Well well well, the UK Championships have just finished and you can find loads of stuff about the actual snooker all over the internet. Also while trawling social media, you may also find vigorous discussion about something seemingly far more important than the snooker itself: that is the people paid to talk about the snooker.

My initial childhood dream was to be astronaut. Having failed that, being a sports commentator was my next dream job. Sadly I can’t get through a sentence without swearing so it’s not to be and I’m writing this rubbish on the internet, but it is a profession I pay particular attention to, and it appears from X that I’m not alone.

Let’s set the scene: whether we like it or not, the BBC tournaments are the only ones which most people in the UK will experience any form of snooker. Most of them don’t follow the season that much, some may watch the ITV tournaments, but for a decent chunk of people, the UK, The Masters and the Worlds represent the only snooker they will watch. As such their coverage is the prime exponent of the sport in the UK. The BBC have settled upon a format of the peerless Hazel Irvine martialling a mixture of affable Northern man with provincial accent (John Parrott), passive-aggressive Scot who is also the most driven winner the sport has ever seen (Stephen Hendry); a loveable jolly Irishman who likes a laugh (Ken Doherty) and seemingly-straight-laced Southerner (Steve Davis). All the stereotypes catered for there. As pundits, perhaps their homework on the players is lacking at times but they all gel and, crucially, know a little bit about snooker what with each of them having been to at least 2 World finals, and two of them having 13 of the fucking trophies on their hopefully reinforced mantlepieces.

To supplement this, we have the commentary. John Virgo is there, we never see him nowadays, but he’s fashioned himself as a ‘voice of snooker’ since Big Break seemingly catapulted him to national treasure status in the 90’s. He likes a good cliche, perhaps too much, but is a thoroughly likeable man and snooker is in his blood, the sport wouldn’t be the same without him. When the action gets underway, JV gets one of the four mentioned above as a co-commentator, and then two of the three left usually take the second table. Peter Ebdon made an appearance for one match seemingly at random, again another man who knows a thing or two about reaching the pinnacle of the game, having done it in the most dramatic fashion against a seemingly unbeatable Mr Hendry in 2002. After that, we have a supporting cast of ‘part time’ commentators, some of whom are just starting their broadcasting journey, some of whom have been around the game a while. The excitability of Rob Walker is a topic for a whole different blog post. But then we enter the mysterious world of the co-commentating current pro.

This UK Championship, we have had Shaun Murphy, Kyren Wilson, Stuart Bingham and Mark Allen. Each of them with a reasonable chance of going deep in the tournament and two of them would have been up there with the bookies favourites, the other two certainly not exactly rank outsiders. These are not some old pros looking for a payday as their snooker skills wane, these are among the top players in the world and very much in the mix for the title. As such, one has to ask, should they be commentating at all? Let’s look at each in detail.

Shaun Murphy seems to do more than the lion’s share compared to everyone else. So I’ll do more on him than anyone else in return. Let’s get one thing straight here – Shaun Murphy is an absolutely fantastic snooker player and scintillating to watch when he’s on song. For all his many achievements on the table, his 147 in the Shootout will, I suspect, be his eternal legacy to this sport – one of those rare “I can’t believe that actually happened” moments that will be forever his, although I can’t work out if that might be quite annoying for someone who has won pretty much everything else in the game. In addition to being a very fine player, I have no doubt he has a fascinating knowledge of the game and is clearly a keen student of it too: bluntly, he knows a lot about snooker.

However, that does not mask the fact that just comes across… well, lets put it this way: he’s the kid at school who reminds the teacher when the homework is due; he’s the one on the stag do (if indeed he gets invited) who demands everyone goes for a needlessly expensive sit-down meal, refuses to split the bill because he didn’t have any wine – sticking safely to Bud Light – then “calls it a night” immediately afterwards while everyone else is wondering why they didn’t just go to Wetherspoons. It’s all jacket and jeans, smart shoes, wouldn’t surprise me if he owns a gilet. You know what I mean.

With his hair Brylcreemed into an immoveable block and a pocket square visible at all times, I always get the impression Shaun is trying to be something he’s not – this is a man who has presumably spent more than the average amount of his life in Working Mens Clubs and the like, where such flecks of sartorial elegance would be simply inviting ridicule. In his head I suspect he’s a charming debonair throwback to a bygone age, to the rest of us it’s all a bit pompous. I may be totally wrong, perhaps he’s cracking company – indeed his rapport with some of the players implies he is – but this is how he comes across on screen. And it’s not just me, I’ve checked with numerous others and nobody seems to warm to poor old Shaun.

Is this his fault? Not sure, really. He can be aloof – see how he got prissy with Jill Douglas when she asked a perfectly reasonable question a couple of years ago, his answer basically being “you and the viewers couldn’t possibly understand” – something for which I should add he later apologised but the mask most definitely slipped there. He’s made mistakes in life and snooker, but seems to talk down to the viewer. Those “teacher’s pet” vibes simply won’t go away, and to cap it off he dresses like he’s off to the rugby club after a week of forex trading. Mr Murphy is entitled to dress how he likes of course, but someone needs to work with him on his on-screen demeanour – the self-satisfied grin and the pocket square don’t quite match with what he actually is: an otherwise completely normal bloke who is very good at snooker.

Added to this, he talks too much, plain and simple. Snooker is a game where not much happens for long periods of time. We know this and like it for this reason, it brings us peace and serenity with a generous sprinkling of drama later. If we wanted stuff happening all the time we’d watch basketball. As a result, sometimes silence is a virtue. We might need to know when there’s been a good shot, bad shot, what the options are or what is coming next. But if there’s nothing to say, nothing has to be said. Frustratingly, sometimes what Murphy is saying is actually useful insight, but it’s buried in such a wall of noise that you have probably muted him before then. There’s no doubting his exceptional snooker brain; he just can’t translate it to commentary.

Ominously, this wasn’t a one-off- Murphy has been in the BBC setup for a while and appears to be positioning himself for punditry duties. His chat in the studio isn’t anywhere near as irritating as his commentary, but I struggle to reconcile a current pro providing an objective opinion on a fellow current pro, more on that later. I still think that’s a job for someone at the end of their career rather than someone whose name might be spelled out by a trophy engraver anytime soon, although of course Mr O’Sullivan is writing his own rulebook on that on Eurosport, with evident success, so maybe Murphy is trying similar.

Keen to stress the situation is not unsalvageable for Shaun here – he clearly knows the game inside out and I suspect he has a lot to offer, just perhaps not as much as he thinks with his “word salad” approach at the moment. Let’s not lie, not many warmed to Hendry or Davis when they were players, however they didn’t care because they were winning everything in sight at the time. Since retirement we’ve seen them rebrand as outwardly warm and gregarious, you could even say fun, people, a world away from their on-table persona. Looking at other sports, almost nobody outside of Man Utd fans liked Gary Neville or Roy Keane as players (including each other, judging by the latter’s autobiography) but as commentators and pundits they’ve really come into their own and would satisfy the “I’d like to go for a pint with them” test. If Murphy can find a way of saying what he wants to say using a fraction of the words, and maybe coming across like less of a square mile financier while he’s at it, then he might be onto something. But maybe leave it until you’ve dropped out of the world’s top 10 perhaps, concentrate on trying to win as much as possible first.

At the other end of the ‘would I like to go a pint with them’ spectrum to Murphy, we have Stuart Bingham and Kyren Wilson. Kyren Wilson is a fantastic ambassador for snooker, a good family man, a likeable fella and, oh yes, the current World Champion. Stuart Bingham is also clearly a nice bloke, I can imagine him being a good laugh over a couple of beers, we might even end up dancing to the Beegees. He’s also a phenomenal breakbuilder, has pedigree in the game and can do damage to anybody on his day, just ask Ronnie at the Crucible (twice!). However, this is what Stuart Bingham and Kyren Wilson are not: particularly good commentators.

As much as they know about the game, they don’t exactly articulate it well to the viewer. Every sentence starts with “yeah” and they say something that even us non-pros could deduce – “yeah he’s got bit of a bounce off the top rail”, “yeah his cue ball isn’t where he wanted it”, “yeah the pack ain’t great to go into off-of the blue”. English language levels dip, not a bad thing per se, we’re not judging people by their education and they’re all genius-level at mechanical Physics whether they know it or not, but I can’t help but feel there might be better commentary to be had from somebody else. Alan McManus and Dominic Dale are the polar opposite of this on Eurosport – neither of them World Champions but both knowledgeable guys who have a somewhat unique way of explaining things, but it all works. This isn’t classist or elitist by the way, I don’t expect everyone commentating on snooker to sound like they’re in Downton Abbey, but if someone is struggling to articulate their thoughts, they probably shouldn’t be commentating at all.

Mark Allen, however, cuts across all this as a man with an excellent knowledge of the game, doesn’t say too much, and does it all with a smooth Northern Irish lilt that, on paper, should work brilliantly. However, he always sounds like he’s been invited up to the cockpit and doesn’t really know what to say to the captain so just keeps things mannerly and hopes he’ll be allowed to go back to his seat soon. For a man who definitely can and does speak his mind regularly, I always get the impression he’s pulling his punches in commentary. As a result we don’t get anything particularly earth-shattering, although at least he had the good grace to bow out of commentary duties when he felt he didn’t play well in round one, instead deciding to focus on the practice table.

And herein we get the real issue at heart: why the actual fuck are players who have a reasonable chance of winning the tournament titting about doing media work at all? Why aren’t they focussed on their game, getting appropriate rest, etc? If media work was so easy that you can just fit it in around life as a pro, why hasn’t everybody else been doing it for years to swell their income? I’ve never heard John Higgins, Mark Williams or Mark Selby get behind the microphone – 3 genuine greats of the game who I suspect can tell us far more about what’s going on than almost anybody else in the world. You may note Judd Trump is missing from that list – purely because a couple of years ago he did actually do some commentary on the Worlds I believe, but again this was an outlier and he now turns up to play his snooker and nothing else… lo and behold he now wins tournaments for fun.

Even snooker’s very own renegade-in-chief, Ronald Antonio O’Sullivan, a man who claims he doesn’t care, will only do punditry after he’s been knocked out of the tournament. That tells me it’s not a cakewalk just turning up and being given a microphone for a few hours, there must be far more to it than that. Make up, soundchecks and the like. One of the arguments I heard was that “there’s not much to do” in a player’s downtime. Well boo fucking hoo. We’re not running a creche, this is professional sport and just as I want to see the best people playing it I also want to hear the best exponents of commentary talking about it, not a couple of people filling in the time. From a playing perspective, the downtime is a test of the mind for everyone. Whatever next? Cricket getting the yet-to-bat batters in to commentate because they might get a bit bored in their dressing room as the test match unfolds?

One thing you may have gleaned is that I don’t think we actually learn anything from these players that we don’t know already or that couldn’t be imparted to us by the existing commentators. Nobody is giving me any new information purely by virtue of being a current player. The game doesn’t really change much, they can’t really speak their mind on, say, conditions in case they get fined. But then, as per my supposition about Mark Allen: are the current pros a bit hamstrung here? Can they really go in “two footed” on people who they might be playing tomorrow, or may have fly to an exhibition in China with over Christmas?

Shaun Murphy for example (quite rightly) insinuated that Allen was playing deliberately slowly in his semi against Hawkins and it’s now been blown into a “war of words” because Allen responded to him on X. At what point is there a line between perfectly fair commentary and keeping things respectful between fellow pros? This is not an issue we have when Stephen Hendry sounds audibly disgusted at people turning down shots or running out of position with his “that’s poor” withering putdown – he can say what he likes because it’s the nature of his job as a commentator. Whereas anybody being paid a decent whack but not able to tell us the full story in case they annoy a friend of theirs or make their next match a bit more fraught than they’d like… well that’s a conflict of interest isn’t it?

There’s also a slight moral hazard here for me – I’ve never been a top snooker pro but I would imagine if you’re drawn to play a certain player, you do some modicum of homework. Check their style, check their strengths and weaknesses, work out some sort of plan to beat them. This all takes time, presumably it’s not the greatest fun spending hours watching re-runs of your next opponent trying to work out what they’re like to the middle pockets or whether they’re comfortable with rest shots. However, if you happen to be ‘the chosen one’ for some commentary, hey presto all of a sudden you’re getting paid to watch two potential future opponents in the tournament, complete with stats packs AND maybe someone like Steve Davis or Stephen Hendry’s views on what they’re good and bad at to go with it. It’s manna from heaven for the chosen few really, imagine being paid to do what you were already probably going to do tomorrow anyway? An advantage which will forever be denied to, say, Ding Junhui. If someone would like to pay me twice to do my actual job, I’m all ears.

One thing that isn’t elaborated upon is: who has chosen these particular players and why? I have no idea what the criteria for entry might be – Allen subverts the ‘must be a previous or current World Champion’ theme. Quite patently Kyren and Stuart and, to an extent, Mark are not exactly flagrant self-promoter types who I can imagine were hounding the BBC to give them a chance, unlike Shaun Murphy who I suspect can bloviate with the best of them. Allen has had some well documented financial issues which may have caused him to look at other earning options, but Kyren has just won the world title with all that brings, it seems to have opened the floodgate to being at ease in later stages of competitions since, he’s earning more money than ever before so why does he suddenly feel he needs to commentate? Was he really the best they could get, or was he just a high profile name who said yes?

Do they screen-test other potential candidates? Ali Carter is someone who always seems very driven to win – can we get an insight into his mentality? Did Michael Holt get a go, as I suspect he’d be far more illuminating than most? What about Neil Robertson who was excellent in co-comms for a few days at the Worlds, why didn’t we get him again? What about players who didn’t qualify, can we know for definite if Stuart Carrington or Anthony McGill can’t add to our understanding of what’s going on? Is Jamie Clarke the next Clive Everton? We’ll simply never know because we have to listen to Stuart Bingham telling us that professionals might practice blacks off their spot (true story).

Or do, as I suspect, the BBC just ring around the English speaking players in the seeded side of the draw and see who fancies it? And if it is the case that “well they’ve offered me a few quid to do it so I may as well” then there has to be an element of quality control: I pay my licence fee, I get a say in this, unlike the commercial broadcasters.

Some of us would give our right arm to be paid to talk about snooker to millions of people – somewhere out there is a budding sports commentator, someone who maybe can’t make a break of 10 but who knows snooker well and can articulate their views perfectly… but can’t get a look in at the state-funded broadcaster because it’s a load of current-pros looking to somehow fill the time in between earning five figures for a week’s work on the table. And that isn’t right.

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