{"id":517666,"date":"2026-06-04T04:26:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/517666\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T04:26:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:26:22","slug":"for-17-days-in-1997-ken-doherty-was-at-the-centre-of-the-irish-sporting-universe-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/517666\/","title":{"rendered":"For 17 days in 1997, Ken Doherty was at the centre of the Irish sporting universe \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

For 17 days in 1997, Ken Doherty<\/a> was at the centre of the Irish sporting universe.<\/p>\n

It had been a difficult season for the 27-year-old snooker player up to that point. He spoke about leaving Ireland down with a disappointing performance at the Irish Masters at Goffs and he needed a first-round win at the Crucible to retain his place in the top 16. Three weeks later, he was the new world champion and the \u201cDarling of Dublin\u201d.<\/p>\n

This morning, the 56-year-old announced his retirement from the sport. \u201cI probably should have hung up the cue a few years ago,\u201d he told the Irish Independent. \u201cBut I just love the game, love playing, doing the exhibitions.\u201d That was never more obvious than in Sheffield in 1997.<\/p>\n

Doherty\u2019s run to the world title transfixed the country. Few gave him a chance against five-time defending champion Stephen Hendry in the final. But Doherty believed. He told Johnny Watterson in 2020<\/a>: \u201cI knew he didn\u2019t like playing me. I knew he didn\u2019t like my style of game, a tough match player, a good safety player.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer champion Ken Doherty made his last appearance at the World Snooker Championships in 2014. Photograph: Photo by Gareth Copley\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

That\u2019s how it played out, Doherty earning a 15-7 lead. Hendry wasn\u2019t done though. \u201cHe started off like a train in the evening session. It was the first time I had got a little nervous,\u201d said Doherty. The Scot won five frames in a row to cut the deficit to three. But Doherty composed himself to see it out and become the only man from the Republic of Ireland to claim snooker\u2019s most prestigious title. He returned home in an open-topped bus ride through Dublin to Jason\u2019s club in Ranelagh where he had begun playing as a child, standing on a biscuit tin to reach the balls. Doherty ended the year as Ireland\u2019s Sportsperson of the Year.<\/p>\n

His Crucible victory began a 10-year spell when Doherty consistently competed for the biggest honours in the game. But after his stunning initial success the rest of his career was a case study in heartbreak.<\/p>\n

He made the final in Sheffield in 1998 as well but lost out to John Higgins. There were three defeats in UK Championship finals and he twice made the final of the Masters in London, again losing to Higgins in 1999, before an even more agonising defeat in 2000. Matthew Stevens got the better of the Irishman 10-8 in the decider but the match is best remembered for Doherty missing the final black of a maximum break attempt. He later told The Irish Times missing that black was worse than losing the match.<\/p>\n

\"KenKen Doherty at Goffs in Co Kildare in 1998. Photograph: Patrick Bolger\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was only one maximum at the [Wembley] Conference Centre before, that was Kirk Stevens in 1984, which was like 16 years previous. There\u2019s only been five maximums I think in the 50 years of the Masters. To have been on that rostrum would have been lovely,\u201d he said before last year\u2019s edition in London.<\/p>\n

A magnificent tactician and competitor in his pomp, Doherty\u2019s fighting qualities made him easy to support. Perhaps that determination can be traced back to a challenging upbringing in Dublin. His father died when he was young and Doherty says his mother \u201cwas fighting all her life\u201d for better for her family. Money was tight and Doherty procured a cue from Jason\u2019s for \u00a32. He told a 2022 documentary: \u201cAnything I ever won from the Saturday morning handicaps in Jason\u2019s to the money that I might have hustled in the Cosmo [snooker hall in Dublin] over the years, all won with this cue. It was the best two pounds I ever spent.\u201d<\/p>\n

He became renowned for comebacks, none more so than in his remarkable run to the world final in 2003.<\/p>\n

He won 10-9 in the first round, 13-12 in the second and then came from 15-9 down against Paul Hunter in the semi-final, before hauling Mark Williams back to 12 all from 10-2 behind in the final. He went on to lose to the Welshman 18-16. It was a crushing blow. In 2016, he recalled: \u201cAh, I was so devastated. I don\u2019t think I ever really got over it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He never got back to another Triple Crown final but he got to provisional world number one in 2007. The last of his six ranking titles came in Malta in 2006. After years of attempting to recapture his best form, he has decided that enough is enough.<\/p>\n

He intends to continue to play seniors events and commentary work for the BBC but has retired his card on the professional tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just gotten so harder as I\u2019ve gotten older,\u201d he told RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland. \u201cWhen you remember all the good days and you can\u2019t replicate that and you can\u2019t play as well as you used to, it becomes hard work and a bit more frustrating.\u201d We\u2019ll all remember the good days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 17 days in 1997, Ken Doherty was at the centre of the Irish sporting universe. It had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,223975,154640,132],"class_list":["post-517666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ken-doherty","tag-snooker","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116689947814427517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}