Farewell Dracula! Ray Reardon was snooker's bon vivant who dodged death down the pits to dominate the Seventies

It was Ray Reardon’s good fortune that his zenith as a snooker player coincided with the advent of colour television. And it was snooker’s good fortune to have as its star a champion with such easy-going charisma.

Reardon won the world title six times, dominating the Seventies. Sleek of hair, and with canine teeth, he was famed as ‘Dracula’, one of the most recognisable characters among the larger-than-life cast who transcended snooker during its cultural heyday.

An all-time great, who later acted as mentor to Ronnie O’Sullivan, Reardon died of cancer on Friday, aged 91.

Now players turn up unshaven and tie-less, but the old cueman was always immaculately accoutred. He was known as a man of wit, words, warmth and wisdom. There was a lot of laughing wherever he went.

This avuncular image meant the exposure in 1984 of his eight-year affair with Carol Covington, who went on be to his second wife, was a well-publicised scandal.

Born in Tredegar, at the top of the Welsh valleys, he followed his father, Ben, down the pits. An accident a mile underground nearly cost him his life. A roof collapsed. He first felt a trickle of dirt on his helmet. Alert to the danger, he threw himself to the ground. A 12ft girder fell, trapping him in a heap of rubble.

He recalled: ‘My ordeal left me feeling a bit like a dirty dishcloth and when the blood started to circulate in my numb legs it had me screaming in pain.’ To pass the three hours waiting to be rescued, he played imaginary marbles with his brother, Ron.

The experience taught him that knocking in 21 balls on a green table could never induce pressure. By the time he turned professional aged 35 in 1969, he had also served a spell in the police, PC 184 in Stoke-on-Trent. 

He won two bravery commendations, one for climbing on a roof to arrest a burglar and the other for approaching an armed man, who was intent on killing his daughter’s boyfriend, who had got her pregnant and was reneging on his responsibilities.

A sea of shoppers were out when the message came in over the walkie-talkie that the gunman was moving in. Reardon told everyone to back off. As he saw the suspect approaching, he realised he knew him, took off his helmet and said: ‘Jack, it’s me. Ray. I live in Bath Street around the corner from you. Don’t do it, Jack.’ Reardon walked him to the police station.

There were few professional players in those days and Reardon first built his snooker reputation on the amateur scene. Colour television brought him to wider prominence when Pot Black launched on the BBC in 1969. He was the tournament’s first winner. Snooker’s boom had started.

World championship successes came in 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1978, when he was 45 and 203 days old. It was the first daily televised world championship and his only win at the Crucible. Reardon was the oldest champion until O’Sullivan took the title in 2022, aged 46 years and 148 days.

It was fitting, for the tactically astute Reardon to coach the tearaway, brilliant Ronnie. He had known more unpredictable figures, mind. Of one of them, Alex Higgins. ‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ said Reardon of the volatile Irishman. ‘Nice as pie one moment; evil as you could get the next.’

A father of two by first wife Sue, Reardon remained with Carol. He spent his last 40 years in Devon. A bon vivant, whose tastes an embolism five years ago could not diminish, he continued to play snooker and golf, becoming president of Churston Golf Club. He carried a competitive spirit to the end.