If only I’d known, I’d have tried harder

I share my birthday with a famous snooker player, same year, everything. We even got a snooker table at the same birthday. Unfortunately, our snooker paths diverge at that point.

While I can claim, quite spuriously, to have played in the World Snooker Championships by means of being whitewashed in the first round of a club tournament where the winner got a guaranteed place in one of the early qualifying rounds for the main event, my fellow Capricorn went on to win the thing several times. Bugger.

So imagine my frustration last night when Ding Junhai went on to win the UK Championship final last night and with it, not only a nice cheque for £100,000, but also his own body weight in pies courtesy of sponsors, Pukka Pies.

Like the animals that go in said snack food, I’m proper gutted.