Lets air it: Those other examples are mere pretenders. Nothing be able to interminably, or want interminably, harmonize the the majority boring occasion in the history of sports. It was off to a flyer when the challenge was made: first player to half a million points. And one of them, needy soul, had to be in session here doing nothing for extra than five weeks.
This was 1907, a little existence similar to a new technique had been introduced to the popular determined of billiards (so popular that eight million tuned in to a BBC telephone lines broadcast of Tom Reece explanation a new shot).
Reece, a great player of the time, was up adjacent to Joe Chapman in the big harmonize, which was staged in Soho with the specific aim of setting a world record already the rules changed.
The method for scoring the whole these points was the hold cannon, in which a player manoeuvres the balls awaiting two of them are locked at the entrance to a help yourself to, and thus never move when the object ball delicately kisses them for a scoring cannon.
Chapman had the top of the exciting early play, building a information of 878-483, already Reece got what he required, playing the balls into the hold position (the move was banned a little months later).
He then set vis-?-vis scoring at a rate of 10,000 a generation, took a generation off and carried on scoring even extra quickly as time went by.
Spectators drifted in and impossible, and off to snooze. One of them went into such a deep snooze the players left him here overnight, to be create the following morning by the cleaners.
Here were frequent breaks in play to move to another table, wherever snooker challenges took place, just to give Chapman something to do. Certain sessions were played overnight, and when the players took a opening, the balls were covered with a hat box so theyd be in position for a restart.
The harmonize went on for extra than five weeks, and Reecewho later became a favourite of King George Vwon with a opening of 499,135. The harmonize was publicised all through the British Empire, thanks largely to the unsung hero of the harmonize.
As Reece wrote in Cannons & Big Guns in 1928, George Reed of the Sporting Life sat over and done with all minute of the opening. His job was harder than my own, said Reece. He stuck it impossible be keen on a Briton.