• Willie Thorne Gambling Scandal
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William Joseph “Willie” Thorne was a legendary British snooker player who played professionally. Willie Thorne’s sole ranking title came in the 1985 Classic. He famously held a 13-8 lead in the 1985 UK Championship to Steve Davis but eventually lost 14-16. Willie Thorne was most famous for his break-building. His skill earned him the nickname of Mr. Maximum. After Willie Thorne retired from competing in professional snooker, he took up snooker commentary for the BBC. Let’s find out more about this famous snooker player.

BANKRUPT snooker ace Willie Thorne has gambling debts of £453,200 and was threatened after borrowing money from “the wrong people”. The TV commentator said: “I’m potless, penniless.

When was Willie Thorne born?

Sadly, Thorne was blighted with gambling problems throughout his life, and he accepted a place on Strictly Come Dancing in 2007 partly to pay off his debts. The former cueman was known to have a flutter on the horses and also snooker, once claiming to have lost £38,000 on a game in which he bet against John Parrott – the Scouser having lost. The sad passing of Willie Thorne – one of snooker's finest sons – should encourage professional sport to redouble its efforts against the dangers of gambling addiction, writes Desmond Kane. Snooker legend Willie Thorne has revealed that he attempted suicide after losing £1million thanks to a gambling addiction. The sportsman broke down in tears on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ on.

Willie Thorne was born on March 4th, 1954 in the village of Anstey near Leicester. His father Bill Thorne was a Desford Colliery miner and his mother Nancy Thorne was a housewife.

Where did Willie Thorne study?

Willie Thorne studied at Quorn’s Thomas Rawlins School. He was interested in many sports but he excelled at Snooker.

How did Willie Thorne start playing Snooker?

At the age of 15, Willie Thorne dropped out of school and worked as an estimator at a glass factory in Loughborough. He continued practising snooker simultaneously. Willie Thorne won the Under-16 National Snooker Title in 1970. Five years later he turned pro. Even though Willie Thorne had an incredibly successful start to his career, he failed to build on it and didn’t really achieve massive success at the professional level. His career high ranking seven, a rank he achieved during the mid 1980s.

Did Willie Thorne have a gambling addiction?

During the 1980s, Willie Thorne was also struggling with his gambling addiction. Willie Thorne had started gambling from the age of 16 when he used to visit a Billiards club in Leicester. One of Willie Throne’s infamous gambling losses came when he bet £38,000 on a match involving John Parrott. Thorne bet on Parrott’s loss but Parrott overcame a slow start to eventually win the match. Willie Thorne had also amassed a debt of £20,000 by betting wrongly on horse races.

Who is known as the Homer Simpson of Snooker?

Willie Thorne’s trademark bald head made him very recognizable and consequently, he was given the nickname of Homer Simpson of Snooker.

When did Willie Thorne start commentating on Snooker?

Willie Thorne started commentating for the BBC during the 1980s. He continued to work with the BBC till he was dismissed after the 2017-18 season. He also commentated on Snooker for Sky and ITV.

Willie Thorne: Snooker skills

Willie Thorne’s biggest skill was his ability as a break builder. He was labeled the “missing link” between old-school percentage play and the current aggressive potting game. He recorded 100 competitive century breaks in 19 seasons, becoming only the third player in history to achieve this. Willie Thorne also claimed to have made 200 maximum breaks, earning the nickname “Mr Maximum”.

Who was Willie Thorne married to?

Willie Thorne married Jill Saxby, former Miss Great Britain. The couple lived in Broughton Astley. Willie Thorne also had two sons and a daughter from his previous marriage to Fiona Walker.

How did Willie Thorne die?

Willie Thorne was prescribed a routine blood test by his psychiatrist in June 2015. However, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. On March 18th, 2020, Willie Thorne announced that he had also been diagnosed with blood cancer. Willie Thorne suffered a respiratory failure on June 16th, 2020 and was placed in an induced coma. On June 17th, 2020, Willie Thorne suffered a septic shock and passed away at the age of 66.

There’s a story about Willie Thorne which, like many stories from the snooker circuit, could be apocryphal but may as well be true.

The tale goes that Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan were each honing their skills on separate tables in the practice room at a tournament when Willie breezily entered and declared: “Who was the best player in here before I walked in?”

The anecdote, true or not, perfectly sums up Willie Thorne’s ebullient persona and a sense of humour which mixed overstated confidence and self-deprecation. He was a charismatic figure whose celebrity reached far beyond snooker. He suffered from well documented problems associated with gambling but had an irrepressible nature. Often, you just had to laugh.

So many stories involving him seem to revolve around misfortune he had almost invited in. And he loved telling them, even when he was the butt of the joke.

As an analyst, his technical explanations of the art of break-building helped to move commentary forwards. Never stuck for a word, he was the perfect studio guest. He was easy to interview. He liked people. He liked company and was himself good company.

Willie didn’t take himself too seriously. He enjoyed being part of the snooker scene. He was a natural at corporate dinners and charity auctions. He is far better known than many players with bigger trophy collections.

Willie Thorne was devoted to his mother, Nancy, who right until the end of his playing career, when he was mired in qualifiers in some non-descript leisure centre, would ring the press room for frame by frame updates. Nancy died in 2013.

Willie Thorne was a warm, gregarious man. It’s painfully sad to think of him in Spain in his final days, all alone save for the kind Julie O’Neill, who cared for him while he was in the hospital.

As he slipped away she read messages from fans wishing him well. They were heartfelt. People recognised Willie’s human frailties but also his genuine likability.

You don’t need to become a world champion to leave a mark. Willie Thorne won’t be walking into any more practice rooms, announcing his presence with some amusingly provocative statement, but stories about him will be told at tournaments for many years to come.

There’s a line from The Way We Were, the song which accompanied perhaps the BBC’s best known and most cherished musical montage in the 1980s – an unforgettably vibrant era in which Willie Thorne played a starring role – which perfectly sums up what he has meant to so many in the snooker world: It’s the laughter we’ll remember. Here’s a short clip of Willie Thorne doing what he does best.

It was with great sadness that it was announced in June that Willie Thorne had passed away aged 66.

Thorne has been a ubiquitous presence in the world of snooker since the 1980s, when he made his breakthrough on the green baize. After picking up a number of ranking event titles, his deadpan delivery became a trademark of the BBC commentary team, and he was also a popular regular on the 90s gameshow Big Break.

As is so often the case, we don’t appreciate what we have got until they are gone, and the outpouring of emotion at the loss of one of snooker’s great characters has been palpable.

His BBC colleague, Dennis Taylor, wrote that he and Thorne had ‘laughed our way around the world for 45 years’, and Steve Davis commented on the ‘smiles you put on other people’s faces’.

Ronnie O’Sullivan remembered Thorne for his ‘big heart’ and for being ‘great company’. The folically-challenged personality transcended snooker, and his great friend Gary Lineker tweeted:

“One of life’s great characters. A marvellous snooker player and a lovely man, who’s potted his final black much too soon. RIP Willie.”

A fantastic character, Thorne will be missed in the world of snooker and sport, and so we thought it only fitting to take a look back at one of the green baize’s great entertainers.

The Early Years

Most snooker fans will remember Willie Thorne as being permanently bald of head and moustachioed, but presumably there was a point in his life when that wasn’t the case.

It’s unlikely he had much facial hair to speak of in 1968 when he first picked up his cue at the age of 14, and again when he was crowned national under-16 champion just two years later he as surely more bumfluff than anything else.

Thorne turned professional at the age of 21 in 1975, and many pundits inside the game expected him to rise to the top of the world rankings in quick time.

But the Leicester potter struggled to translate his amateur prowess onto the professional circuit, and it was some time before he got his hands on any meaningful silverware.

Success at Last

It wasn’t until 1985 that Thorne picked up his first significant piece of silverware.

That came in the Mercantile Credit Classic, and sparked a much better run of form which took Thorne to two World Championship quarter-finals and the final of the UK Championship, the second most prestigious event in snooker’s calendar.

Willie Thorne in Snooker’s Major Tournaments

In that final, he led the great Steve Davis 13-8, and was seemingly heading into a six-frame lead as he embarked on yet another break.

But a missed blue off the spot let Davis off the hook, and the rest is history – the ‘Nugget’ closing out a famous comeback victory. Thorne admitted that error haunted him for the rest of his career:

“I went back to my seat and the doubts kicked in straight away,” he said. “I was still 13-9 in front, but all I could think about was the way I’d failed in big games in the past.”

Even though the major title his talent deserved eluded him, Thorne reached as high as seven in the world rankings and became only the third player in history to make 100 career centuries.

His nickname was ‘Mr Maximum’, earned for his proficiency in making the maximum 147 break – a feat Thorne claimed to have achieved almost 200 times in matches and practice. One of those came in the UK Championship of 1987.

Oddly, one of the highlights of Thorne’s career came in the year 2000 at the age of 46. He won the World Senior Masters, defeating the former world champion Cliff Thorburn in the final.

Snooker Loopy

In the 1980s, snooker was one of the most watched sports in the UK, and that made a star out of a number of the best-loved players on the circuit.

Willie Thorne Gambling Scandal

That was the genesis behind Snooker Loopy’, the 1986 pop hit for the duo Chas and Dave. In the lyrics, the famous line ‘Old Willie Thorne, his hair’s all gorn’ was backed in the video by an appearance from Thorne himself, who replied ‘perhaps I ought to chalk it.’

Entering the charts at number six, an appearance on Top of the Pops followed for Thorn and his Matchroom buddies.

RIP Willie Thorne. pic.twitter.com/3hFcMhw0Fb

— Chas And Dave (@chas_dave) June 17, 2020

Willie Thorne Gambling Casinos

After his playing career ended, Thorne’s love affair with snooker continued, and he was a respected commentator and pundit for the best part of 30 years with BBC and Sky.

Sadly, Thorne was blighted with gambling problems throughout his life, and he accepted a place on Strictly Come Dancing in 2007 partly to pay off his debts. The former cueman was known to have a flutter on the horses and also snooker, once claiming to have lost £38,000 on a game in which he bet against John Parrott – the Scouser having lost his cue on the way to the venue.

Thorne, on commentary for the BBC at the time, was understandably upset.

“I’m having to close the commentary by saying it’s unbelievable, spewing up as I say it.”

In March 2020, the beloved Thorne announced he was suffering from Leukaemia, and sadly his condition worsened in the months that followed. He passed away on June 17 aged 66, leaving behind a lifetime of laughter and snooker brilliance.