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John Parrott

The highlight of Parrott’s 2008/09 season was reaching the last 16 of the Royal London Watches Grand Prix.
He came through a tough first match, seeing off Atthasit Mahitthi 5-4, a break of 70 sealing victory to go with runs of 54, 95, 86 and 74. In the next round he brushed past fellow former World Champion Ken Doherty 5-0, before beating Mark King 5-3 at the venue in Glasgow.
In the last 16 he came up against one of the season’s form players, Ali Carter, and was beaten 5-0.
Wins over Robert Stephen and Stuart Bingham booked him on a flight to the Bank of Beijing World Snooker China Open, but problems with his back and neck ruled him out of the trip. Lack of match practice saw Parrott bow out in his first match at the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship qualifiers.
The Merseysider finished the season with a fall of 14 places in the rankings to  No 53.
In 2007, he was paired with fellow BBC pundit Steve Davis in the first round at the Crucible. With seven world titles and 53 years of professional experience between them, they produced a gripping contest certainly not short on quality - there were two centuries and 12 more breaks over 50 in the 19 frames. Parrott had lead 6-1 and 9-6 only for Davis to level each time but he eventually secured the studio bragging rights by taking a nervy deciding frame. The 1991 World Champion then put up a great fight against the 2005 winner, Shaun Murphy. There was nothing between them at 8-8 but Murphy found another gear and won the next five frames to progress.
Parrott is one of snooker’s most instantly recognisable faces and has done much to popularise the sport both on and off the table. His first world final came in 1989, but he was taught a harsh lesson by Davis, who won 18-3 - the biggest margin of victory in a world final.
He learned from the experience and two years later, he put it to good use, beating Jimmy White 18-11 to claim snooker’s greatest prize. He added the UK Championship for good measure later that year and is one of only five players - Davis, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan are the others - to have held both titles in the same year.
"It was just such a wonderful feeling getting to the world final and winning it was something else. Those moments do not come along too often and you have to savour them," he said.
Parrott led England to victory in the 2000 Nations Cup at The Hexagon, Reading. He marshalled his troops - Stephen Lee, O’Sullivan and White - to a 6-4 victory over defending champions Wales. Fittingly, it was the skipper who held his nerve against opposite number Darren Morgan in the deciding frame to seal the match for the host nation.
A devoted Everton fan, Parrott also enjoys playing golf and following horse-racing.

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