Anthony Hamilton is still going very strong at 52 years old (Picture: Getty Images)
Anthony Hamilton has made a strong start to his 33rd season as a professional snooker player, but he is eyeing up retirement and looking forward to it.
The Sheriff of Pottingham turned 52 this year but is still ranked number 36 in the world, kicking off his latest campaign by winning his opening Championship League group and both his qualifiers at the European Masters and British Open.
Hamilton can still mix it with the very best, but he is planning for the end of his career, which he reckons will come within the next three years.
While he still enjoys his matches, and some of his practice, injuries have blighted him for years already and he is looking forward to putting the grind of preparation for tournaments behind him.
Asked if he had treated himself to a break from snooker over the summer, Hamilton told Metro.co.uk: ‘Oh God yeah, Jesus! I have as long a break as I can.
‘After I retire I won’t play another shot, that will be it, because if you have a week off now, you go back and it’s like torture because you’ve lost all your feel. Extend that to a year and it’s the last thing I’d want to do.
‘When I’m about 70 and haven’t played for years, I’d go to the local and have two Guinness with my mate and a best of five. That’d be great, not play one safety shot, make a s***ty 30 or 40 and just be happy with two Guinness at lunchtime. That sounds alright, that sounds like a good time. Anything other than that sounds like torture for no reason.
Hamilton takes on Louis Heathcote at the European Masters this week (Picture: Getty Images)
‘I enjoy playing matches still, they’re a real buzz. I enjoy the build-up, practice-wise, but there has to be a carrot for practice. Playing without a carrot would be a day wasted. I’d do anything but that, I want to be outside, I want to do lots of travelling. You spend your whole life indoors because you have to. It’s a nice thought of what you’d do afterwards without snooker in your brain. Personally I think I’ll be happier.
‘I’m actually excited about retirement. I’ve got a little plan. I’m thinking I’ll try and play till I’m 55. Then I can pay off a few things, live off next to nothing for a while then go into the coaching side. That’s the plan.
‘If I can stay on for another three seasons, then even if I’m on the tour I’ll retire. I am a bit sick of being in pain all the time. And I have to experience the absolute turgid snooker that I’m playing as well. I’m doing it to win money and stay on the tour, but it’s not pretty. So the idea of retirement is the opposite of dread, I can’t wait.
‘I’ll do as well as possible in that time I’ve got left but I can’t think my body will get any better. It’s a full-time job just to get my body in a state to play a match! All the icing, the heating, the stretching, the fitness stuff. It’s full-time, just to be able to not miss tournaments through injury.
‘It’s worth it because you get to play and get to win. When I win a match now it’s so much more rewarding than winning five or six on the spin when I was 30. I know all the effort that goes in just to be there.’
Hamilton has made over 300 centuries on the professional tour (Picture: Getty Images)
The Sheriff has endured a string of injuries and ailments, notably his back, neck and eyes, and asked which is bothering him most right now he said: ‘Everything.
‘Bottom of my back is bad now. I was on the floor a few days ago because my back went. It’s near enough everything from the hips upwards. It’s a damaged spine, but everything is connected from that.
‘It’s just getting old, that’s what’s happening. There’s a reason that sports people are nearly all under 50.’
The ‘absolute turgid snooker’ that Hamilton references is a bit harsh on himself, but his Average Shot Time has crept up over recent years and his matches are often on the lengthy side as a result.
‘It’s never the plan,’ he said. ‘The plan is to turn up, get your cue out, pot a long red and make a hundred. Do that every frame. But as it goes along you just get embroiled into whatever you need to do to win.
‘Sometimes for me, because my eyes are bad, my back’s bad, sometimes I end up playing at a speed and in a style that I don’t recognise, but it’s just organically happened.
‘I’m not going out of my way to make life tough for players, I just don’t want to lose. So you end up going into your D, E, F game, then obviously experience means you can make it hard for players. But I don’t want to play like that, I want to make 80 every poke, that’d be lovely.
Hamilton has one ranking title to his name after winning the 2017 German Masters (Picture: Getty Images)
‘It all sounds a bit negative, but I’m not, I’m really positive about it. You have to be because it’s a hard situation. If I’m not positive I’d end up going, “you know what, f**k it all.”
‘But I do know the snooker’s not great to watch, unfortunately I’m not in the mode now of being a crowd-pleaser. I’m in the mode of putting food on the table. I apologise to any players past, present and future that have to sit through it but I’m just trying to win a match.
‘I wouldn’t want any of my friends or family to watch it, I don’t want to put them through that s**t. I’m happy being on my own because I can win my own crappy little matches on my own, I can see the money go in the bank and be happy I haven’t offended anyone.’
The Sheriff can still knock in the big breaks, he’s made three centuries already this season, but he embraces the grind when he has to and is happy to present something of an old school challenge to new players on tour.
Chinese teenager Xing Zihao was treated to a clash with the Sheriff in his very first match on tour at the Championship League in July, with the veteran winning 3-0, taking the last frame despite needing three snookers.
‘That was his first match as a pro and he must have been in 15 snookers on the spin!’ Hamilton said. ‘He must have been thinking, “what the f**k have I got myself into here?”
‘But he looks like a real talent, I was watching him practice before, he was brilliant. The youngsters from China, they’re brilliant but they have to learn the game, I hope he will, I hope somebody’s guiding him because he’s got an awful lot of talent.’
The former German Masters champion has countless pearls of wisdom to hand over to younger players, but he believes it is simple things that plenty of youngsters get wrong.
‘It’s mainly experience, but you can’t rush that,’ Hamilton said on where his younger opponents are going wrong. ‘There’s simple things they can do like putting the white on whichever side of the table is the most dangerous for the escape.
‘Simple safety shots that, if you watch Ronnie or Selby, or sometimes me then they’re not simple safety shots because you’re always trying to find the very worst place.
‘A lot of players get down, clip off the red and go for a good length, but they don’t realise that in three shots they’re in trouble because they’ve left you an easy shot to play.
‘It’s experience, but it’s also an ethos of making every shot count. A lot of kids only get excited when there’s a long pot on and a chance to get in and score. Watch Selby, he’s grafting as much on what seems like an innocuous shot, but he knows that in three shots it will pay dividends.’
Another, more philosophical piece of advice for players coming through, or anyone in the professional game, is to enjoy themselves, or at least try to because they are living a dream.
‘I’m not trying to be preachy, I’d say the same thing to myself at 25,’ he said. ‘I enjoy the matches, I’m really invested in them.
‘I hope the younger players try to enjoy it because they’ve got a great job. That’s one thing you’d say to the younger generation, it’s dead serious, but you’ve got to enjoy it because we’ve had a right result doing it in the first place.
‘It’s hard to enjoy at the time because it’s so hard to beat another geezer who’s an absolute machine, but if you can make sure you enjoy the moment after and the build-up to the next match then you’ll get something out of it. But it is dog-eat-dog, trying to stay on tour, it’s all stressful, you wonder where the enjoyment is sometimes.’
There does appear to be more enjoyment on tour this season as playing opportunities have been boosted thanks to the return of Chinese events. It might not last forever, but Hamilton is pleased to see a relatively buoyant atmosphere among players after tough times during the pandemic.
‘I think the players are generally feeling good about stuff,’ he said. ‘There’s plenty to go at. 13, 14, 15 tournaments again, it’s good isn’t it?
‘There’s no moaning. It’s quite weird that players aren’t moaning, it’s like a Haley’s Comet moment. But it is nice, it’s good.’
The merry band of snooker players, Hamilton included, head to Nuremberg this week for the European Masters, where the Sheriff will put another talented young player to the test when he takes on Louis Heathcote in the last 64 on Wednesday 23 August.
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‘The idea of retirement is the opposite of dread, I can’t wait.’
