Kings of the Valleys

Mark Williams and Ray Reardon are cut from the same cloth

When Mark Williams, 50 years and 206 days old, won the Xi’an Grand Prix this week he became the oldest ever winner of a ranking event, made more special because of the man whose record he superseded.

Williams and Ray Reardon are Welsh snooker greats of different eras. In fact, they span almost six decades between them: Reardon turned professional in 1968 and retired in 1991. A year later, Williams joined the pro ranks and is still going at the very highest level.

The difference, of course, is that there was very little in terms of a professional game for Reardon in his youth, so he had to wait until he was 35 to get started. Williams entered life on tour as a member of the Class of ’92 at 17, taking advantage of opportunities forged by pioneers such as Reardon.

The two men hail from the same area in South Wales, Blaenau Gwent, which encompasses Tredegar where Reardon grew up and the village of Cwm, the childhood home for Williams.

Both of their backgrounds were in mining, the lifeblood of this borough. Reardon was buried as a young man in a rockfall, unable to move for three hours until rescued. Williams’s grandfather and father were miners. As a boy, his dad smuggled him in for a shift. Crawling through the dirt among the darkness, Williams hated it. Snooker felt, more than ever, like a way out.

His dad, seeing the mining industry dying under the Thatcher government, believed it too and took part in a subterfuge in which he would drop young Mark off at school where the register was taken and then drive him to a snooker club for a day of practice.

The gamble paid off. Williams won his first ranking title, the Welsh Open, at 20 and has just won his 27^th. In between he has claimed three World Championship crowns and everything else that matters as well.

His first flourish as a top player saw him go past his great contemporaries Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins for a period. He once won a record 48 successive first round matches in ranking events. In 2002/03 he won all three ‘triple crown’ titles in the same season. To this day, only Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry have also achieved this feat.

In a long career, there will be troughs alongside the peaks. It looked as if Williams was fading by 2017 when he failed to qualify for the Crucible. The following year, he won the world title for a third time.

Everyone is different, but there is no one quite like Mark Williams. As a player, he mixes clever old school nous with a youthful approach to shot-making. He remains one of the best potters the game has ever seen. Under pressure, he is rock solid. He has an irrepressible character, apparently able to quickly shrug off defeat and not let victory go to his head.

These days, Williams cannot bear to spend much time practising between tournaments, but puts the work in at venues. After a match in the recent Saudi Arabia Masters he was back on the practise table. At events, he is fully committed. Between them, he does his own thing.

This is a balance the vast majority of players do not enjoy. Most cannot afford to. But when you’ve achieved as much as Williams, you have nothing left to prove. He has achieved a level of contentment in this mentally demanding sport that most could only dream of. He is also instantly relatable to the general public with no airs and graces. In a time of carefully cultivated image, he is the real deal.

He always looked up to Reardon and his other celebrated forebears, Terry Griffiths and Doug Mountjoy. They are legends and Williams has long since established the same status, not just in Welsh snooker but in the wider sporting landscape.

One quality shared by Reardon and Williams is their determinedness to immediately have the upper hand in any situation. Reardon always gave the impression he was in charge – and he usually was. Williams grew up in a snooker club full of adults. He had to quickly learn how to banter back, and there’s no one better at it in the game. You just can’t rattle him.

Reardon died last year. Williams was in close contact to the very end. He plays down the record – he plays down everything – but he is surely proud of this latest link to a titan of a previous era.

They are names that will echo in the annals of snooker, in Wales and much further beyond, as long as anyone plays the game.