World champion Terry Griffiths proved that slow and steady can win the race

For a man renowned for his slow and methodical play, it was fitting that Terry Griffiths’ career as a snooker player and coach did not burn out and stayed lit for over four decades.

Griffiths may have been the tortoise to the hare of green baize rivals like Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins and Jimmy ‘Whirlwind’ White and did not court controversy away from the table.

But Griffiths, who has died at the age of 77, drew every last drop from his talent and his role in helping to usher in snooker’s new era in the late 1970s and 1980s was no less important than more flamboyant contemporaries.

“People still come to me for a photograph and an autograph and I finished playing 21 years ago,” Griffiths said in a 2019 BBC interview.

Insurance salesman

Griffiths’ place in snooker’s pantheon was secured by winning the world championship at the first attempt in 1979 – the first qualifier to do so. A year earlier, he had been selling insurance for a living.

The Welshman turned professional in June 1978 and the following April embarked on a run at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre that would change his life for good.

Griffiths had 13-8 and 13-12 wins over Perrie Mans and Higgins before beating Eddie Charlton 19-17 in a semi-final which finished at 1.40am – the latest finish of any match at the time.

He then beat future champion Dennis Taylor 24-16 in the final to collect the winner’s cheque of £10,000.

“Dennis and me were good friends and we had to go to the reception, but I didn’t have a car,” said Griffiths, who became an overnight sensation at the age of 31.

“So I asked him if I could put the trophy in his boot and he said ‘yes of course’.

“But afterwards he said ‘I can’t believe you asked me to put the trophy in the boot’. I was just asking him a favour!”

Underdog

The public lapped up Griffiths’ underdog story as the sport made the journey from smoke-filled snooker halls to primetime TV and big business.

Griffiths’ cheerful persona captured hearts and his stylish coiffured appearance was immortalised in Chas & Dave’s ‘Snooker Loopy’ when he sang ‘I’ll buy another eight hairbrushes for me barnet’.

When Judd Trump’s hairstyle was the talk of social media nearly 40 years on, the 2019 world champion said: “I want to be like Terry Griffiths. Hopefully I can play as slow as him one day as well.”

Griffiths, who was born in the rugby town of Llanelli on October 16, 1947, started playing snooker at the age of 13 and became a top Welsh amateur player.

Away from the table, he was a miner at the age of 15 and also worked as a bus conductor and a postman before becoming an insurance agent.

Inspired by fellow Welshman Ray Reardon, who won six world titles between 1970 and 1978, Griffiths turned professional and sparked the era that would see snooker’s finest become the most recognisable of British sportsmen.

Triple crown

Although not a prolific winner of tournaments, Griffiths won the Masters in 1980 and the UK Championship in 1982, making him one of only 11 players to have completed snooker’s Triple Crown.

Griffiths reached at least the quarter-finals of the World Championship for nine consecutive years between 1984 and 1992, making a second final in 1988 when losing 18-11 to Steve Davis.

His best days were long behind him when he retired from professional play in 1997, even if Griffiths’ elegant style had stood the test of time.

But Griffiths, who received an OBE in 2009, remained in snooker as an accomplished commentator while forging a reputation as one of the best coaches in the game.

World champions Stephen Hendry and Mark Williams, Ali Carter, Stephen Maguire and Ding Junhui were among the players that he coached and he was director of the South West Snooker Academy.

Griffiths was married to Annette and had two sons Wayne, a snooker coach, and Darren, a PGA golf professional.