Spoilsport rain began Williams' reign at top

JUST about everybody you talk to in snooker can remember the match that heralded their breakthrough, and professional referee John, Williams is no exception.

The 58 year old fondly remembers the day in 1973 when an administrator's error handed him the chance to oversee a World Championship quarter final between Fred Davis and Alex Higgins, and that match's abandonment due to the poor weather made him, in one morning's papers at least, the biggest name in the game.

It was a wet afternoon in Manchester and the World Championships, not yet having stumbled upon the Crucible in Sheffield, were being held in the City Hall in Deansgate where, somewhat inconveniently for a snooker venue, the roof consisted of a glass dome.

"They sent some fellow up to cover it with tarpaulin to keep the sunlight out, but some of the glass cracked under the weight. As the rain went on we kept getting water coming down on the table, so I had to call off the match," Williams recalls now.

"Rain stops play," ran the headlines the next morning, and amidst all the publicity Williams suddenly shot from the ranks of the unknown amateur referees where he had been for just five years, to being one of the best known in the business.

At that stage his full time work was as a metallurgist at a steel works in his native Wales, and the next big, development in what had been just a hobby was to come when Ted Lowe persuaded Pontins to start up a snooker week at one of their camps. Williams was taken on as one of four referees in return for £25 and a week's free board for his young family.

"It ended up being a bit of a nightmare, because I rang up the week before to check on how things were coming along and asked him what sort of balls he was intending to use and he said `snooker balls', at which stage I thought `well this guy doesn't know too much about what's going on here'."

"As it turned out there was very little preparation done, so I went down early and ended up, organising the whole thing, which was pretty chaotic. The upshot was that I've been doing it for them ever since, and now it's the biggest tournament in the world - we've got something like 1,500 matches in six days.

Since 1982, though, when he went, professional as a referee, that is, just one week a year out of Williams' hectic schedule. His 10 month season starts with 10 weeks in Blackpool at the qualifying rounds of the major championships each summer and ends in Sheffield at the start of May at the World Championships.

Already this year he has been to Malta and Thailand, and before setting off for Goffs this week he has been plying his trade in Telford at yet more qualifiers. But despite the travel and the long hours he is clearly a man who is happy with his lot in life.

"Some people think it's a glamorous life which it's certainly not. Packing a suitcase every week becomes tiresome very quickly, but I still enjoy the work. You tend to find yourself worrying about strange things, like if the venue has deep carpet then it takes its toll on your legs. But generally events are so well organised these, days that there are very few difficulties for people like me."

On the circuit the referees are a close knit bunch with the half a dozen or so full time professionals spending a lot of time together in venues and hotels. But Williams keeps what he feels is a professional distance between himself and the players.

"I don't like to get too close, because if something happened in a match I wouldn't like anyone to point the finger or feel hard done, by. But then players don't realise that if your are really concentrating properly you are often not even conscious of who is at the table when you make a decision?"

He is, however, open in his admiration for certain players, most notably Steve Davis, for their dedication to their work. The refereeing of the 1985 World Championship final, when Davis was beaten by Dennis Taylor on the black ball, is one of the few highlights Williams cares to recall in alone career.

"That was marvellous, and Cliff Thorburn's 147 in the Worlds was a great thrill too. I was in charge when Taylor played Alex Higgins at Goffs when the had a bit of a run in as well - I was running on 150 per cent that nights but generally you forget a lot of matches. There are just so many of them."

Like just about everybody else in the business, Williams has nothing but praise for the set up in Goffs, which he describes as "the most popular event on the circuit", but these days he has a more constant connection with this country.

"My wife has developed a keen interest in a singer from your part of the world. She went to see him last night and she is travelling with a friend to Stoke on Trent on Sunday to see him again. In fact she travels quite a lot to see him, and I'm surrounded by pictures of him as well as records and videos . . . Is it Daniel O'Donnell?"