World Snooker Championship 2026: The Crucible – what makes Sheffield theatre so special?

And that’s the bottom line: history.

Alex Higgins and his young daughter Lauren in 1982. At 85, Dennis Taylor wags his finger. Five minutes max for Ronnie O’Sullivan. White bored almost man. Baskin Davis and Stephen Hendry for decades.

Rob Maul covers snooker for the Sun and Shane McDermott has become a mainstay in the media room for the Mirror.

As Maul said: “You can’t ignore history. It’s a pilgrimage I’ve been making since 2018, and I’m honored to do it, but there are people in that building who have been doing this for decades and decades.”

“That’s the unique thing about snooker: they kept the Hendrys in the sport and they’re still working. John Parrott’s comment. And that legacy is something not to be underestimated.

“When you walk around town you see Steve Davis and if he’s training Jimmy White will come up to you. A lot has changed in other sports but snooker is basically the same game these legends played.”

“You see the same faces every year,” McDermott says, “people who have been coming every year since 1977. Unfortunately, some are coming less and less because of their age.

“I remember bumping into John Virgo after games as he was leaving the press room for a minute and leaving the commentary box. You just nod your head and say hello. That’s something everyone is going to miss this year.”

Faces in the crowd, faces in the commentary box, faces at the table. Here one year, gone the next.

Recently snooker has lost Virgo, Ray Reardon, Willie Thorne and Terry Griffiths. Broadcaster and journalist Clive Everton and Bafta-nominated former BBC snooker executive producer Nick Hunter have also passed away.

Thorne’s booming voice and laughter, the Griffiths’ gentle sense of humour, Everton’s wisdom, Virgo’s dry wit.

They were part of the fixtures and fittings.

And each, in their own special way, played a key role in transforming the Crucible into something it was never built for: a snooker hall.