White adds spice to a saucy image

14 April 2012

So the great snooker sell-out turned out to be nothing but a bottle of baloney. What a sauce! First, Jimmy White proved he can still cut the mustard, staging one of the great comebacks to reach the quarter-finals of the Rileys Club Masters at Wembley.

Then, the 42-year-old southpaw, who had gullible commentators more shook up than a bottle of HP over his claimed name-change by deed poll to James Brown, poured out the truth behind the £100,000 sponsorship deal that also had the title of a traditional accompaniment to sausages and chips attached to the four-point ball.

The chirpy Cockney smiled and said: "It was a bit of a laugh, and you all stood for it."

Indeed, we did. Ears had cocked when master of ceremonies Alan Hughes introduced White simply as the " Whirlwind of London Town" rather than by his new handle.

Wasn't White, aka Brown, upset by the snub? "No," he replied dismissively, adding that he expected Hughes to have reported sick rather than lower himself to the status of accomplice to the great snooker con.

We were promised a uniform of brown suit and blue shirt to represent a bottle of HP. In the event blue was a hue totally absent from White's attire, and the only visible brown was the colour of the satin on the back of his waistcoat.

What about the story that White would sulk and stage a sit-down protest if BBC television commentators refused to refer to him as Brown?

"Me and the BBC are fine," he shrugged. And the newspaper report that he was going to sue the broadcaster if it failed to play his saucy game? "Absolute rubbish," White replied.

Stunts of this magnitude have a habit of backfiring and for the first half of his match against Matthew Stevens, a rather earnest Welshman who won the Masters title in 2000, White missed so many easy shots that he started to turn as red with embarrassment as the colour of the balls he hit everywhere but down a pocket.

At least White's raucous army of supporters entered into the spirit of the occasion. When he lost the first frame in the best-of-11 match one wag brought the house down by yelling: "Come on Jimmy, now you've got to play ketchup!"

But as the home hero went 4-1 and then 5-2 down this sweet sauce turned sour as deep sighs and gasps of exasperation greeted yet more glaring errors.

In the ninth frame defeat stared White in the face as he required two snookers to prevent a Stevens victory. That he produced them and then took the frame on the black was testament to the guy's spirit. He tied the match with a brilliant break of 115 in the 10th frame, then completed the comeback in the decider after exploiting his opponent's failed safety shot.

When it comes down to it, there is no wonder that companies like HP want to associate themselves with White. Whirlwind-by nickname, maybe, but no longer by nature. He now moves about the table like a gentle breeze, only occasionally blowing in gusts of action. Yet his passion for snooker remains undiminished.

"It's so frustrating when you know you're playing okay, you're making 147s at exhibitions, but then you go into a tournament and you can't make 30," White said. "I'm just pleased with the way I hung in there and came through."

So no apologies for the early play, and no apologies either for the sponsorship stunt. White knows his sport is struggling for support and after all the headlines he said: "Now, hopefully, HP will become involved and sponsor our game. We want to secure the game's future."

Surely, so long as he's playing, that future must be bright as well as brown.

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White adds spice to a saucy image

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