Is it all over for Jimmy White?

White has earned and gambled away more than 3 million pounds. He has been declared bankrupt. To survive he would require the constitution of a particularly robust horse and the detachment of a Buddhist monk, writes MICHAEL FERREIRA.

I FIRST met Jimmy White in November 1980 at Calcutta. He had just won the World amateur championship in Tasmania at the age of 17 and had been invited to play in the Indian Nationals prior to his return to London. Needless to add, he won, beating back the gallant challenge of Arvind `Tornado Fats' Savur. At a time when centuries in India drew breathless applause, he won the final with a highest break of 138 initiated by a blazing long distance pot that still lives in my memory. The National championship was to be his last tournament as an amateur.

Since that time, Jimmy `Whirlwind' White has come a long way. Blessed with talent rivalled only by Alex Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan, he has fired the imagination of everyone who follows snooker, and indeed, of many who do not, by his joyous stroke play and his uninhibited approach to the game and to life itself.

In Calcutta, he was a teenaged hellion, obsessed with playing snooker but giving a tinker's damn about such tiresome aspects of the human condition as the social niceties.

I remember being called in with my wife to view his room at a rather good hotel in Calcutta which he was sharing with Joe O'Boye, then English amateur champion. ``Just look at this sir'' said the manager, wrinkling his nose, and when I did, I could hardly help but sympathise with the poor man.

The room resembled a disaster area, with butter, jam and cream splattered all over the walls, ash strewn over the carpet, filthy clothes lying all over the place, the stale atmosphere making us want to puke.

The boys had apparently decided to have a fight, using bread rolls and the other breakfast things as missiles. Calcuttans are, or were at that time, pretty prim and proper, given to hopping into tuxedos at the drop of a hat.

White should have left India with a reputation soiled enough to match the hotel room, but amazingly, the abiding impression of him was that of a naughty child caught with his hand in the cookie jar and dimpling his way out of trouble. That impression has lingered nineteen years down the line - in fact, Jimmy White is probably the most loved snooker player of them all. Totally without pretensions, he does not have a mean bone in his body.

Sure, he goes out to buy a packet of cigarettes and if he comes back two days later a bit worse for wear and with his pockets empty, well, that's our Jimmy. If a Goan goes out for his daily `bazaar' in the early morning and rolls in by lunchtime, no eyebrows are raised.

A couple of visits to the ``tavernas'' dotting the countryside, shooting the breeze while sampling the fenny are only to be expected, right? Okay, there is a difference between a few hours and a couple of days, but that's a difference of degree, not kind.

White has earned and gambled away more than 3 million pounds. He has been declared bankrupt, has been nicked for drunken driving, and has had a cancerous testicle removed.

His long suffering wife Maureen, his manager of the moment and his army of fans forgive him his every indiscretion. To survive what he has, would require the constitution of a particularly robust horse and the detachment of a Buddhist monk.

But ooh la la, when it comes to his snooker, his skills are sublime. Even today, with the pencil-thin frame of his teenage years considerably thickened, when the `Whirlwind' blows, strong men reach for their hats.

It is not so much of a cue that he wields as a magic wand. His virtuosity has enabled him to reach six finals, four semifinals and five quarterfinals of the World snooker championship, the most demanding test of them all. The crowd at the Crucible, snooker's Centre Court, cheers him to the rafters whenever he strides in.

From 1981, when he won their hearts with his cheeky grin while losing his first World championship to Steve Davis, they have desperately wanted him to win. And he has come close, oh, so close to doing it.

In 1984, he lost 16-18 to Davis. In 1992, he led Stephen Hendry 14-8, only for the Super Scot to win ten on the spin for his first World title. The defeat propelled White into another bout of drinking, this one lasting all summer.

In 1994, at 17-17 and in play with a 24 break in the decider, he was poised to gain revenge, but missed a black off the spot from a foot away. Hendry remorselessly compiled a 56 clearance to record the third of his seven titles.

In 1998 he did gain a measure of revenge, inflicting on Hendry a rare first round defeat and thereby fuelling furious speculation that that was going to be his year. But he went on to lose to O'Sullivan in the quarters. In 1999, he lost in the first round to Alan McManus. But still his fans and the man himself lived in hope. This year, those hopes received something of a setback when he was slated to meet Hendry in the second round.

But outsider Stuart Bingham bushwhacked the King in the first round to upset all calculations. When White's task was further simplified by the exit of O'Sullivan, the delirious fans laid out sentimental money that dragged his odds down from 80-1 to a ridiculous 12-1. White certainly gave them good value by reaching the quarters, but the youthful Matthew Stevens proved too powerful, the 13-7 scoreline a poignant reminder that time and tide wait for no man.

Which prompts the question: is it all over for the man who has given so much pleasure to so many throughout the world? At 38, he bravely asserts that he will be World champion before he retires. But I think deep down he knows, his fans know and I know that the sands of time have finally receded - he will never win the one title that he desires more than anything else. Oh, the pity of it all!

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