There is no better TV sport than snooker... and none so hard to play

Most professional athletes make their chosen sport look easy, if not effortless.

When I watch Jimmy Anderson bowl against Steve Smith, it appears simple – but I’m very conscious that they have remarkable cricket skills. Likewise, when Jon Rahm hits a long iron to the middle of a tricky green, or when Marcus Rashford or Alessia Russo bang in glorious goals, I know their sporting ability far outweighs mine.

And yet, give me a cricket ball and I’ll more or less pitch it on a length; a golf club, and I’ll take a decent swing. And while I might not last a full 90 minutes on a football pitch, I would – at least in a game at the local park – probably be able to knock around a few passes with reasonable accuracy.

In short, there are many sports which a great many people can make a reasonable fist of. We might not get near pro level, but with a decent eye, fair balance and a bit of mobility, playing games like cricket and football is perfectly possible.

There is one sport, however, that is different. Ironically, on the telly it looks easier than most: little physicality, no great time pressure, and regular chances to sit down. The players do their thing with apparent tranquillity. But should you ever decide to have a go yourself, it’s akin to being asked to park a car with a blindfold on.

To be quite clear, snooker is a beast of a game. And it’s worse if you have successfully played its simpler cousin, pool. You’ll then at least know how to hold a cue, and will understand the rudiments of angle and spin. Yet even to approach a full-sized snooker table is to be taken aback. What seems on the TV to be a neat little rectangle of green turns out in fact to be a vast field of smooth cloth. It would be easier to pitch a tent on it than to put together a meaningful score.

On the few occasions I’ve had a go, the results have been nightmarish. Chas and Dave may have chirpily sung about potting the reds, then screwing back for the yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black; but in my experience, sinking a single red is an achievement. If the cue ball ends up being vaguely in position to take on a colour, it’s by complete fluke. I feel as if the game shouldn’t be impossible, and yet in any meaningful way, it absolutely is.

As a child of the 1980s, I got into snooker as a spectator during its halcyon days. I used to watch it on the box with my grandmother, who had a soft spot for Jimmy White, and who thought Alex Higgins was a disgrace. I was a Steve Davis fan: he was never really as boring as he was portrayed to be, but all the players back then had to have a reductive personality to suit the marketeers.

It still feels faintly absurd that 18 million people tuned in to watch Davis’s World Championship final against Dennis Taylor in 1985, but I suppose those were simpler times. Watching this year’s World Championship, it’s clear that the quality in the game is as good as it ever was – perhaps even better – even if the interest from the public has declined. And the top players still make it look easy.

My son was aghast when Ronnie O’Sullivan lost seven frames in a row to be knocked out in his quarter-final against Luca Brecel. He tends to have a soft spot for the greats in every sport, despite being a Tottenham fan, so once the Rocket was out, he wasn’t sure who to root for.

He’s keen to have a go himself though, buoyed by his success on the mini pool table we got him for Christmas. He has a peculiar cueing action, but twice on Thursday he knocked in five balls in a row to beat me on the black. Never mind that a snooker table is about 12 times bigger, or that he’d be significantly shorter than even a reduced-sized cue, he definitely fancies his chances of ending up at the Crucible Theatre.

I’ve tried in vain to explain that it’s a difficult game in real life but he’s demanding I find out where the nearest club is. Snooker loopy he may be, but I can’t fault the ambition. And given my own record on the green baize, his first frame will almost certainly end in victory – albeit, probably several hours after it begins.