R.I.P John Virgo.

[steveindenmark]

I have a good story about John.

I was in the police bar in Reading when I was a serving police officer there. That week there was a big snooker tournament going on at the Hexigon, next door.

During the night there was a bomb scare at the hexigon and they evacuated the players to the police bar.

One minute there were half a dozen of us chatting. The next minute the bar was packed with every famous snooker player of the time. It was quite surreal.

During the night, John Virgo did his party piece of immitating all the snooker players around the snooker table. I had never seen him do it before.

I doubt if he ever had the chance to do it in front of his 'victims' . But they were all there, a captive audience. They thought it was great.

It was such a memorable evening.

Since then, I have always enjoyed his performances and commentating.

RIP John.

 

[Dan Lotus]

Still working 17 days ago according to the BBC Obituary.
The final quote in the video is very poignant, one of the last things he ever said on mic, “he can now relax, the job’s done”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/articles/c0q4kkpedw4o

very poignant indeed, thankyou for posting 😢

 

[stephec]

Yeah, sad news.

Big Break was standard Saturday night viewing in my house as a kid.

I used to love that show, 'from behind and not too hard.'

 

[tyred]

Sad to hear this. I used to watch a lot of snooker when I had a TV and always enjoyed JV's commentary and insight. His impressions of other players and trick shots were good entertainment. I loved Big Break, despite Jim Davidson.

RIP

 

[Animo]

Pot as many balls as you can!

 

[gavroche]

@gavroche.
There is a thread on this above.
Didn't know he was commentating so recently.

The other similar thread was posted at the same time as mine, hence the duplicate.
I am quite happy for mods to delete mine and leave just one on the subject.

 

[Dave7]

The other similar thread was posted at the same time as mine, hence the duplicate.
I am quite happy for mods to delete mine and leave just one on the subject.

I noticed it was exactly the same time. Please dont think I was being critical, I just thought you needed to know.

 

[stephec]

I bet a lot of us on here can remember him as a player, he was a good Salford lad and my dad always used to say that he went to school with him.

 

[mikeIow]

He used to visit the Warners Holiday Camp down the road from me: I had a Saturday job with some pals, & we used to all nip down midweek in the evening when he came to play the winner of the Camp Tournament & do some exhibition stuff.
Always remember him doing impersonations of all the players of the day. So entertaining: kind of cemented my love for the sport really, even though I was never a particularly good player!

Carved such a solid career out as one of the key voices of the sport, behind just being a fairly decent player.

RIP