Hendon: Journos miss point

The downside to big snooker events is the seemingly endless stream of nonsense written about the sport in newspapers by people who know little and care even less about it.

Step forward Barney Ronay in Sunday's Observer (link to story below picture). Were spectacularly missing the point an Olympic sport, Mr. Ronay would give Steve Redgrave a run for his money.

He makes the assertion that "snooker could be an amateur sport by 2020" without any solid evidence to support this.

He then grossly misrepresents Ronnie O'Sullivan by claiming he had said as much. He didn't. Ronnie did say the game was dying last year and that something needed to be done.

His fellow players agreed and have brought in Barry Hearn, a fact Ronay appears not to have noticed, such was the extent of his research.

Also, Ronnie didn't say he wanted Simon Cowell to run snooker. He said he wanted someone who possessed Cowell's entrepreneurial skills to take it on. Hearn fits that bill.

"The everyday circuit takes in half-empty exhibition halls in Bahrain and its results rarely trouble the mainstream media," Ronay continues.

The circuit played one event in Bahrain in 2008. It also goes to China twice every year where the sport is hugely popular, something Ronay doesn't mention anywhere.

Perhaps the game would get more newspaper coverage if the Observer and others didn't fill space with columnists writing about sports they don't understand.

Actually, the results always get in the papers and over the last week there have been a large number of stories in the run in to the Masters, including two big pieces in the Guardian, for whom Ronay also writes.

Ronay writes of snooker: "It already has a resigned look, slumped glassily in its chair, and looking like its thoughts have turned to the white-gloved handshake and the scattered sound of exit applause."

What rubbish, although it may have set a new world record for throwing most cliches into a single sentence.

There is actually a newly found buzz around the players - as I witnessed at Crondon Park last week because, unlike Ronay, I've actually spoken to the players and asked them their views about the future.

My challenge to him is simple: go to Wembley this week. Sample the atmosphere. Watch the matches. Talk to Barry Hearn. Talk to the players.

I'm not denying snooker has its problems but the professional game dead by 2020?

I'd say there's more chance of the Observer - which has already axed two of its magazines to save money - being out of business first.