Alex Higgins
Alex Higgins in the 1960s
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| Born |
18 March 1949 Belfast, Northern Ireland |
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| Died | 24 July 2010 (aged 61) Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Sport country | Northern Ireland |
| Nickname | Hurricane |
| Professional | 1971–1997 |
| Highest ranking | 2 (1976/77 and 1982/83) |
| Career winnings | £711,999 |
| Highest break | 142 (1985 British Open) |
| Century breaks | 82 |
| Tournament wins | |
| Ranking | 1 |
| Non-ranking | 23 |
| World Champion | 1972, 1982 |
| alexhurricanehiggins |
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Alexander Gordon "Alex" Higgins (18 March 1949 – 24 July 2010) was a Northern Irish professional snooker player, who is remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the game. Nicknamed Hurricane Higgins because of his fast play, he was World Champion in 1972 and 1982, and runner-up in 1976 and 1980. He won the UK Championship in 1983 and the Masters in 1978 and 1981, making him one of ten players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. He was also World Doubles champion with Jimmy White in 1984, and won the World Cup three times with the All-Ireland team.
Higgins came to be known as the "People's Champion" because of his popularity, and is often credited with having brought the game of snooker to a wider audience, contributing to its peak in popularity in the 1980s. He had a reputation as an unpredictable and difficult character. He was a heavy smoker, struggled with drinking and gambling, and admitted to using cocaine and marijuana. First diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998, Higgins died of multiple causes in his Belfast home on 24 July 2010. Alex still holds the highest break to win a World Championship, being 135 in the 1982 final against Ray Reardon.
Alex Higgins was born in Belfast and had three sisters. He started playing snooker at the age of 11, often in the Jampot club in his native Sandy Row area of south Belfast and later in the YMCA in the nearby city centre. At age 14 and weighing seven and a half stone (47.6 kg), he left for England and a career as a jockey. However, he never made the grade because, in his youth, he drank a lot of Guinness and ate a lot of chocolate, making him too heavy to ride competitively. He returned to Belfast and by 1965, aged 16, he had compiled his first maximum break. In 1968 he won the All-Ireland and Northern Ireland Amateur Snooker Championships.
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