UK Championship: A short history of snooker’s second most prestigious event - Part 2 (1979-1980)
For the first eight years, the UK Championship remained an invitational tournament carrying no ranking points. However, with every passing year, the Championship was attracting more players and viewers towards the Guildhall arena, in Preston.
1979 – A new face
The third event of the UK Championship began in the same scheduled month, November, successfully at its previous venue, Guildhall. The 1979 Coral UK Championship, sponsored again by Coral Racing, was played with a newer format of play.
For the first time, due to the increase in players, a preliminary round was formulated. Six players participated in the preliminaries, which were played with best-of-17 frames format. Three winners of these preliminary matches surged into the last-24 round.
Defending champion, Doug Mountjoy, was seeded in last-16 round followed by the likes of John Virgo, Dennis Taylor, Alex Higgins and Terry Griffiths. The Welshman was drawn against Steve Davis in his first match, where he lost to him and crashed out of the
event by the score line of 9-5.
On the other hand, John Virgo, a familiar face who reached the semi-final stage of the 1977 UK Championship, played his first match against qualifier, Tony Meo. Virgo defeated Meo comprehensively by 9-6 to begin his magical run in the event.
Virgo set up a quarter-final clash with youngster, Steve Davis, who was appearing in his first quarter-final match of a major event. Davis showed some guts in the match and gave Virgo a tough competition but could not nudge him down and lost the encounter,
9-7.
Virgo surged into the semi-final against one of the classiest players of that era, Dennis Taylor. Mr. Perfection played outstandingly against Taylor to oust him quite easily by 9-4 to cruise into the final match-up against world champion, Terry Griffiths.
The best-of-27 frames final between Griffiths and Virgo was one of the most thrilling and topsy-turvy affairs of the UK Championship. Both cueists played terrifically during the match and went neck and neck until the end. The contest was dragged into a decider
frame, where Virgo snatched the victory from Griffiths to claim his first major title.
Lifting the UK Championship crown, Virgo shut his critics who used to say he could not clinch any major title in his career. Unfortunately, the most thrilling final could not be televised by BBC this time due a technician’s strike. However, the rest of the
event was covered that year.
1980 – Era for Steve Davis starts
The third Coral Racing sponsored UK Championship commenced at the same Guildhall arena, in Preston, on November 16 and concluded on November 28, with extensive coverage from BBC Television. The coverage was extended to eight days especially after a successful
coverage of 1980 World Snooker Championship.
A couple of more changes were introduced this year. The number of players in the preliminaries increased, the number of frames in the final encounter was altered from 27 to 31 and the prize money for the championship was also revised and now it included
prize money for semi-final, quarter-final, last-16 and last-24.
The number of frames to be played was 17 until the semi-finals. All top guns, which included former world champion, Terry Griffiths, defending champion, John Virgo, Dennis Taylor and Alex Higgins, were placed in round-of-16.
The run of defending champion, Virgo, was put to an end by the same opponent he defeated in last-24 round of last year’s UK Championship, Tony Meo. On the other hand, young Steve Davis, who reached in his first quarter-final in yester year’s UK Championship,
made his way through to the final spot against Alex Higgins successfully, beating Bill Werbeniuk, Meo and Griffiths in the earlier stages.
The final encounter against a legend like Higgins seemed a piece of cake for Davis, as the youngster clinched his first UK Championship title with glory ousting his opponent by the score line of 16-6 in the presence of spectators in the arena and on television.
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