve round poker. Does the old unreadable boat race give me an advantage? No, unfortunately I'm just an average player. I can hide my emotions all right but I don't have the ability to go with it, which is a bit of a drawback. Music wise, I'm still a bit of a vinyl freak and present my own radio show on Phoenix FM - it also goes out on the internet - which attracts about three listeners.

"It's called The Interesting Alternative Show, of course, and features all the bands I've loved for years like Soft Machine, Caravan and Magma. Bands no one else was really listening to in the Seventies and probably still don't listen to. My brief is to make sure by 12 o'clock on Monday nights we have no listeners because then it goes on to computer play-lists."

As this nation's oldest top-flight sportsman, can Davis envisage himself still in bow tie and waistcoat in 10 years' time when he turns 60? "It's not a physical game, so there's no telling how long I'll be able to go on, really. As the pressure on winning relaxes, so the pressure on staying in the top 16 intensifies.

"But I can still play a bit and can still turn a trick or two when the mood is upon me. All the clever clogs say 'retire at the top' but to me that's rubbish. That's OK if you're so fed up with the game that you can't be bothered any more.

"I think what will happen is that the standard of snooker will go on improving — not a dramatic jump, just a seamless progression — until the time when I won't need to retire because I'll have been given the sack. And I think that will be a nice way to bow out, to be beaten into submission.

Anyway, what more can I ask of the game? I fell in love with it as a kid, made a career out of it, and I like to think I've played my part in its popularity. I had my era and regardless of what happens here on in, I was a bit of a player."

And, what's more, a very interesting man, indeed.