Funny to watch now though. Most of today's players would wipe the floor with them. John Spencer looks like he's not pushing the cue through. Rather he's stabbing at it. Look closely..

@@simonhulme7173 I'd still rather watch these old masters any day. It takes me back. You're right about John's cueing here. He was usually more fluent, with a longer cue stroke. Perhaps he was playing to the conditions. You didn't see so many fluent players in those days of heavy cloths and heavy balls. Ray used to 'poke' the balls with a short cue stroke (Virgo was another). Remember too that they all learnt the game with ivory balls on old billiard tables in the '50s and '60s. A thirty break could be really something on some of those tables !

Players smiled more back then because they were drunk and on cocaine half the time.

there really was a passion in the 70's and 80's .. money of course was a bonus

The money was a lot less back then but I'm sure it counted for more. Fifty quid was not to be sneezed at.

Nobody noticed when snookers were required. I guess it was hard to see through that eye stinging smoke😂

What a coincidence....so was Thorburn.

Keith Macklin, who is better known as a football commentator, and Leslie Driffield who was a former billiards champion.

@@mickf9999 Thanks

No, the camera is probably further away, making it look squashed. Or maybe they adjust they perspective slightly now?

Park drive tournament.

@@leebeardshall2888 There was lots of park drive tournaments ? Do you the exact event and final score ?

@@leebeardshall2888 there was no Park Drive listed in 1974

He had reasonable cue power, it's the cloth was like a damp carpet, compared to the super thin heated ones they play on today. So much harder to make the cue ball move, but he was a master at it. First player to make a 147 in competition, but with slightly larger pockets, so it didn't count. Shame we can't see that, as I think the cameramen were on strike. Then he was the opponent when Steve Davis made the first televised one.

@@sharpvidtube yes I also played back then- the balls were also clunky and heavy admittedly.................in the end if the cue travels along the chosen potting angle while accelerating along that line there is the game of snooker. Achieving this is another matter.

John had tremendous cue power but you don't see it here. Reardon was so dominant in the '70s that I wonder if John was copying Ray's style ?

In those days everyone walked funny because they weren't millennial libtard woke PC-gone-mad brigade [insert more buzzwords here]...avocado and whole foods loving hippie commie lefty nazi feminist socialists with their leftist agenda to take over the world with hummus, black people and virtue signalling.

Everyone had piles back in the 70s

@@petersharkey8676 My Rockfords have been playing up something rotten lately

@@AD-kv9kj Most of the great players were from working stock whose bodies had been conditioned over generations to hard manual work in mines, factories, mills, farms etc. In all weathers too. Most working class people walked funny in those days. It was in the genes and in the streets.

@@AD-kv9kj Exactly.

Keith Macklin is one.

Leslie Driffield.

@@ysgol3 wasn’t he a DJ on red rose radio Lancashire in the 80’s? Could be wrong

@@BradRae188 Not sure, I only know that Keith was a football commentator too.

@@davidsmith5523 Leslie was an excellent billiards player from Leeds. Good snooker player too.

You try playing with that eye stinging smoke, on a thick damp cloth. It wasn't easy back then. I remember playing pool in the 90s in conditions like that, it was horrible,