For some, snooker is a recreational game, ideal for fun (entertainment).
With friends in bars, cafes and lounges. But there are those who take it seriously. As is the case with José Ramalho da Silva, the famous player of Pianinho de Mahua, who started playing for fun and became a professional.
Currently, Pianinho is a major name in one of the most popular sports in the country, showing all his skill in using snooker cues throughout Brazil. In fact, snooker is a sport. The activity earned this designation in 1988, when Roy Chapio was still dominating the national scene.
But how did snooker transform from being a recreational game to a sport with tournaments offering prizes of up to 400,000 Brazilian reals? To understand the evolution of snooker, we have to go back to the origins of the game.
Origins of snooker
However, first, it should be noted that snooker and billiards are different games. Billiards serves as a “base” for other games that use cues, balls, and a table. Therefore, snooker, also known as snooker, is a different type of billiards.
There is no history of its origin, but historians suggest that in 3000 BC, primitive versions of croquet and cricket were already using balls and cues, similar to those in snooker. Later, the game became part of the rituals practiced by the barbarian warriors of the time between the second and third centuries. They threw round rocks at others standing on the ground, like a kind of bocce ball.
Scientists believe that the game of billiards, as we know it, began to be played during the fifteenth century. There is more than one version about the invention of the activity.
One of the most important of these concerns Devigne, a Frenchman who worked as a craftsman for Louis XI. It is believed that the king was having fun at the billiard table while his soldiers were on the battlefields. Other versions consider that the game of billiards in its current form began in countries such as China, England, Spain, and Italy.
This activity began to gain popularity in Europe, reaching the United Kingdom in the 16th century. Its spread in British territories was a matter of time, as the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart practiced it and helped spread it. Just to illustrate a little of Mary’s love of the game, after she was beheaded at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, her body was buried with the cloth that covered her billiard table.
In parallel, the Spanish crossed the ocean and landed in North America to spread the game of billiards.
Equipment has evolved. Balls were made of wood until the 17th century, when wood was replaced by ivory. The use of this material was not stopped until the 19th century, thanks to the introduction of celluloid in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt of North America.
Over the years, it has undergone many changes, serving as a reference for the creation of new sides: Pool, Carom, Mata-Mata, Bagatela, and of course Snooker, better known as Snooker. Snooker, in turn, was created by soldiers of English origin who fought in India.
The popularization of snooker and its arrival in Brazil
After General Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald established the game of snooker in India, the sport started gaining popularity all over the world. The first professional tournament was held in England in 1907. 27 years later, the country also hosted the first World Championship.
In 1930, the Brunswick table factory arrived in Brazil, boosting activity here once again. Brazilian factories emerged in the 1940s, with Tujaji in Rio de Janeiro and Taco de Oro in São Paulo.
The Metropolitan Billiards Association was the first in the country, founded in 1944 in the state of Rio de Janeiro. It had an association with the Council National de Sport (CND), but the partnership ceased in 1956.
However, the first tournament was not held in Rio, but in São Paulo, in 1958. Currently, the Interclubes Paulista tournament is still being played and is therefore the oldest tournament in the country.
In the same period, snooker gained a great ally in Brazil: television. From 1960 onwards, the sport began to be broadcast on television. Thus, the “golden age” of saloons began, with emphasis on Maravilhoso, Taco de Ouro, Palácio Império, Indigena, and Bandeirante.
The first Brazilian Championship was held in 1978, at Palacio São Cristovao, located in Rio de Janeiro. This showed that snooker had more and more players and spectators.
Knowing the growth in activity, Rede Bandeirantes decided to broadcast the matches live on its channel. Snooker first appeared on Show do Esporte in 1984, with Juarez Suarez, Luciano do Vale and Kiko Leal.
The broadcaster soon discovered a player from Bahia, unbeatable in the bars and pubs of São Paulo: Rui Chapio. The player signed with Band after defeating the top 12 players in Brazil.
Roy experienced the peak of his career during his rivalry with American Steve Davis, in 1986. The matches between the two were watched by thousands of people, resulting in impressive viewing figures for Bandeirantz.
In addition to generating a large audience, broadcasting has been fundamental to the growth and development of snooker in Brazilian territory.
