John Spencer

English snooker player who won the World Championship three times in the 1970s, including the first modern-era title and the first Crucible Championship.

Born in Radcliffe, Lancashire, on 18 September 1935, John Spencer discovered snooker in his teens but had his development interrupted by National Service, which took him away from the game for over a decade. He returned to competitive play in the 1960s, winning the English Amateur Championship in 1966 before turning professional in 1967 alongside contemporaries Ray Reardon and Gary Owen. Spencer's professional career began sensationally: he won the World Championship at his first attempt in 1969, the first edition to revert to a knockout format after years of challenge matches, becoming only the second player after Joe Davis to win the title on debut. He added a second title in 1971, and after Alex Higgins and Ray Reardon shared the crown between them, Spencer captured a third World Championship in 1977 by beating Cliff Thorburn in the first-ever Championship held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, a venue he helped make historic. Beyond his three world titles, Spencer won the inaugural Masters in 1975, edging Reardon 9-8 on a respotted black in one of the sport's earliest classic finals, and claimed the BBC's Pot Black event three times. He also compiled snooker's first-ever 147 maximum break in an unofficial 1979 tournament match, though the feat went uncaptured on camera and unratified. Spencer retired from the professional game in 1992 and went on to serve 25 years on the board of the WPBSA, including a period as chairman, while also working as a BBC commentator until 1998. He died in 2006 after a battle with cancer, remembered as one of the pioneering figures who carried snooker from its post-war challenge-match era into the television age.

Composed all-round game with strong safety play

One of the pioneering champions of the modern World Championship era