1979 World Snooker Championship

(pictured in 2005) The World Snooker Championship is the preeminent tournament in professional snooker. Joe Davis won the first edition, in 1927 at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England. Since 1977, the venue for the tournament, held annually, has been the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. The 1979 tournament was promoted for the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association by Mike Watterson and featured professional players competing in one-on-one snooker matches in a single-elimination format, each match played over a defined number of . The defending champion was Ray Reardon, who had won his sixth world title by defeating Perrie Mans 25–18 in the 1978 final. The 1979 tournament was a ranking event. It received daily BBC television coverage, and was sponsored by cigarette brand Embassy. Following the qualifying competition that was held from 25 March to 7 April, the main tournament took place from 16 to 28 April. ==Prize fund==

The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below: • Winner: £10,000 • Runner-up: £5,000 • Third place: £3,000 • Fourth place: £2,000 • Quarter-final: £1,250 • Last 16: £1,000 • Highest break: £500 • Maximum break: £10,000 (not awarded) • Total: £35,500 ==Tournament summary==

Qualifying The qualifying competition took place from 25 March to 7 April at Romiley Forum, Stockport, and the Northern Snooker Centre, Leeds. In a match that lasted over nine hours, David Taylor won the deciding frame against Dunning. First round Before the main competition started, Coral made Reardon their bookmaker's favourite, at odds of 2–1, followed by Eddie Charlton at 5–1, and John Spencer and Alex Higgins who were each priced at 6–1. The first round took place between 16 and 20 April, with matches scheduled three over sessions as the best of 25 frames. Aged 65 years and 247 days, he became the oldest ever player to win a match at the Crucible when he defeated Stevens 13–8. Werbeniuk defeated Spencer 13–11, and said that he was treating a nerve-related trembling in his cue arm by drinking lager. Defending champion Reardon trailed Miles 3–5 after their first session, Griffiths defeated Mans 13–8, Griffiths drew level at 8–8 in the second session, aided by a 121 break. Griffiths won the last frame of the second day to take an 11–10 lead into the concluding day; at the close of the fifth session he was two frames up, at 15–13. This duration was just eight minutes less than the longest world championship session on record, which occurred during Reardon and Fred Davis's match in 1969. In a post-match interview with David Vine, Griffiths said "I'm in the final now, you know", with what snooker historian Clive Everton described as "an engaging mixture of pride and disbelief". According to Snooker Scene, Taylor displayed the "more mature match temperament" throughout, while Virgo "fumed visibly" after he made errors or was unlucky. and was refereed by John Williams. Griffiths three times in four shots during the first frame, but won it on the final . Griffiths led 3–1 when in the fifth frame he recorded a break of 120 which broke down on the final ; had he potted the four remaining colours he would have equalled the championship record break of 142. The next day, Taylor took an 11–9 lead, and later led 14–12, before Griffiths won twelve of the following 14 frames. Griffiths added two of the next three frames for a 17–16 lead, then won seven consecutive frames, to secure victory at 24–16. Griffiths became the first qualifier to win the title at the Crucible. After the match, he commented that he "didn't really feel I was playing for the championship until the last day...Once I saw the winning post, Dennis did seem to fade a bit." ==Main draw==

The results for the tournament are shown below. The numbers in brackets denote players seedings, whilst players in bold are match winners. ==Qualifying==

The results from the qualifying competition are shown below, with match winners denoted in bold: == Century breaks ==

There were 13 century breaks at the championship, the highest being 142 by Werbeniuk. There was also a £5,000 bonus for compiling a higher break than the championship record of 142. • 142 Bill Werbeniuk • 125 Cliff Thorburn • 121, 120, 107, 101 Terry Griffiths • 112, 105 Alex Higgins • 112 John Spencer • 110, 109 Fred Davis • 106 Eddie Charlton • 106 Dennis Taylor ==References==