Tony Knowles was born in Bolton on 13 June 1955. He began playing snooker at the age of 9 on the tables at the Tonge Moor
Conservative Club, which was run by his father, Kevin. He went on to win the
UK Junior Championship twice, in 1972 (against
Matt Gibson) and in 1974. His application to the
World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) to become a professional player was accepted in 1980, after a rejection in November 1979. He did not win a match in his first year, It was the first tournament apart from the
World Snooker Championship to count in the
snooker world rankings. (pictured in 2007) defeated Knowles in the of their
1983 World Snooker Championship semi-final match.|alt=Cliff Thorburn playing snooker He won only one match in four tournaments between the 1982 International Open and the
1983 World Snooker Championship. At the World Championship, he progressed to the semi-finals by defeating Miles, Reardon (the second
seed), and
Tony Meo. In the semi-final he led
Cliff Thorburn 15–13 before losing 15–16 in the after Thorburn the final and went on to take the frame. He moved to fourth place in the
1983/1984 world rankings. The next season, he defeated Meo and Thorburn to reach the final of the
1983 Scottish Masters, which he lost 6–9 to Davis. Having failed to successfully defend the International Open title, losing 4–5 to
John Spencer in the second round, Knowles started the
1983 Professional Players Tournament with a 5–1 win against
Paul Medati and a 5–4 defeat of
Rex Williams, then a 5–0
whitewash of
Silvino Francisco. The same day as his match against Francisco, Knowles won 5–3 against
John Campbell in the quarter-finals, after losing the opening two frames. In the semi-final, Knowles and
Willie Thorne were level at 4–4 after the first session, with Knowles going on to prevail 9–7. In the final, he faced
Joe Johnson and established a 6–1 lead, which Johnson reduced slightly to 6–2 by winning the last frame of the first session with the tournament's highest break, 135. Johnson was two frames behind at 4–6 and 5–7, but Knowles went three frames up with four to play at 8–5. Johnson won three successive frames to equalise at 8–8. In the deciding frame, Knowles won on the final to take the title. Just before the
1984 World Snooker Championship, Knowles appeared in a series of three articles in
tabloid newspaper
The Sun, in which he boasted of his sexual adventures, describing himself as "the hottest pot in snooker" and was dismissive of most other competitors in the tournament. He received £25,000 from the newspaper for the articles, and was subsequently fined £5,000 by the WPBSA for bringing the game into disrepute. He lost 7–10 to
John Parrott in the first round.
The following year, he dropped from fourth to tenth in the rankings, with a semi-final place at the
1987 British Open the furthest he reached in a ranking tournament in a season that included a 6–10 first round defeat by
Mike Hallett at the
1987 World Snooker Championship. He was ranked 21st for the
1990/1991 season, the first time he had not been in the top sixteen since
1982/1983 after a season where he only reached one quarter-final, at the
1989 Grand Prix. At the
1991 Dubai Classic, he defeated Gary Natale 5–1 in the qualifying competition, then
Eugene Hughes 5–2, and
Neal Foulds 5–0. A 5–2 win against Dennis Taylor in the quarter-final saw Knowles reach his first ranking semi-final since the
1988 Classic. He then gained his first ranking final place since the 1984 International Open by eliminating
Steve James 6–2. in the semi-final. Facing reigning world champion Parrott in the final, Knowles fell 0–3 behind, but won three of the next four frames to trail 3–4 at the end of the first session. Parrott then won five consecutive frames in the next session to claim victory at 9–3. For the
1997–98 snooker season, only the top 64 players in the rankings at the end of the previous season retained full professional status. Those who finished from 65th to 192nd, including Knowles who was 72nd, played in a new WPBSA Qualifying School series which allowed qualifiers to regain full professional status. Knowles, however, lost his first match at each of the four Qualifying School events, and so was eligible to enter only the World Championship, the Benson and Hedges Championship, and the new "UK Tour" events during the season. losing it again at the end of
2000–01. He continued to play on the
Challenge Tour and in World Championship qualifying. In 2009, Knowles won the inaugural Snooker Super 6s tournament, which played as one-frame matches, with six red balls, rather than the usual fifteen reds, at the
Crucible Theatre in
Sheffield. He defeated Neal Foulds in the semi-final, and 13-year-old Ross Muir in the final. He has entered competitions including World Championship qualifying,
Players Tour Championship and
Q School in the 21st century. In 2021, he announced that he would enter Q School in an attempt to regain his professional snooker status. He failed to regain his professional status, but reached the last 32 of event 3 of the
2021 Q School, where he lost 2–4 to Mark Lloyd. During his professional career, Knowles reached the World Championship semi-finals on three occasions (in
1983,
1985 and
1986), but never the final. His highest ranking was second, in
1984/1985, and his highest tournament break was 139. As one of three members of the England Team alongside Davis and Meo, he was a winner of the
1983 World Team Classic, and was runner-up at the
1982 World Team Classic and
1985 World Cup. He partnered White at the
1983 World Doubles Championship, where they were the losing finalists to Davis and Meo. He was a director of the WPBSA in the early-to-mid-2000s. He manages a wine bar in the
Lake District. The club in the comedy programme
Phoenix Nights had a room named the "Tony Knowles Suite" after him. ==Performance and rankings timeline==