Queen's birthday honours: Well done chaps, let's keep ignoring Ronnie O'Sullivan

Pub quiz time. With which sport is Vera Selby best associated? Tennis? Athletics? Lawn bowls? Croquet? You could spend some time guessing. I did. The more eagle-eyed of you may guess snooker simply because of Mark Selby, last year's world champion fighting out of Crucible's Sheffield Theatre after a rousing final success against Ronnie O'Sullivan.

And you would be right, but not because Vera is a relation to Mark. They are merely namesakes. It is merely a coincidence that they both play snooker.

No disrespect to Vera, but she also played the game at a considerably lesser level than Mark. Yet good old Vera finds a spot in the latest Queen's birthday honours list for services to snooker and billiards.

Vera earns her MBE for being the first women's world champion, an event she apparently won on nine occasions, the last of which came in 1981 on the Isle of Wight. Nice one Vera, but you do wonder where all this leaves the baffling and beleagured honours system. Buckingham Palace has not been made to look like the Palace of wisdom in all of this.

The first question you ask yourself is what was the level of competition Vera was up against to win the world title? As any right minded person would do.

And the second one is, why is Vera picking up an MBE when snooker's greatest player O'Sullivan continues to be shamefully ignored?

Vera is 85 and from Newcastle neck of the woods. She is well known in the North of England for her commitment to cue sports. She also apparently once appeared on the TV quiz show Countdown in 1990, losing 33-40 when Ernie Wise was a guest in Dictionary Corner.

One wonders if she made many breaks bigger than her score on Countdown in winning the women's world title? Judging by the dubious quality of the men's game at the same time, it is a struggle to imagine she did back in the days of heavy balls and playing safe with safety in mind.

Ernie Wise was rewarded with an OBE in 1976 for his service to showbusiness alongside Eric Morecambe. Give me strength rather than sunshine. O'Sullivan has done as much for showbiz as snooker.

The sham of the cult of these awards is best summed up when you think of verified scum like Savile, Hall and Harris being honoured by the Establishment, but if you are going to continue with this historical nonsensical at least learn from mistakes of the past by getting it right.

Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, Mark Williams, John Higgins and John Parrott are snooker players who have all picked up honours. All have been delighted to be recognised yet none have bewitched the public as much as O'Sullivan. Jimmy White even earns one for finishing second in a world final on six occasions. Fine player, but the Whirlwind was not overly keen on morning matches if it interfered with his social life back in his pomp.

Yet O'Sullivan is a prolific winning champion who continues to be ignored. It must baffle Ronnie in his quieter moments. No matter what your thoughts are on O'Sullivan, or the nature of a life story that has more undulations and sense of theatre than Chambers Bay golf course, you cannot dispute the contribution he has made to his sport. And it should only be judged on what he has done for snooker. If we were swearing everybody in on family and private life, we'd need to anull every honour dished out.

The five-times world champion O'Sullivan has been snooker's biggest draw for three decades before millions of television viewers, carrying the game well beyond these shores. He has the most maximum breaks in snooker with 13, has made the most centuries on 794 and holds the record for the fastest 147 compiled in just over five minutes. He is almost as recognisable as snooker.

He was seen playing with Ed Miliband during Labour's doomed election campaign. One wonders if the PM Dave Cameron also likes his snooker?

Good luck to Vera Selby, but it is something approaching a national sporting disgrace that O'Sullivan remains without some sort of recognition when we seem to be handing out honours like lollipops. Can you imagine the outcry there would be if O'Sullivan was a woman and was shunned?

Van Morrison, Kevin Spacey and Lenny Henry also popped up in the latest roll call. Super Frankie Lampard is even collecting one before he heads off to finish his football career in the USA.

If call me Dave can't sort a place on the honour's list for O'Sullivan soon, perhaps the Queen can invite him over to Buck house for a cuppa and cucumber sandwich.

The baffling decision to continue ignoring one of Britain's greatest sporting exports certainly needs some explaining.