Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins loses battle to throat cancer aged 61

There had been pictures of him in the press recently looking extremely thin and fragile, he was visiting Spain in hope of having surgery on his teeth but was deemed too ill to undergo the treatment by Spanish medics.

Higgins had lost all his teeth during his cancer treatment and was in Spain to have them replaced. The surgery was to cost £20,000 and a number of friends had worked together to raise the money. He had been fighting throat cancer for more than ten years, having been sponsored for years by cigarette makers, Higgins blamed his illness mostly on his heavy smoking.

Reports were circulating that his body weight had dropped as low as seven stone and that he had to have all his food pureed. Otherwise, eating caused him too much pain.

Higgins was last in the news in May when he said that he knew of at least four professional players who were taking bribes to drop matches. He also claimed that during his career he had refused many bribes to lose games. Apparently Greek gamblers had offered him £18,000 in 1979 to lose the Benson & Hedges Masters quarter final against Perrie Mans and another £20,000 to cheat during the Irish Masters in 1989. Higgins was adamant he denied both offers.

In 1972 he beat John Spencer to take his first World title and then ten years later he beat Ray Reardon in another Crucible Theatre final to win the title once more.

Although Higgins also lost two finals, in 1976 and in 1980, he did win two Masters titles at Wembley.

Higgins was as well known for the controversy that surrounded him as he was for his snooker playing.

He once head-butted a tournament director and his career entered a downwards spiral after he was banned for a season after having threatened to have Dennis Taylor shot in 1990.

Despite this Taylor was one of the first to pay tribute to Higgins saying,

“There was just something about the way he played the game - there was a little bit of [John] McEnroe in there. I don't think you'll ever see a player in the game of snooker like the great Alex Higgins.”

The BBC snooker commentator Philip Studd spoke of Higgins as “snooker’s original, troubled genius”. He told Radio 5 Live that Higgins was

"Charismatic, flash, fast, unpredictable, combustible - you just couldn't take your eyes off the 'Hurricane’.

While he could never match the consistency of Steve Davis or Stephen Hendry, Higgins on his day was the greatest of them all. He touched the heights in 1982 when he won his second world title. He pipped Jimmy White to the final thanks to a break still widely regarded as the finest ever made. His tears of triumph after beating Ray Reardon - wife and baby in arms - remains one of snooker's most iconic moments.

Without Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins snooker would never have become one of the most popular television sports in the 1980s and beyond."