It’s a little bit sad to say this, but perhaps the most interesting things to happen so far, in the much-hyped Trump vs. O’Sullivan ‘22 World Championship snooker final, might be the spats ‘twixt O’Sullivan and Belgian ref’ Olivier Marteel.
The match itself has been a bit one-sided. Trump being rather dominated by O’Sullivan.
What caused the latter of the incidents is not altogether clear. The first was totally cut and dried, and arose when Ronnie wasn’t happy with Martel’s replacement of the white. Marteel was in the right, as the cameras very clearly showed. But he rather politely and somewhat meekly allowed O’Sullivan to bully him.
The next time – apparently in relation to a hand gesture Marteel thought Ronnie made – O’Sullivan suggested, rather ironically, that Marteel check the cameras (doing so in the first instance categorically showed Ronnie to be in the wrong!). Add to this that Ronnie is already under official investigation for a allegedly similar incident in another recent match… well, Ronnie looks bad in all this. At least to my eyes.
It’s not as if he’s a stranger to getting shirty with refs. I’ve seen him do it to Marcel Eckardt as well. When he gets like that, I think ‘you conceited prick; get on with your job, and let the referee do likewise’!
I can also recall a time when he had a go at Mark Allen, and Allen commented after the match, ‘Ronnie just tries to bully people out there and I wasn’t having any of it.’ Well, yes, that’s what it looks like to me.
Then there’s the shoulder barge thing with Ali Carter in 2018. Who’s the recurring character in all these incidents? Can you think of any other snooker player linked to so many spats? Maybe Alex Higgins? But he had the ‘excuse’ of being an old school pool-hall hustling alcoholic.
I hope Trump makes a comeback. In fact, for reasons of karma, I hope he beats O’Sullivan, as did Ali Carter in that 2018 confrontation. That didn’t look very likely at the point where I started writing this post. Nor does it based on form coming to this point, either. Ronnie’s firm favourite any way you slice it!
But Trump has fought back this afternoon, taking the first three frames. Yay! Keep it up. I feel for Marteel! Who’d want to do his job when Ronnie’s in of his moods?
* I’d suggest Ronnie should try a spell refereeing!
POSTSCRIPT
Well, Ronnie won, convincingly. And it seemed pretty inevitable. So not the most thrilling of snooker matches! It was quite nice to see how moved Ronnie was, at the end. A tearful embrace with Trump almost got a bit weird, it was so prolonged!
He’s a funny fish. No two ways about that. But, as Hendry observed, he’s taking the game to other levels, and is an artist. So an odd character seems fitting.