Bill Werbeniuk

Bill Werbeniuk

Born	January 14, 1947(1947-01-14) Winnipeg, Canada
Died	January 20, 2003(2003-01-20) (aged 56) Vancouver, Canada
Sport country	Canada
Nickname	Big Bill
Professional	1973–1990
Highest ranking	8 (1983/84)
Highest break	147 (maximum break)
Best ranking finish	Quarter-finals, World Snooker Championship (4 times)

William Alexander "Bill" Werbeniuk ( /ˌwərbɛˈnɪk/; 14 January 1947 – 20 January 2003) was a Canadian professional snooker and pool player. Recognisable for his girth, he was nicknamed "Big Bill". Werbeniuk pioneered the style of safety shot in which a red ball is hit powerfully, with the cue ball hit low enough to screw all the way back into baulk.

Werbeniuk was noted for the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed before and during matches – up to 50 pints of lager per day. He said that he generally drank around six pints of lager before a match and then one pint for each frame. He said he did this to counteract familial benign essential tremor. Later in his career he also took propranolol, a beta blocker to cope with the effects of his alcohol consumption on his heart.

A memorable incident occurred during a televised World Championship Match against David Taylor at the Crucible. Werbeniuk attempted to stretch across the table, but due to his size was having some difficulty. Eventually, the inevitable happened and he split his trousers. The ripping noise it made caused many in the audience, including his opponent, to laugh out loud. Werbeniuk took it in good humour, asking the audience "who did that?" as if insinuating that the noise was attributed to flatulence.^{[citation needed]}

In another instance, playing against Joe Johnson, Werbeniuk made what the announcer termed the "pot of the century" when he potted a long red by jumping the cue ball so that it bounced in front of and over an interposing red, knocking the object red in. Later in the match, he got an unusual fluke, when he missed a simple brown to the top corner, but it cannoned out of the pocket, off the opposite cushion and into the centre pocket on the same side.

Werbeniuk was ranked as high as 8th in the world in 1983 and reached the quarter-finals of the World Snooker Championship four times before propranolol was banned in snooker competition, as it was classified as a performance-enhancing drug by the International Olympic Committee, the anti-doping rules of which were adopted by World Snooker because snooker is expected to become an Olympic sport. Werbeniuk insisted that his use was medicinal only and under doctor's orders, but was fined and sanctioned anyway. He played his last professional snooker match in 1990. A bankruptcy order was made against him in 1991.^{[citation needed]} Towards the end of his life, he played professional pool,^{[citation needed]} as propranolol is not forbidden by the World Pool-Billiard Association and other pool governing bodies.

He died of heart failure on 20 January 2003, six days after his 56th birthday.

References in popular culture

Werbeniuk was mentioned on the May 16th 2009 episode of the BBC Radio 5 Live comedy-sports punditry programme Fighting Talk; when the panel were asked by host Colin Murray to mention an athlete with "poor personal hygiene", Anglo-German comedian Henning Wehn offered Werbeniuk as an answer, but pronounced it "Billy Verbeniuk" (last name pronounced vərˈbɛnjʌk), much to the shock and amusement of Murray and the rest of the panel (Sue Mott and Martin Kelner). This was met derisively by fellow comedian Bob Mills, who effectively mocked his stand-up and comically suggested that Wehn had gotten lessons from Greg Brady.

References

• The Life and Death of Bill Werbeniuk
• Obituary in The Daily Telegraph

External links

• Werbeniuk's profile at Global Snooker Centre