{"id":1177384,"date":"2026-08-30T14:47:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1177384\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T14:47:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:47:59","slug":"mural-of-snooker-legend-ronnie-osullivan-divides-opinion-in-sheffield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1177384\/","title":{"rendered":"Mural of snooker legend Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan divides opinion in Sheffield"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new mural of seven-time snooker world champion Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan has split opinion in Sheffield after going viral online.<\/p>\n

The artwork was commissioned for the back wall of the Spot On Snooker Club on Langsett Road, prompting a variety of reactions.<\/p>\n

Pictures of the mural brought about descriptions such as ‘skeletal’ and ‘zombie-like’, with some questioning if the face even resembled O’Sullivan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The man behind the work, local street artist Chris Ashmore, has defended the mural and clarified that it is not yet finished.<\/p>\n

Ashmore told BBC Sport<\/b> that he is only two weeks into the five-week project and will not rush himself, saying he wants to do it “properly”.<\/p>\n

He also said his view of the mural had been affected by scaffolding used during the work.\u00a0“I usually use a scissor lift, but couldn’t as the land is too uneven,”<\/b> he explained.<\/p>\n

\"AA view of the unfinished muralCharley Atkins \/ SWNS \/ Profimedia<\/p>\n

The snooker club’s manager, Dan Kirkland, said some areas of the face, particularly around the eyes, still need to be changed, but called for people to be more kind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“What has upset us is seeing some of the reactions becoming personal towards Chris,”<\/b> he said.<\/p>\n

“People are absolutely entitled to like or dislike a mural. Having an opinion about a piece of artwork is one thing, slagging off the person who created it is another.”<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new mural of seven-time snooker world champion Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan has split opinion in Sheffield after going viral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1177385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,15],"class_list":["post-1177384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sheffield","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-sheffield","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117185015185605264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1177385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}