The 1980 World Snooker Championship, officially known as the 1980 Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons, was a ranking professional snooker tournament that took place from 22 April to 5 May 1980 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The tournament was the 1980 edition of the World Snooker Championship and was the fourth consecutive world championship to take place at the Crucible Theatre since 1977. It was authorised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. The total prize fund for the tournament was £60,000, of which £15,000 went to the winner.
There were 53 entrants to the competition, although four later withdrew. Qualifying rounds for the tournament took place at Romiley Forum, Stockport, from 5 to 18 April 1980; at the Redwood Lodge Country Club, Bristol, from 11 to 16 April; and at Sheffield Snooker Centre from 12 to 17 April. The main stage of the tournament featured 24 players: the top 16 players from the snooker world rankings and another eight players from the qualifying rounds. Ray Edmonds, Jim Meadowcroft, Tony Meo, Cliff Wilson and Jim Wych made their Crucible debuts. The defending champion and top seed in the tournament was Terry Griffiths, who had defeated Dennis Taylor 24–16 in the 1979 final.
Griffiths lost in his first match, by 10 to 13 against Steve Davis. Canadian Cliff Thorburn met the 1972 champion Alex Higgins from Northern Ireland in the final, which was a best-of-35-frames match. Thorburn won the match 18–16 to become the first world champion from outside the United Kingdom in the sport's modern era. There were 11 century breaks compiled during the championship, the highest of which was 136, achieved by both Kirk Stevens and Steve Davis. The cigarette manufacturer Embassy sponsored the tournament. It received 70 hours of television coverage by the BBC in the United Kingdom, attracting 14.5 million viewers for the conclusion of the final. Coverage of the final was interrupted by the broadcast of live coverage of the Iranian Embassy Siege, which caused numerous viewers to complain to the broadcaster.
Overview The World Snooker Championship is the preeminent tournament in professional snooker. Joe Davis won the first World Championship in 1927, organised by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the final match being held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England. Staged annually until 1940, the tournament was put on hiatus during World War II and went into decline in the post-war era; the 1952 World Snooker Championship was contested by only two players and was replaced by the World Professional Match-play Championship, which was also discontinued in 1957. The title was contested on an occasional challenge basis until 1969, when the World Championship reverted to a knockout tournament format. Staged annually since then, the tournament moved in 1977 to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, which remains the venue for the tournament as of 2023. The 1980 event, organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), was the fourth edition of the World Championship to be staged at the Crucible.
The 1980 championship featured 24 professional players competing in one-on-one snooker matches in a single-elimination format, each match played over several . The number of participants who played at the Crucible was increased from 16 in 1979. The competitors in the main tournament were selected using a combination of the top players in the world rankings, which were based on performances at the three preceding editions of the world championship, and the winners of a pre-tournament qualification stage. In all, 53 players entered the championship, but four later withdrew. The top eight seeded players were placed in round two of the draw. The next eight seeds were placed in round one, each to meet a player that emerged from the qualifying competition. At the start of the main event, defending champion Terry Griffiths and six-time champion Ray Reardon were joint bookmakers' favourites, both priced at 3–1, with Alex Higgins the third-favourite priced at 7–1.
The duration of the event, which had been 13 days in each of the three previous years, was increased to 14 days, with the semi-finals being reduced to best-of-31 frames (from best-of-37 in 1979) and the final to the best-of-35 frames (from best-of-47 in 1979). There had been a third place playoff in 1978 and 1979, but this was not continued in 1980. The competition was promoted by Mike Watterson and received 70 hours of television coverage by the BBC in the United Kingdom, attracting 14.5 million viewers for the conclusion of the final. The tournament was a ranking event and was sponsored by cigarette company Embassy.
Prize fund The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Winner: £15,000 Runner-up: £8,000 Semi-final: £4,000 Quarter-final: £2,000 Last 16: £1,500 Last 24: £750 Highest break: £1,000 Championship record break (143 or above): £5,000 (not awarded) Maximum break: £10,000 (not awarded) Total: £60,000
Tournament summary Qualifying Qualifying matches took place across three venues: at Romiley Forum, Stockport, from 5 April to 18 April 1980; at the Redwood Lodge Country Club, Bristol, from 11 April to 16 April; and at Sheffield Snooker Centre from 12 April to 17 April 1980. The qualifying rounds produced eight players who progressed to the main event, where they met the 16 invited seeded players.
The 1957 runner-up Jackie Rea defeated Bernard Bennett 9–1 before being eliminated 1–9 by Willie Thorne. Thorne was on course to make a maximum break in the first frame but missed a after eleven and ten blacks. Steve Davis qualified after defeating Chris Ross 9–3 and Paddy Morgan 9–0. Kingsley Kennerley, in his first competitive match since 1974, lost 2–9 to Mike Hallett. Pat Houlihan, playing without his contact lenses due to conjunctivitis, compiled the only century break of the qualifying rounds—108—during a 9–6 victory over Joe Johnson; however he lost 1–9 in his following match to Tony Meo. Jim Wych progressed to the main event with a 9–7 win against Rex Williams, the world champion of English billiards.
First round The first round took place between 22 and 25 April, each match played over either two or three scheduled sessions as the best of 19 frames. Meo, Wych, Cliff Wilson, Ray Edmonds, and Jim Meadowcroft made their Crucible debuts. Steve Davis led Patsy Fagan 6–3 after their first session and won 10–6. Fagan had led 2–0 but, from 5–6, lost four of the following five frames. Meo was 5–4 ahead of Higgins after their first session and, at 9–8, was a frame away from winning before Higgins took the last two frames with breaks of 77 and 62 to progress. Kirk Stevens compiled a break of 136 in the third frame against Graham Miles, missing the final black that would have made it an all-time championship record 143. After leading Miles 6–0 then 9–3 after the first two sessions, Stevens won 10–3. John Virgo won all six frames of his first session against Meadowcroft, with Meadowcroft winning two of the first three frames in the second session before being eliminated 2–10.
Wilson, the reigning World Amateur Snooker Champion, won the first frame against Doug Mountjoy on the black as part of a 66 clearance and took a 4–1 lead before finishing the first session at 5–4. Wilson then lost six of the last seven frames, resulting in a 6–10 loss. Mountjoy recorded a break of 104 in the fourteenth frame. Wych won 10–5 against former champion John Pulman after leading 5–4. This was Pulman's final appearance at the World Championship. Edmonds had replaced his the night before the match; playing with the unfamiliar tip, he lost the first four frames, then went 2–7 behind David Taylor before losing 3–10. Thorne, having led 3–1, took a 5–4 lead over Bill Werbeniuk with a 97 break in the ninth frame. He led in the match until Werbeniuk, who compiled a break of 101 in the thirteenth frame, made it 7–7. The contest went to a which Werbeniuk won 84–8 with breaks of 39 and 36.
Second round
The second round, which took place between 24 and 29 April, was played as best-of-25-frames matches spread over three sessions. Defending champion Griffiths lost the first seven frames against Steve Davis and ended the first session trailing 1–7. Davis won the opening frame of the second session to extend his lead to 8–1, and had a seven frame lead again at 10–3, before Griffiths won three frames to end the session 6–10 behind. In the third session, Griffiths won the first four frames to level at 10–10, with Davis then winning the next three to secure a 13–10 victory, which included a 116 break in the 22nd frame. The failure of first-time world snooker champions to defend their title has become known as the "Crucible curse".
Higgins won six of the eight frames in each of the first two sessions against Perrie Mans and eliminated Mans 13–6. Despite leading 4–1 after making breaks of 95 and 108 in consecutive frames, former champion John Spencer lost in his first match for the third consecutive year, 8–13 to Stevens. Virgo took an early lead of 4–1 against Eddie Charlton, with their first session finishing 4–4. At 11–10 ahead, Virgo missed a pot on the , and Charlton then levelled the match 11–11. The match went to a deciding frame, where Charlton made a break of 33, and Virgo missed a black that allowed Charlton back in to win 13–12. The report in Snooker Scene characterised the match as one where the "famed tenacity" of Charlton overcame the "brittle, edgy side of Virgo's temperament".
Cliff Thorburn finished the first session against Mountjoy 3–5 behind. In the evening, Thorburn played cards and drank alcohol with friends until 5:00 am, resuming the match by winning the first five frames in succession and going on to win 13–10. From 10–10 Thorburn won two frames on the and one on the black. The match featured a 69-minute 18th frame, including 21 minutes for the brown ball to be potted, and a 123 break in the 19th frame by Mountjoy. The previous year's runner-up Dennis Taylor was eliminated by Wych, who won the first three frames, and, after Taylor had equalised, took the seventh frame on a . The pair were level again at 8–8 before Wych won 13–10. Ray Reardon had session-end leads of 5–3 and 11–5 against Werbeniuk, and won 13–6. Fred Davis compiled a 106 break, the highest of the match, but lost 5–13 to David Taylor.
Quarter-finals The quarter-finals were played as best-of-25-frames matches over three sessions on 29 and 30 April. Davis compiled a 136 break in the third frame against Higgins. In the eighth frame, Higgins was on course to achieve a maximum break, when he became the first player in the history of the world championship to pot black balls after each of the fifteen red balls during a break. After running out of position on the fifteenth black, he managed to pot the , but failed in an attempt to then the . The pair finished their first session tied at 4–4. In the second session, the players were level at 7–7 before Higgins won the next two frames to carry a 9–7 lead into the last session, in which he won the match 13–9. It was the first time that Higgins had reached the semi-finals since 1976.