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Imagine the following. When you're 16 years old, your dad -who you dote on, he's your role model, your idol almost - is sent to jail for a murder he didn't commit. As if that wasn't traumatic enough, your mum is later jailed too: leaving you, to bring up your sister alone.
In many ways, you're still just a kid yourself: a kid, with horrendous amounts of responsibility. And you have to do all this while living in the public eye. You're a prodigy, a future Champion; the press and public are obsessed with you.
How would you handle that?
How would you handle that?
People knew how good Ronnie O'Sullivan was from age 9 onwards. Even as a child, he was the talk of the circuit: this kid was brilliant, a next level genius. But he was also a human being: a fragile, sensitive young man who needed love and care - like we all do.
Quite naturally given the enormous traumas of his youth, O'Sullivan went on to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Imagine living your life in the public eye with THAT background, and with a poorly understood mental illness. Yet that's what he had to do.
So sometimes, he'd say the daftest things - and so many would be so quick to judge. Instantly. "He's so arrogant! He's such a wide boy! So full of himself! No respect for the game or others!"
When in fact, he always (and amazingly, still does) doubted himself. Hugely.
When in fact, he always (and amazingly, still does) doubted himself. Hugely.
As he started to win world titles, with that Jimmy White-sized monkey off his back, now it became "he'll never match Hendry or Davis! Too inconsistent, bad attitude, he just doesn't put the work in!"
Bullshit. As he's gone on to prove again and again and again.
Bullshit. As he's gone on to prove again and again and again.
Throughout most of the 2000s, when snooker was in desperate trouble - without a future, without tournaments, without money, without a prayer it seemed - Ronnie O'Sullivan carried the whole sport practically single-handedly.
It had Alex Higgins to thank for popularising it to begin with. It had Ronnie to thank for keeping it alive. No other snooker player of the era was even half as watchable; he could make the balls sing, and who knew what he was gonna say afterwards?
The point is: geniuses do not operate like you or me. They do not think like you or me. Geniuses are different. Completely different - and for whatever reason, sporting geniuses so often find life much more difficult than their chosen sport.
Think Diego Maradona, George Best, or Paul Gascoigne. Think too of Higgins, White or O'Sullivan. All geniuses; all tearaways. In Ronnie's case, that mischief he's always had has constantly polarised audiences: "Is he hilarious? Or is he a bit of an arse? Or even - both?"
Yet when O'Sullivan emerged, pro snooker was a game for young people. Going past 30 meant, in most cases, slow decline. It almost never meant continued improvement.
Yet like his great contemporaries, John Higgins and Mark Williams, Ronnie kept improving.
Yet like his great contemporaries, John Higgins and Mark Williams, Ronnie kept improving.
He took a whole year off snooker... then came back and won the world title by a street. He's had plenty of people doubting him ever since: last year, he lost to an amateur player in the first round, for goodness' sake.
So what does he do?
So what does he do?
He comes back and wins a SIXTH world title, 19 years after his first: the joint longest gap between first and most recent World Championships there's ever been. And Joe Davis' world involved one challenge match every year; not a 17-day marathon of the mind at the Crucible.
On the way, he teases interviewers, he causes controversy, he gets people talking as he always has. Like all sport's greatest characters and personalities, he enthralls almost as much in what he says as what he does.
Should someone who, in December, will turn 45 STILL be playing snooker as good as this? As natural as this? As effortlessly as this? No, of course they shouldn't.
Yes, that does say something about the standard of younger players - but it also says a massive amount for him.
Yes, that does say something about the standard of younger players - but it also says a massive amount for him.
If Ronnie O'Sullivan isn't the best thing ever to happen to snooker, I'd like to know who is. He's an absolute legend of his sport and, for that matter, of world sport. People all over the world watch him in awe. They watch him because he's a genius, period.
He's even a socialist who thinks deeply about the world - and a big fan of Corbyn. What's not to like?
Massive congratulations to him... and if he wins just one more, any remaining debate about The Greatest (and there isn't much of one left as it is) is well and truly over.
Massive congratulations to him... and if he wins just one more, any remaining debate about The Greatest (and there isn't much of one left as it is) is well and truly over.
cc: @ronnieo147
