Interview: John Higgins, snooker player

John Higgins returns to snooker this week after serving a six-month ban. He tells Tom English of the crushing effect a tabloid sting had on his family

• Cue action: John Higgins at the gates of the Masters Snooker Club in Dennistoun last week Photograph: Robert Perry

John Higgins Snr is getting ready for Telford. He's asking his boy about the accommodation down there, wondering what the set-up is going to be like, hoping that they'll have a lift in the hotel they're going to be staying in, what with him being poorly and all. "They'll have a lift, won't they, son? They must have a lift."

What do you do when your dad, struggling desperately with cancer, starts to talk this way, when he accepts that he can't be with you when you return to the professional circuit, a three-time world champion and yet full of uncertainty after a six-month ban, in the city of Hamm in northwest Germany this week; when he agrees that it would be an impossibility to go to the tournament in Prague a week later, but come December and the UK Championship in Telford, he'll be there, right by your side, just as he was when you were starting out in Wishaw all those years ago, when you were just a little kid with big dreams?

He says he'll travel, but surely he won't. He can't. As much as he would love to, he's not able anymore. You know it and maybe he knows it, too. Deep down. But he's not saying it. That's bravery, isn't it? What is that if not the most heartbreaking manifestation of fatherly love?

John Higgins Jnr is sitting in a quiet corner in a hotel in Bothwell. He's talking about his dad, his mum, his wife and children, his brothers, his friends - and those who tried to ruin his life. There are tears and there are laughs. He mentions his comeback this week in Germany and recalls what he was like when he booked the trip to Hamm; full of gusto and 'bring it on'-type zeal.

And now? "Just a bit apprehensive, to be honest," he smiles. "When the result came through, I was like, 'Right I'm going over to Germany and I'll show them all', but now as the day gets closer, it's like going to the dentist. You make the appointment and as it gets nearer you think, 'Oh no'. I'm a bit nervous about how the players are going to take to me. It's just something I'll have to deal with."

All of the Scottish boys have been behind him, he says. Then he checks himself: "Well, most of them." He had messages of support from other players on the circuit as the horror was unfolding and they meant a lot to him. "And then you get some messages from others after the result which didn't sit too kindly with me. You'd have appreciated it much more had you got a message while you were going through it."

Anger is something he's wary of. He doesn't want to be bitter, doesn't want that kind of baggage weighing him down, doesn't want to win this week in Germany and next week in Prague and next year in Sheffield so he can put two fingers up to those who tried to hurt him. He doesn't want to be like that. "Anger and pent-up emotion when you're trying to be as calm as possible, it's not a good mix. I want to win for the family, same as before.

"I think I'm cagey with people I shouldn't be cagey with at the moment. That's probably true. People who might just sit down wanting to have a coffee and ask how I'm doing, I feel like I might be putting a bit of a barrier up. Before this, it was never, ever the case. I don't want to change. I can't hold grudges. It's just not me. It's not in my nature. There are things that I need to keep to myself about what happened, but I can't allow myself to get bitter about it. If that's what happens to me then those people, they've won. They've changed me as a person and they've won."

It's important to document what went on with the News of the World. In May, the tabloid newspaper revealed the fruits of the sting operation that was perpetrated on Higgins. In an elaborate case of entrapment he was brought to Kiev by his then manager, Pat Mooney, under the pretence that he was there to meet a businessman (the undercover reporter Mahzer Mahmood) who wanted to invest in snooker's future. On his way in the door, Higgins was told by Mooney that the people involved might want to talk to him about gambling. It was the first the player knew that something dodgy was going down. He was spooked.

In an effort to get out of that room as fast as he could he said he went along with whatever they were saying; namely, throwing four frames for cash in unspecified tournaments at a future point in time. He was captured on film appearing to be on board with crooks. The next day he found out that the News of the World were about to brand him a match-fixer. His head was in a spin now. That night he went to see his parents to tell them of the storm that was coming his way, to reassure them that he'd done nothing wrong. Next morning, when the story was unleashed, he was suspended from the game pending an investigation.

The snooker cue went in the cupboard after Steve Davis beat him in the World Championships in April and it didn't come out again for five months. He couldn't look at it. "It would be wrong to say that the cue represented my life, because your life is your wife, your three kids and your family but in a way it did represent my life, it represented a symbol of me providing for my family."

In the garage at home, he has a pool table and his eldest child, nine-year-old Pierce, likes to play from time to time. "He asked me for a game but even then I couldn't face picking up the cue. Couldn't even play a game of pool with the boy. There were people saying to me, ‘Right John, we believe you, why don't you just be in the club practising and that. But I couldn't do it. There was no purpose at the end of it. I'd have just been hitting balls about. There was no end goal.

"I don't think I slept a decent sleep for those five months. Not once. Sometimes, sitting at night, I'd go on the internet and see what was happening. There were a lot of things being said. Just bored, you know. Googling everything and you hear some of the bad stuff. Denise was my rock. Our two youngest kids, Claudia and Oliver, didn't really know what was going on, but Pierce did. There were a couple of comments at school. Kids are kids, they don't know what they're saying, do they? He came home a little bit upset, but he was funny. Me and Denise sat him down and tried to explain that there were people saying bad things about daddy in the papers and he said, ‘You show them out to me daddy and I'll punch them in the face'. Kids can make you do a whole range of things. They can make you laugh and cry. Two emotions at once."

In early September, after an exhaustive examination of the evidence, the most potentially ruinous charges against Higgins were blown out of the water by David Douglas, the high-ranking former Metropolitan police officer, who examined the case on behalf of world snooker. The judgment, handed down by Ian Mill QC, exonerated Higgins in precise and unambiguous language - and buried Mooney. Instead of a lengthy ban Higgins was given a six-month suspension and a 75,000 fine for failing to report that he'd been offered inducements to cheat on tour. Mill said he believed everything that Higgins had said and little of what Mooney had come out with, and that that player was guilty of foolishness, but nothing more.

"It was pure joy when I heard the verdict. Since I was nine years old I played snooker and that was all I've really known in my life. There was a point in that room, before I went in to hear the result, when I knew this could be about to be taken away from me. I was numb. I heard him say six months and I didn't hear much after that. I didn't know about the fine until later. I wasn't listening. I mean, snooker, it's the air that you breathe. Had he said three or four or five years or something, I'm finished."

The narrative of the story is cruel. From the elation of hearing that his career and reputation were intact he was plunged back into despair less than a day later with the news that his father's condition had taken a bad turn.

"Watching him this past while, I can't really describe it. I can't. I just can't. We all knew he was bad. He was bad for a while. Bad for a few months before all this business with the News of the World kicked-off. He'd been through three or four bouts of the chemotherapy and he was always upbeat. After some courses he'd still pop into the pub and have a few drinks on his way home. He was getting through it, you know. His strength was up. But a couple of months before all this started he was beginning to struggle a bit.

"When this happened, I don't know, I think it took some of the fight out of my dad. He was always about before he took ill. He was always there, always shielding me from things. There were people always making comments about me in years gone by. He was my manager and it was like, ‘Och, his father will never make him any off-table earnings' and these other managers were coming out with ‘I could do this for Higgins and I could do that'. My dad was always there to help keep people away that needed to be kept away. You think you're old enough, you think you know your own way, but sometimes you just don't.

"He was really poorly when we brought him out of the hospital just after the verdict. But he's had a great change in the last few months. He's eating so much better. He's talking about coming to Telford. I know, I know. There's no way he'll be able to come, but he's asking about the hotel and he's arranging the rooms. He's like that, sorting it out. Doctors are not God, are they? At the end of the day, they can only give a diagnosis.

"That's the funny part. You see him in the house, still arguing with my mum. His voice is weak, but he's still doing the arguing. My mum gets upset sometimes and I say, ‘Mum, that's my dad, that's what he's like, you've been married now for over 40 years and you're not going to change him at this stage'. She says, ‘You know what, you're right'. He's part of the old brigade of dads. They don't make them like him anymore."

There is no telling how much money this has cost him, but we're talking serious numbers. It's not something he wants to go into right now. "It's never been my goal anyway. Money and things like that. Never that important to me. It wouldn't matter if it cost me everything. I mean, I was brought up in Wishaw and it's not as if you were brought up with a gold spoon in your mouth. I never lived a lifestyle where I could get above myself."

You ask him what he regrets and he says he regrets plenty. Lots and lots of things. Not being a strong enough person, for one. Other stuff besides. "It's cost me a great deal and it's a stigma I'll probably never, ever get rid of. I hope I will, but I'm not sure. I just want to get back playing and maybe people will see me for what I am."

What is he? Same as he ever was. A dad, son, a husband, a champion; a good guy who found himself in a bad situation and who got liberated by the truth. Having got his career back, don't anybody doubt his resolve to reclaim those lost titles, too. In the name of the father.