Bill Werbeniuk

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Bill Werbeniuk
birthday January 14, 1947
place of birth Winnipeg
date of death January 20, 2003
Place of death Vancouver
nationality CanadaCanada
professional 1973 - 1990
Prize money 126,338 ₤
Highest break 143
Century Breaks 17th
World rankings
Highest WRL place 8th

William Alexander "Bill" Werbeniuk [ wɜːrbɛˈnɪk ] (born January 14, 1947 in Winnipeg , † January 20, 2003 in Vancouver ) was a Canadian snooker player . The peak of his athletic career was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He won the World Cup with the Canadian team in 1982 and reached 8th place in the world snooker rankings in the 1983/84 season . However, he was never able to win a renowned individual tournament.

Aside from his athletic achievements, Werbeniuk was known for regularly drinking alcohol during the game. He usually drank a pint of lager per frame . At the end of the 1980s, Werbeniuk was temporarily suspended for doping with the beta blocker Inderal , and in the early 1990s he ended his career.

Life

Bill Werbeniuk's grandfather immigrated to Canada from the Ukraine. His father ran a game room in Winnipeg, where Werbeniuk learned to play pool at the age of 9. At 12 he was already defeating the local champion. After his first success as an amateur Werbeniuk turned professional in 1973, on the occasion of the snooker world championship in 1978 he moved to Worksop in Nottinghamshire , where he lived in a converted bus for the next few years.

According to his own statement, Werbeniuk suffered from essential tremor in his right arm, which made it impossible for him to play pool without appropriate medication. To keep things calm, he usually drank 6 to 8 pints of lager before a game and then one pint per frame during the match. In total, he came up with at least 20 pints a day, often more. However, there were seldom signs of failure. The consumption of alcoholic beverages, especially beer, during the tournaments was not uncommon for snooker at that time, and smoking was allowed during the game.

From around the mid-1980s, Werbeniuk took the beta blocker Inderal to combat tremor. When the World Professional Billiards & Snooker Association (WPBSA) put Inderal on the doping list in 1988, he continued to take the drug on the grounds that he could not play at all without this drug. As a consequence, he was first fined £ 2,000 by the WPBSA and, after refusing to pay, was temporarily banned from being a professional in March 1989. In order to be admitted to the Snooker Main Tour again, Werbeniuk tried to do without Inderal, but could only compensate for the discontinuation of the drug by increasing alcohol consumption.

He played his last game as a professional in qualifying for the 1990 World Cup against Nigel Bond . Following the game, Werbeniuk declared: "I've had 24 pints of extra strong lager and eight double vodkas and I'm still not drunk." Bond had won the match 10: 1. After this defeat, Werbeniuk gave up the professional career and moved back to Canada, where he tried to make a living playing pool . He was declared bankrupt the following year and the WPBSA fined him again, this time at £ 5,000 for refusing to take a drug test. Two attempts in 1991 and 1992 to qualify again for the snooker world championship failed. Werbeniuk was eliminated early every time in the qualifying tournament. Eventually he moved back to live with his mother in Vancouver, where he lived on a disability pension. He had finished snooker, in an interview he later said “I don't follow the modern game. All the young players are so boring. I've no idea who any of them are. "

After a three-month stay in hospital, he died of heart failure on January 20, 2003 . Apart from a short marriage of convenience , with which he wanted to obtain a residence permit for a young French woman when he was nineteen, he remained unmarried and childless.

successes

Werbeniuk celebrated his first major successes by winning the Canadian (open) championship in 1973 and the North American championship from 1973 to 1976. His most successful career followed from 1976 to 1985, when he was a professional on the Snooker Main Tour almost continuously Top 16 in the world rankings. The only exception was the 1977/78 season in which he was ranked 17th. The highest position reached Werbeniuk with 8th place in the season 1983/84.

Werbeniuk was in the quarterfinals of the World Snooker Championship four times, namely in 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1983. In 1979 he scored the highest of the tournament with a break of 142 points and also set Rex Williams' old record for the highest break at one World championship one. Also in 1979 he reached the semi-finals of the UK Championship , where he was eliminated by Terry Griffiths 3-9.

In the 1980s, the Canadian team consisting of three top 16 players - alongside Bill Werbeniuk played Kirk Stevens and Cliff Thorburn - was quite well represented in the World Cup, a kind of unofficial team championship. The Canadians reached the finals in 1980, 1982, 1986 and 1987. In 1980 they were defeated by the team from Wales around six-time world champion Ray Reardon with 5-8 . Two years later they won the final, Canada beating England 4-2. It was the only tournament win for Werbeniuk. The two other finals in 1986 and 1987 were lost to the "All Ireland Team" with Alex Higgins at the top 7: 9 and 2: 9.

As a single player Werbeniuk was in two finals in 1983: On the one hand at the Classic , where he could not prevail against Steve Davis . Davis won 9-5. The second final was that of the Australian Masters, an invitation tournament. Here he lost to his compatriot Cliff Thorburn 3: 7.

Werbeniuk played his highest official break in the first round of the 1985 World Cup. The 143 points in a row in the match against Joe Johnson brought him again the bonus for the highest break of the tournament. The world championship itself was less successful for him, in the second round he lost to Cliff Thorburn 3:13 and was eliminated.

reception

After his death, Werbeniuk was recognized as a leading figure in snooker in the British press. The Times described him as “one of the most popular players.” With his imposing stature - he weighed a good two and a half quintals - and his friendly, jovial manner, he brought “color and good humor” to the sport.

A lasting impression in the public perception was less Werbeniuks sporting successes than the unusually high beer consumption during the game as well as various headline-grabbing appearances, for example at the World Cup in 1980. In the match against the Englishman David Taylor Werbeniuk stretched so far over the snooker table with a push that the seam of his pants popped and his bare bottom was visible. Press reports that Werbeniuk were able to convince the tax office to deduct alcoholic beverages as work-related expenses from tax due to his illness also caused a stir.

The Irish journalist Eamonn McCann criticized the uncritical view of Werbeniuks by the media. Instead of clearly naming Werbeniuks alcohol addiction , he is declared a "cult figure" and his illness is not discussed. Werbeniuk is not suitable as a hero, he is "a lovable addict".

Literature and Sources

Obituaries

  • Bill Werbeniuk . In: The Daily Telegraph . January 23, 2003 ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed April 27, 2010]).
  • Bill Werbeniuk: The Times obituary . In: The Times . January 22, 2003 ( timesonline.co.uk [accessed April 27, 2010]).
  • Phil Yates: Sport saddened by death of Bill Werbeniuk . In: The Times . January 23, 2003 ( timesonline.co.uk [accessed April 27, 2010]).

Web sources

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ quoted from: Bill Werbeniuk: The Times obituary
  2. ↑ quoted from: Yates: Sport saddened by death of Bill Werbeniuk.
  3. ^ Bill Werbeniuk: The Times obituary
  4. ^ McCann: "Lager Than Life" Bill was just a lovable addict.
personal data
SURNAME Werbeniuk, Bill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Werbeniuk, William Alexander (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian snooker player
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Winnipeg , Canada
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 2003
Place of death Vancouver , Canada