Jimmy White vows to be back next year after the 60-year-old missed out on the Crucible

The Whirlwind is in a spin. Jimmy White’s dream of reaching the Crucible for the first time in 17 years died a few hours ago and he struggles to hide his frustration.

Only a few weeks earlier, the six-time finalist declared he was ‘playing too well’ not to qualify. He might only be nearing his 61st birthday but he had just beaten former Crucible champion and world No.5 Judd Trump. He’d be there, don’t worry about that.

White, however, lost 10-4 to Martin O’Donnell in the second qualifying round on Thursday night. There will be no return, not on the baize at least. And he blames himself.

‘I’m devastated because I’ve been playing some really good stuff,’ White tells The Mail on Sunday the morning after his defeat. ‘I made a huge mistake. I changed something with my technique two weeks ago. It’s something I needed to do, I found this problem, I’ve always had it, I’ve been tinkering with it for a while but I changed it two weeks ago. 

‘I was all over the place. I was going to my old technique, using my new one. I got frustrated. It was a nightmare. One of the worst experiences I’ve had on a snooker table. It was the wrong time to do it. A schoolboy error.’

White refuses to talk details. It’s technical, he says, and won’t make much sense to the layman, so take him at his word. But he’s bullish about the future. ‘I’ll be winning tournaments next year,’ he says. ‘It’s just getting used to it. I can do things I haven’t done for 25 years on the snooker table.’

What’s most captivating about White in full flow, not just the self-belief or that odd quirk of many great sportsmen to always find a reason for defeat beyond one’s own ability – but the excitement at the tweaks to his game, the thrill of improvement.

Young sportsmen obsess about such things, not those in their sixties. White talks as though he plans to play for years to come. That’s because, well, he does. The burning question is why.

‘Because I still amaze myself,’ he says. ‘I still make 147s. I play in exhibitions and can make five or six centuries. I’ve never been so good in practice. I know practice means nothing but if I didn’t think I could still win, I’d go and play golf.’

And because it gives him a buzz. And because, underneath it all, there’s still the hurt of the triumphs that slipped through the fingers of one of snooker’s legends, of a man who beat cancer and overcame cocaine addiction and a gambling habit that cost him millions.

‘You hear footballers say they don’t know what to do when they leave football,’ says White. ‘When you take away that high of competing away from a sportsman. That is what I still love. I love competing. That high you get of trying to beat someone. Especially me at my age trying to beat all these youngsters. It’s great.’

It will be three decades next year since White lost his sixth World final – and fifth in a row – on a deciding frame to Stephen Hendry when White was 37-24 up, missed a black and Hendry cleared up.

The 60-year-old felt he was ‘playing too well’ not to qualify a few weeks ago

White leaves no time to reflect on disappointment or lose sleep on missed chances. ‘I’m far from finished yet,’ he says. ‘To retire is to expire. One day, if you ask me those questions, I’ll be sat down in a golf club and I’ll be able to answer them but now I’m still very much involved and improving.’

In February, he became the first over-60 since Eddie Charlton in 1992 to reach the last 16 of a ranking event at the German Masters in February. He beat Trump to reach the same round at the WST Classic last month. In November, he reached the main draw of the UK Championship.

His victory over Trump means White has beaten every Crucible champion in history in a competitive match – as well as pre-Crucible winners like Fred Davis. White’s two-year invitational tour card expires after the World Championships but he currently sits in the four qualification spots to regain his spot.

White’s the People’s Champion and it’s easy to see why. At one point, I mention he’s one of my mum’s sporting heroes and how excited she was at hearing about the interview. She loved White and Alex Higgins in their pomp, the two mavericks, with their flair and reckless abandon, potting balls off the lampshades in the days where snooker players were the rock stars of sport.

‘Send me your mum’s address and we’ll send her a nice picture,’ says White.

So, what would his great mate Higgins, who died in 2010 aged 61, make of White putting in the graft at his age. ‘He’d be pleased that I’m sober,’ says White. ‘He’d be pleased that I’m trying again. And he’d be amazed that I’m commentating, that’s for sure.’

White will be part of Eurosport’s commentary team for World Championships at the Crucible alongside Ronnie O’Sullivan.

He beat world number five and former Crucible champion Judd Trump earlier this year

White first met Higgins aged 13 when his dad invited Higgins to his club in Balham. ‘He caused havoc,’ says White. Higgins tried to chat up White’s sister much to the displeasure of his brother.

They caused just as much havoc together in the decades to follow. White recalls the time they went out in Manchester on a Thursday, found themselves in Dublin on Friday, only to end up in London on Saturday and Barcelona on Sunday.

There’s also the time White crashed his car, Higgins flew out the window, stood up and shouted: ‘I’ve got nine lives, baby!’

Higgins beat White in the world semis in 1982 on his way to clinching his second world title. White led 15-14 and was 51-0 up in the next frame that would have won the match but missed. Higgins cleared up with a remarkable break of 69 and didn’t look back.

Higgins died in 2010 after a long battle with throat cancer. For the last few months of his life, he refused to eat, rejecting help from White and his family. White helped carry the coffin at the funeral.

‘It’s heart-breaking. We miss him dearly. We all tried to look after him but he was a bit of a gambler and he was bitter and it hindered him, you know, but make no mistake he made the game of snooker. He was flamboyant. He was tenacious. Ask any of the great players, they will tell you the same.’

White admitted victory over Higgins in 1982 would probably have killed him. ‘I’m a bit of a control freak,’ he says. ‘I’ve never listened to anyone in my life, even now. I’ve made my own mistakes or my own good decisions. What I was getting up to back then, I’d probably have been in big trouble. He beat me and it was great for the game that he did.’

Martin O’Donnell knocked out ‘whirlwind’ with a 10-4 victory on Thursday night

White had not long discovered cocaine. ‘I was just having fun, you know. I was a kid from Tooting. There were only four channels on the television and suddenly everyone knows you. I was a big drinker. That was my one. I had cocaine one night and I thought, fucking hell, I’m sober. I can go again. Cocaine for me, at the beginning, was just to keep me drinking. Then it gets hold of you. The devil’s dandruff is on my shoulders.’

For a few months that spiralled to crack cocaine. ‘I spent £30,000 on it in three months. My bank account was empty and I knew I had to snap myself out of it. That stuff is evil.’

White reflects on how things have changed. ‘That’s a long time gone now. I’m really enjoying my life. I’m having more of a buzz now than I ever did because every day is a good day. Today is good. I have to go by each day.

‘This is why my game has come back as well. Because I’m enjoying doing the work and enjoying practicing. And I have a job. I’ve never had a job in my life. But now I work for Eurosport and it’s so much fun. You’re all part of a team and everyone has to chip in. I’m the first in. In my drinking days, they’d have done well to find me.’

White tips his commentary partner O’Sullivan to bag an eighth world title and go clear on his own as the most successful player in Crucible history.

What is it that makes him so special? ‘It’s simple. He’s got an incredible style of play. There was Higgins, there was myself, who attacked the game. Made it look flamboyant. With O’Sullivan, where’s he a genius, such a hard worker, he’s a bit of me, a bit of Higgins, Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis and made it all into a winning machine. There’s no one like him and there never will be anyone like it. He makes the game look so easy.

‘He’s had to be tough, too, because of what’s gone on in his life but, make no mistake, he’s got one of the biggest hearts of anyone you could ever meet. He’s got the heart of a lion.’

White tipped his commentary partner Ronnie O’Sullivan (left) to win an eighth world title

A heart, says White, that also helps him stay where he needs. ‘We have a laugh,’ says White. ‘And he’s sober as well. He gives me advice on that because I’m battling with it all the time.’

As our conversation draws to a close, the question arises of what – if anything – the 60-year-old White would say to his 13-year-old self if he could go back and warn the younger Jimmy of what his life had in store.

‘I wouldn’t change a thing,’ he says. ‘I’ve had the most amazing life. I’ve met the most amazing people. I’ve still got many close friends that I’ve had most of my life. If I was to speak to 13-year-old Jimmy White now, I’d just tell him to prepare for his matches. That’s all. I’ve got no other regrets.’

Watch live coverage of the World Championships on Eurosport and discovery+ featuring pundits Ronnie O’Sullivan, Jimmy White and Alan McManus.