Whirlwind calms down

Contradictions run thick with the Whirlwind. He attends Alcoholics Anonymous, but still enjoys a drink. Gamblers Anonymous have welcomed him, but that doesn't exclude £5 flutters. He believes he's lost three World Championships because of the booze. He's been ripped off, declared bankrupt and survived the removal of a cancerous testicle.

He's squandered about £3 million - nobody really knows quite how much. He's taken two years off and is now eyeing up the World Championship in the Crucible like an ageing Knight Templar on a Holy Grail crusade. Jimmy White has no regrets.

"I regret not getting educated properly, but no, I'm very lucky. If I was playing bad snooker now I'd be bitter. But I'm not, I'm still playing good."

He glides into the foyer of Buswells Hotel in Dublin still in a dress shirt, his black coat draped from his shoulders like some world-weary aristocrat. Ten paces in front, a porter carries his cue like a standard bearer. "There you go Jimmy," says the porter.

"Cheers Paddy. Alright. Sweet mate," replies the Whirlwind.

White used to be the brightest comet burning across the green baize. Made a century break at 13 and got into the national newspapers. He then teamed up with a taxi driver called Dodgy Bob who drove him around London with Tony Meo, hustling in pubs and clubs. Two kids who couldn't believe their luck. They played all night, won all night. Hung around with villains.

Were you ripped off? "Yeah, probably. We used to get 20 per cent, but we never knew what it was 20 per cent of. Anyway it was probably more like 90 per cent. They were good days. We woz kids. We laughed," he says.

White gambled and drank and he played the snooker table like a pin-ball machine. Few, if any, have come close to his waspish talent, his ability to pot. He led the "Rack Pack" and carried the baggage of the authentic hustler. Lived life like a cavalry charge and won every competition available except the one he really wanted - the World Championship.

Instead, he made a name for himself as the greatest player who never won it and every time he lost - four times against Stephen Hendry, once against John Parrott and once against Steve Davis - strangers shed tears. Sometimes he was drunk. Sometimes he wasn't. If he wasn't drinking, he was at the race-track. If he wasn't at the track, he was in a card game.

The Whirlwind became "snooker's favourite son" - laddish, vulnerable and crazily self-destructive, a common man with common flaws and a god-given talent. White was Alex Higgins without the head-butt.

On one occasion he was playing for England at the Home International Amateur Series in Prestatyn, Wales, which was a qualifying event for the World Amateur Championships being held that year in Tasmania.

He arrived off the train and started drinking in the bar with Joe O'Boye, then the amateur title holder. Three hours later White was called for his match against Wales and fashioned a break of 59 before falling drunk to the floor. He pulled himself up using the pocket and tried to play on.

"All of a sudden I missed a red and collapsed on the floor where I remained in a catatonic state beneath the feet of my opponent, Steve Newberry. Wales won 3-0," White recalls.

Because of his ability, White was put on the plane anyway. When he arrived in Tasmania, he spent his entire £1,500 allowance within two days on a gambling and drinking spree. As a result he was forced to doss for the whole of the amateur world championships. He got to the final, threw a celebration party the night before and, playing with a hangover, won the championship 10-1.

"I was a drinker. I was a big drinker. What did I drink? I drank anything and everything. I get silly soppy drunk now, you know ordinary drunk. Before I'd be last to leave the bar and I'd have somewhere else to go. Bit of an animal to be honest with you. I never needed a drink in the morning to function, but I needed one to sleep. There was a time I wouldn't have been able to meet you until three in the afternoon and only then with a pint of Guinness.

"It's funny, I used to love the travelling and hate playing. If I had to come to Dublin all I'd be doing is sussing out where the nightclubs are and the racing at Leopardstown. My wife is Irish and one of my best mates, Ronnie Wood, lives in Kildare. I know my way around Dublin. Now I'm off on a Friday night practising with Ken Doherty in Jasons. You couldn't have got me doing that if I was paid to a few years ago."

White has an easy way with strangers. Takes them in and allows them a familiarity that is both genuine and unintimidating. You get the feeling that Paddy the porter receives better treatment from the star than the manager of the hotel. Chip off the same block.

The man who came from "a crap council house in Tooting with a broken gate" looks a little shelf-worn for his 37 years. His pristine rug, care of the hair surgeon, sits like a black thatch on a bleached white face, now with a square-meal fullness. But the eyes are up where they should be and they are clear. This is Jimmy White as a picture of health. The credible health convert who still smokes, drinks and gambles.

"I've been ripped off by most managers I've had. Most players get ripped off. It's because snooker players are not the most intelligent people in the world. Even if they are, they don't have time. The game's too hard to concentrate on books and things.

"I had to teach myself to read because I was never at school. It does annoy me. I can read a book. I don't get a word though and I've got the whole thing wrong. If I was to write you a letter I'd make about 50 mistakes - but yeah, my calculations are good."

"I appreciate life now. That's why I've changed. I can't do it no more. And I don't enjoy that feeling. I don't gamble, so that's stopped the late nights. If I had £950 I used to borrow £50 so that I could have a £1,000 bet. I'm not proud of that. I should be secure now in life with money and I'm not because of those years. But I'm not bothered because it was my own fault. I'll get rich again and I'll win the World Championship."

In the last two years White's mother passed away and his older brother Martin died of cancer. His wife Maureen, against the odds, stayed with him. When he got cancer, he rang up his old mate Meo, who had also had his left testicle removed.

"I says to him. Must have been something we were sitting on in the back of Dodgy Bob's black cab."

At this year's World Championships, White dumped Darren Morgan, then Stephen Hendry, posting breaks of 138 and 143 to set himself up for a run at the title. It was the beginning of his fightback and caught the public eye. Kindred spirit Ronnie O'Sullivan stood in his way at the quarterfinal stage taking a 7-1 lead in the first session. Against O'Sullivan, that was too much ground to concede and O'Sullivan sailed through 13-7.

"I just concentrated so much on Hendry and getting my game together. I completely bashed him up. Against Ronnie I started to fly it, play at 100 mph. I couldn't believe it. And when you get in that frame of mind you can't listen to anybody. I can't play like that anymore. I can't run around the table."

This year White has an autobiography on the shelves. It begins: "In the late summer of 1982 Alex Higgins and I did a small tour of Northern Ireland." As sports books go, there is probably no other opening line that is more loaded.

The cover is an atmospheric black and white picture of the squinting Whirlwind with a smouldering cigarette in his mouth. He knows his old image still sells. But he won't let it kill him. He is ranked 12th in the world now and if they let him, he will retire at 40.

"This is me now," he says. "This is me to the end of my career. This is Jimmy White. Snooker has improved 21 points since I was a teenager, but I have the game. I'll retire and I'll play golf. I love it and I'm crap at it. But that's what I'll do."

Getting up to leave, the black coat swirls around and the thickset hand goes out. Not for the first time the new man apologises for arriving at 10.20 rather than 10.00 on a Saturday morning.

"Thanks mate, but don't get me wrong or anything,' he says. "I still know how to enjoy myself."