Opinion: Stan Moody should be allowed to enjoy ‘great adventure’ in snooker despite raised expectations

Shaun Murphy was allowed to turn professional at 15 because his 16th birthday fell just after the start of the 1998/99 season and it was thought unfair to make this promising young player wait another year. Dizzy with excitement at being part of the glamorous world of top level sport, he was swiftly dealt a reality check when a senior player took him for a coffee and told him that he had no right to be part of the tour.

Welcome to the professional snooker circuit.

Moody, from Happy Valley country in Halifax, impressed by winning a match at last year’s Shoot Out and has kept working hard in the following 12 months, capturing the English under 18 and under 16 titles. After his success in the world juniors he reached the final of the main WSF Championship.

Murphy has already been helping out with advice as a mentor figure. He has much wisdom to impart after 25 years as a professional but can also deal a reality check: life on tour is hard. There are no guarantees.

There’s been a narrative left unchallenged for a while that there is no young British talent coming through. Moody disproves this, as does 16-year-old Liam Davies from Wales, already world champion in the under-21, 18 and 16 age divisions. He plays today as a wildcard in the Welsh Open in Llandudno.

But emerging players should not be unduly pressured into getting immediate results. Turning professional is a learning curve, and it can take time to find your feet.

The last thing Moody needs is people, however well intentioned, telling him he’s going to be a multiple world champion. So many promising young players have been told they will be world champion that the event would have to be played every month of every year to enable this.

It is important he is instead left to develop at his own pace. At 16, it’s about gaining experience and continuing to derive enjoyment from snooker. It’s always been fun to him and that’s how it should remain.

Too many young men have had pressure placed on them and succumbed to it in varying ways, often leaving them with resentment towards snooker rather than a love of it.

Ronnie O’Sullivan, the greatest of them all, exemplifies this inner struggle. It is to his credit that he has found contentment late in his career.

Becoming professional is a rite of passage but only the start of the journey. Many an exciting junior has joined the tour only to find development difficult in the face of stubborn older players who know every tactical trick in the book.

Judd Trump, who enjoyed an outstanding amateur career, found this out when he debuted in the pro ranks as a 16-year-old. His first ever match was against the durable Dubliner Fergal O’Brien, who gave him a schooling in the all round game. This pattern continued until Trump found a way to break free.

Murphy himself dropped off the tour after a couple of years and spent some time in the green baize wilderness before getting back on. Even then, progress was slow until his incredible run to the world title in 2005.

Different players improve at their own speed. Terry Griffiths won the World Championship in his first season, O’Sullivan the UK Championship in his second. However, it took Mark Selby nine years to win his first title and Anthony Hamilton was 26 years into his career before landing a trophy.

It’s often harder for players from outside Britain, who are forced to relocate to play qualifiers and the final stages of tournaments. They have to get used to a culture shock.

When Bill Werbeniuk first came to the UK in the late 1970s he was in a car in the north of England when the road filled with sheep. Werbeniuk, used to the Canadian wild, asked the driver for a gun so he could shoot them.

Ding Junhui moved to Britain at 16 barely able to speak English and without the community of Chinese players which was to emerge in his wake. It could be a lonely existence, with the snooker table becoming a refuge.

Neil Robertson struggled at first to get used to the plunging temperatures of the British winter when he moved over from Australia, having to force himself to get out of bed and brave the cold just to practise.

Thankfully the current WPBSA administration place great store in welfare issues. Players are formally inducted into life on tour and given advice on all areas of what will be their profession, including access to mental health specialists. There is thankfully far more awareness of such matters than in years gone by. They are treated as people, not just potters.

Moody will make his professional debut at the Championship League in the summer. Like all new tour players, he is guaranteed a two-year card, giving him plenty of time to experience what life on the circuit is really like.

He will find himself rubbing shoulders with the biggest names of the game, but if he is starstruck he will soon learn the essential truth of sport: they will want to beat him just as he will want to beat them.

Above all it’s an exciting adventure for Stan Moody, to be 16 and embarking on life as a snooker professional as his friends head off to do their A-levels. Murphy and others can point to the pitfalls of a career in individual sport but also the rewards for the dedication and hard work Moody will surely put in to give himself the best chance.

More than anything, though, let’s just let him enjoy it. When you’re a teenager, life should be fun.

The realities of the adult world will intrude soon enough.

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