Snooker Loopy – The Matchroom Mob With Chas & Dave (1986)

Description

Additional information about this, The Matchroom Mob with Chas & Dave vinyl art.

The Matchroom Mob with Chas & Dave – The Artist

The Matchroom Mob are snooker players Steve Davis, Dennis Taylor, Willie Thorne, Terry Griffiths and Tony Meo, who sang as backing vocalists to Chas & Dave.

Chas & Dave (often billed as Chas ‘n’ Dave) were an English pop rock duo, formed in London by Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock. They were most notable as creators and performers of a musical style labelled rockney (a portmanteau of rock and cockney), which mixes “pub singalong, music-hall humour, boogie-woogie piano and pre-Beatles rock ‘n’ roll”. For a time, Rockney was also the name of their record label.

Snooker Loopy – The Song

Snooker Loopy is a humorous song which was released as a single in 1986 and entered the UK Singles Chart, reaching #6. It was written and performed by Chas & Dave and featured snooker players Steve Davis, Dennis Taylor, Willie Thorne, Terry Griffiths and Tony Meo, as backing vocalists under the name ‘The Matchroom Mob’ – Matchroom Sport being the company owned by promoter Barry Hearn which employed all these snooker professionals at the time. The lyrics are a mild satire on the style and antics of the players involved: “old Willie Thorne; his hair’s all gawn” for example. The verse on Steve Davis also makes light of the 1985 World Snooker Championship final and his missed black in the final frame, and notes that his manager is not concerned who should win the upcoming 1986 Championship “because he’s got the rest of us signed up!”. Ironically, while all the top players of the day were featured on the recording, the 1986 Championship was eventually won by rank outsider Joe Johnson who was neither involved nor mentioned in the lyrics.

The Cue Hand position – The Shape

This record has been cut into the familiar hand position a player uses to support a cue when taking a short in the game of snooker. Snooker is a cue sport that originated among British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century. It is played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth (or “baize”), with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick and 21 coloured balls, players must strike the white ball (or “cue ball”) to pot or pocket the remaining balls in the correct sequence, accumulating points for each pot. An individual game (or frame), is won by the player scoring the most points. A match is won when a player wins a predetermined number of frames.

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