Steve James was one of the first players to qualify for the main tour through the Professional Ticket Tournaments. This system was set up to find the ten top qualifiers to play off against the ten lowest ranked professionals for places on the tour. A lover of fast motor-cycles, Steve, was as an amateur a club mate of Martin Clark and Jim Chambers.

He made a promising start to his professional career reaching the last 16 of the English Professional championship and the World Doubles but only made it to the last 32 of one ranking event, the British Open. Nevertheless he ended the season ranked at number 67. The next season he reached the last 16 of the Fidelity International bringing Steve his TV debut. He followed this with a World Doubles semi-final in partnership with David Roe. He ended that second season by reaching the quarter-finals of the Embassy World Championship and taking the top break prize. He was already in the top 32.

In 1988/89 he made it to his first ranking semi final, The Fidelity International, and consistent if unspectacular performances in the other events gained him sixteenth spot at the end of the season. His best season was to come in 1989/90 when he took his only ranking title to date, the 1990 Mercantile Credit Classic with a 10-6 victory over Australian, Warren King. He also reached the semi finals of the next two events, the British and European Opens, taking him up to ninth.

He started the next season where he had left off getting to the Scottish Masters semi-final and the same stage of the Grand Prix. At the Crucible he beat the defending champion and hot favourite, Stephen Hendry, and got to the semis himself. This took him to his best ever ranking of seventh.

Problems off the table began to affect this solid break builder and potter and although there were a couple more semi-finals and a few quarters in the next few seasons, his best days seemed to be behind him. What started as a very promising career, reaching the top 16 after just three seasons, began to lose its momentum.

Steve did manage to win the Pontins professional title in 1992 but since then he has only once got beyond the last 16 in a ranking event and that was when he reached the semi-final of the 1995 Grand Prix. He dropped out of the top 16 at the end of the 1993/94 season and three years later was out of the top 32 falling to 64^th by the start of the 2000/01 campaign. A similar season followed when he failed to get beyond the last 48 in any event. A marginal improvement in his ranking, to 61, ensured that he would remain on the main tour for another season.