Terrific Phil Yates, snooker broadcaster

Must-read … Enthralling Neal Foulds, former world no.3

Perfection! Alan McManus, former Masters champion

A truly great read Hazel Irvine, sports presenter

Snooker is a British success story, a working-class game which became a multi-million pound professional sport, exported to the world. A sublime test of skill and nerve, it has fascinated succeeding generations of players and spectators.

In this new history of the sport, David Hendon shows how the fortunes of snooker have mirrored wider changes in British society. Beginning as an upper-class pursuit invented in the British Raj, snooker was taken up in the working men’s clubs of industrial Britain. It nearly ceased to exist as an organised sport in the late 1950s, before reviving and becoming big business in the Thatcher era: 18.5 million people watched the famous 1985 World Championship final. Since then, it has become a global sport, most notably in China and the Far East.

Weaving the big picture with the personal stories of snooker’s big characters, from Alex Higgins and Jimmy White to Ronnie O’Sullivan, anyone who has ever wielded a cue or breathlessly watched a marathon safety exchange will love this book.