Twenty years on from his first World-Championship Crown, Alex remains one
of the biggest crowd-pullers in professional snooker. A one-time apprentice jockey,
Belfast born Higgins (46) started playing snooker at the age of 11, when one of his haunts
was Belfast's Jampot Club. He won the Northern Ireland amateur championship in 1968 and,
in 1971, turned professional. He captured the Benson & Hedges Masters in 1978 -
repeated the feat in 1981 and the World Championship was to fall to him again in 1982. One
of 'Hurricane Higgins" greatest moments came in the 1983 Coral UK Championship at
Preston. He trailed Steve Davis 7 - 0 but then staged one of snooker's most amazing
comebacks to take the title to beat Davis 16 - 15. He was, with Dennis Taylor and Eugene
Hughes, a member of the winning team in the world cup in 1985, 1986 and 1987 and in 1989
became the first Irish winner of the Benson & Hedges Irish Masters, defeating Stephen
Hendry in an epic final.