Jimmy White revamps the Woking snooker club where he played

Six-time world championship finalist Jimmy White MBE has revamped the snooker club where he practiced 40 years ago.

White, who won the 1984 Masters and the 1992 UK Championship but never lifted the sport’s biggest prize, is one of the most popular players in history.

The 63-year-old said he planned to be a regular at the club in Kingfield Road, Woking, where he said, “everything is new”.

“A couple of years ago, we heard that the lease was up. Me and three partners, we’ve done it up from scratch,” he told BBC Radio Surrey.

The snooker legend, who has an invitational tour card to play on the World Snooker Tour for the next two seasons, said he had observed a growing love of snooker in recent years while working as a pundit.

With the revamped Jimmy White’s Sports Lounge now open, he said that “we’re getting a lot of members and a lot of old members who stopped playing coming back”.

White said he had already spotted “some good players”, adding that there were plans for handicap tournaments to assess players’ level to take place.

Over a career spanning more than four decades, White said he had experienced periods of a dwindling love for the game.

“Twenty years ago, I was going out of my house, there was a golf club or a snooker cue, and I was taking the golf club,” he said.

Reflecting on his career, White said the key factor for a player of his age was “concentration”.

“I can be playing away, and all of a sudden, a voice can go in my head, ‘did you water the plants before you left home?’,” he said.

“But my game is still there, I still make 147.”