Despite severe eyesight problems, Cliff Wilson was on of the game’s outstanding potters and one of its truly great characters. He was one of the fastest players round the table anyone had seen until a certain Alex Higgins appeared on the scene. He is unique in that his career was split into two parts with a fifteen-year gap in between.

Cliff grew up in the same town, Tredegar, as six times world champion, Ray Reardon and they were great friends and rivals in their amateur days. Their matches always drew big crowds but it was Ray who usually came off best especially in the Welsh amateur championship bur Cliff usually got the better of him in the English event. At 17 he was runner-up to Rex Wiliams in the national under-19 championship and won that title the next two years, 1952 and 1953.

His fast potting style and ready wit made him a crowd favourite and his visits to London were eagerly anticipated.  After Reardon had moved away to Stoke, Cliff managed to win the Welsh Amateur in 1956 but by then snooker was at an all time low. The world championship had been suspended and there was no future for him as a pro. Cliff became disillusioned with the game having lost his father and without his old mate and rival Reardon. After playing a few more matches he packed up the game completely and concentrated on his job in the steel works. He would not pick up a cue in anger for fifteen years.

In 1972 a friend asked him to help out by turning out for the works team in the local league. Snooker was beginning to regain some popularity. The enthusiasm he had for the game came back. The skill had never gone but his eyesight had deteriorated. His left eye was now virtually useless and he even tried playing with a patch over it. He took to spectacles but long sight in one eye and short in the other gave the opticians a few headaches. Nevertheless he soon gained international caps and, in 1977, regained the Welsh Amateur title he had previously held 21 years. This qualified him for the 1978 World Amateur event in Malta where he won all eight of this group games. After a difficult quarter final against Joe Grech, the local favourite, which he won despite the crowds efforts to put him off, he went on to lift the title beating Joe Johnson in the final. He took the Welsh title again in 1979 and then, at the age of 45, turned professional.

In his first four seasons in the paid ranks he managed to qualify for the Crucible each time but never progressed beyond the first round. He did reach the Welsh Professional final in 1981, losing out to who else but Ray Reardon. However a quarter final in the 1982 Jameson International helped him to reach a ranking of 20th by the end of the 82/83 season. Consistent if unspectacular results kept him just outside the top 16 for the next four seasons. He never got beyond the quarter-final of a ranking event in his entire career.

He did finally make the breakthrough into the elite in 1988/89 but it only lasted for one season. In the meantime he reached the Welsh Professional final again in 1984 where this time it was Doug Mountjoy who proved just too good. He began a slow slide down the rankings but in 1991 had his biggest pay cheque of £16,000 when he took his only title as a professional beating Eddie Charlton to win the World Seniors Championship. This event has not been held since so he is the only winner so far.

Everyone loved him and everyone has his or her favourite Cliff Wilson stories. He was never particularly ambitious and his lack of real success on the tour never worried him as he could always earn a good living on the exhibition circuit. His slogan “You’ve never see anything like it” certainly drew in the crowds and anyone who ever saw one of his shows would confirm that this was no idle boast.

He was never a fit man but he enjoyed life to the full. Apart from his eyes he had problems with his back, his knee and his heart. Finally he developed an inoperable disease of the liver and pancreas from which he died on 21 May 1994. Right up until his final season he could give the young players a run for their money and in the 1992 UK championship he put out Ronnie O’Sullivan before giving Stephen Hendry a good game.

Cliff was a one-off. Had he not dropped out of the game for so long there is no telling what he might have done but he would still have been at his peak, like many others, when professional snooker was at its lowest ebb. If he had been born 20 years later it might have been a different story. If he could pot like that with one eye how good would he have been with two. Sadly we shall never know