TRIBUTES were paid to former world snooker champion Alex Higgins who was found dead in his apartment on the Donegall Road close to Sandy Row in south Belfast on Saturday evening.
Alex “the Hurricane” Higgins (61) fought a long battle with throat cancer. He had been quite ill in recent weeks even though he had attempted to join a veterans’ snooker tournament in Britain.
Some floral tributes were left outside the apartment block where he died, while bouquets were also left just off the Donegall Road beside a mural to Higgins who won the world championship in 1972 and 1982.
In an interview with the News of the Worldrecently he said he had contemplated suicide such was his sense of dejection earlier this year, but that he had decided to fight on. There have been no suggestions that he died from anything other than the effects of his illness.
“I do believe in God,” he said in that interview. “I don’t go to church but I still have my Bible that my mother gave me when I was 15. I read my Bible and told myself, ‘I have been a fighter all my life.’ That’s what stopped me going through with it.”
A book of condolences for Higgins is being opened this morning at Belfast City Hall.
Many of his sport colleagues such as Steve Davis, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Willie Thorne paid warm tributes to Higgins. Fellow world champion Dennis Taylor who had many snooker and verbal tussles with Alex Higgins spoke of his sadness at the Belfast player’s death. On one occasion Higgins had threatened to have Mr Taylor shot but the Coalisland man forgave him.
“I don’t think you’ll ever, ever see another player in the game of snooker like the great Alex Higgins,” he told the BBC. “He was a very, very exciting player to watch. He just was totally unique.”
DUP Sports Minister Nelson McCausland said Alex Higgins was a “legend in the game of snooker and one of Ulster’s great sportsmen”.
“His style of play reshaped how snooker was played and his talent captivated snooker fans around the world. Alex Higgins brought pleasure to millions of people and he will be long remembered.”
SDLP MP for South Belfast Dr Alasdair McDonnell said “Alex Higgins put Belfast on the global stage as a world champion and made snooker a popular spectator sport because of his maverick style and the cavalier way that he played the game”.
Alliance sports spokesman, Kieran McCarthy MLA said Higgins was a real “superstar” of snooker. “His life was not without its troubling times and it is deeply sad to hear of his passing. He will be very much missed by fans of snooker and people across Northern Ireland,” he said.
British sports minister Hugh Roberston said Alex Higgins was a “colourful character and one of the most popular players of his generation” and would be greatly missed by snooker fans and the wider sporting public.