Sidney Smith (26 March 1908 – 26 June 1990) was a professional

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . Cue sports, a category of stic ...

and

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

player from the 1930s to the 1950s. He was born in

Killamarsh Killamarsh is a village and civil parish in North East Derbyshire, England, close to Derbyshire’s border with South Yorkshire. It forms part of the Sheffield urban area and lies about 8 miles south-east of the centre of Sheffield. Killamars ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

.Andy Hunter on the Cue Collector website http://www.thecuecollector.com/files/CueCollectorArticles/Hunter_Article_16__Sidney_Smith_.pdf Retrieved 2011-Dec-7 He moved with his parents to

Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...

when he was two, and stayed there until after he started playing cue sports professionally. The family had a full-size

billiard table A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables (whether for carom billiards, Pool (cue sports), pool, Russian pyramid, pyramid or snooker) provide a flat surface us ...

at home, and Smith started playing

English billiards English billiards, called simply billiards in the UK and in many former British colonies, is a cue sport that combines the aspects of carom billiards and pool. Two (one white and one yellow) and a red are used. Each player or team uses a diffe ...

when he was 12, making his first

century break In snooker, a century break (also century, sometimes called a ton) is a of 100 points or more, compiled in one to the table. A century break requires potting at least 25 consecutive balls, and the ability to score centuries is regarded as a m ...

when he was 14. When he was 19, he won the

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

professional tournaments for both billiards and snooker. He won the 1929 English Junior Championship, for professional players aged under 25, by defeating Joe Earlam 4,000-3,433. In 1929-30 he was employed by the cue sports company

Burroughes and Watts Burroughes Hall was an important billiards and snooker venue in Soho Square, London from 1903 until it closed in 1967. The hall was in the premises of Burroughes & Watts Ltd., who had been at 19 Soho Square since 1836. Burroughes & Watts opened ...

to referee tournaments between leading players such as

Walter Lindrum Walter Albert Lindrum, Order of the British Empire, OBE (29 August 1898 – 30 July 1960), often known as Wally Lindrum, was an Australian professional player of English billiards who held the World Professional Billiards Championship from 1933 ...

, Tom Newman and Willie Smith. He watched and learned from observing these players at close quarters. He played a series of matches against Smith in 1929-30, and made a break of 1,292 during one contest. Smith was his opponent when he entered the

1936 World Snooker Championship The 1936 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament that was held at the Burroughes and Thurston's Halls in London, England from 23 March to 2 May 1936. There were 13 entries; a significant increase from five in the previous year and ...

, and although Sidney Smith led 15-10 in the best-of-31-frames match, his opponent took the last six frames to win. Sidney Smith was the first player to make a total clearance in snooker competition, a of 133 on 11 December 1936 in the Daily Mail Gold Cup. This was a world record break, eclipsing the previous best of 119 which had been achieved by both

Joe Davis Joseph Davis (15 April 190110 July 1978) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s, and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game is ...

and

Horace Lindrum Horace Lindrum (born Horace Norman William Morrell, 15 January 1912 – 20 June 1974) was an Australian professional player of snooker and English billiards. Lindrum won the 1952 World Snooker Championship defeating New Zealander Clark McConach ...

. In the 1937 World Championship he eliminated Alec Brown in the quarter finals, reaching a winning score at 16–11. The final score was 18–13. In the semi-finals he lost at 12–16, to Davis the final score being 18–13 after . Smith was the runner-up to Joe Davis in the

World Snooker Championship The World Snooker Championship, or simply known as the World Championship, is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker. It is also the richest event to date with a total prize money of £2,395,000, including ...

s of

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

(having beaten Joe's brother

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18–13 in the semi-final) and

1939 This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...

, and he was a semi-finalist on four occasions in total, reaching that stage again in

1940 A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, events related to World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *Janu ...

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country i ...

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2025 * January 2 – Luis ...

. Smith's most notable tournament wins were the 1948 United Kingdom Professional Billiards Championship (beating John Barrie 7000–6428) and the 1951/1952 News of the World Snooker Tournament.The Billiards Quarterly Review : October 1990 quoted at http://www.eaba.co.uk/mags/bqr/1990/10/sydneySmith.html Retrieved 2011-Dec-7 Smith was the runner-up to Alec Brown in the 1938/1939 Daily Mail Gold Cup and later runner-up to Joe Davis in the 1949/50 News of the World Tournament and the 1950 Sporting Record Masters' Snooker Tournament. Smith made three billiard breaks over 1,000 points in his career, with his highest being the 1,292 against Smith. Smith died in 1990 aged 82.

Performance timeline

Notes

References

External links

Billiards with Sidney Smith
– video from the

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Archive * – video {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Sidney 1908 births 1990 deaths English snooker players English players of English billiards People from Killamarsh Sportspeople from Derbyshire