Obituary: Len Ganley MBE, snooker referee

By THE nature of their work, snooker referees are usually self-effacing people, content to stay in the background while the focus is on the players.

That Len Ganley was a superb referee, highly rated by the top players, who also managed to become a household name says everything about the popular figure who has died at home in Northern Ireland.

For Ganley was not just the best referee in the golden era of snooker in the 1980s and 1990s, taking charge of no fewer than four World Snooker Championship finals at The Crucible in Sheffield, he also became famous as a personality in his own right, which helped him carry out dedicated charity work on behalf of child sufferers from muscular dystrophy – the number of special wheelchairs provided by his efforts ran into three figures.

His refereeing experience was considerable. That he was a very fine amateur player as a young man meant that he had a natural affinity with the competitors, and very often he anticipated problems before anyone could notice them, and could defuse situations with a look or a quiet word.

Since he was a large man – he once tipped the scales at 22 stones – Ganley’s looks and words carried weight, and woe betide any spectator who dared to interrupt a passage of play with noisy activity. He was also a master of the sometimes arcane rules of snooker, and on several occasions he invoked the particular rule that permits a frame to be re-started when players were clearly taking safety play to extremes.

Ganley wanted to see snooker played in an entertaining yet sporting fashion, which is why he counted among his own favourite matches the four world finals in 1983, 1987, 1990 and 1993 – the first two of those won by Steve Davis, and the latter two by Stephen Hendry who memorably beat Jimmy White on both occasions – and the UK Championship in 1983 when his fellow Northern Irishman Alex Higgins won a breathtaking match 16-15 against Davis.

Ganley’s appreciation of the game was never better evidenced than in the first round of the World Championship in 1997 when Ronnie O’Sullivan made the fastest-ever maximum 147 break. Ganley seemed to anticipate O’Sullivan’s every move and replaced with balls with alacrity so that the “Rocket” was able to finish the break in five minutes and 20 seconds, a record which still stands. One of a family of 11 children, Ganley moved to Burton-on-Trent to stay with his sister as a teenager. He had already begun his working life as a chimney sweep in Lurgan, but in England he had spells as a milkman and bus driver before a chance encounter with former world snooker champion Ray Reardon changed his life. By this time, Ganley was a more than useful amateur league player, and once made a break of 136 – enough to rank him as a serious player in the unpaid game.

In 1976, Reardon played a match against Ganley and beat him comfortably. There being no referee for Reardon’s next match, Ganley volunteered to stand in and Reardon was so impressed that he suggested that Ganley take up the job seriously.

Within a few years, Ganley was one of the five full-time referees as snooker expanded from smoke-filled halls to the television screens and arenas around the world.

As he became a central figure in the sport, Ganley acquired a couple of nicknames – the Jolly Green Giant in acknowledgement of his Irish background, and Bone (or Ball) Crusher from a famous Carling beer advertisement in which he apparently crushed a snooker ball in one hand. His popularity was confirmed when the band Half Man Half Biscuit from Merseyside penned an affectionate ditty The Len Ganley Stance and it became a minor hit.

He put his fame to good use; lending his celebrity to his charity work was hugely important to Ganley. His efforts around the green baize and in raising cash for wheelchairs were recognised when he was made an MBE for services to snooker and charity in 1994. Ganley officially retired from snooker in 1999, receiving the plaudits of everyone in the sport.

Before and after retirement, he ran a snooker club in Burton, but he had always yearned to move back to Northern Ireland.

Ganley suffered a major heart attack in 2002, but recovered well, though the theft earlier this year of his snooker souvenirs and memorabilia was a devastating blow. Latterly he suffered ill-health from complications of diabetes and it was these which led to his death.

Len Ganley is survived by his wife Rosaline and six grown-up children, including his son, Mike, who is a World Snooker tournament director. Ganley’s funeral will take place later today in his native Lurgan.

MARTIN HANNAN