We’re the Snooker City - but for how much longer?

Good afternoon readers — and welcome to our Monday briefing.

You might not be able to tell from the weather (which Steel City Skies assures us will be a bit warmer this week) but it is definitively spring. In Sheffield, spring brings with it — not just blossoms and gambolling lambs, which you can get anywhere — but something far more specific to our city: the snooker. Telegraph columnist Jim White describes it as that time of year “when you draw the curtains against the afternoon light, sit down on the sofa, switch on the telly and, several hours later, find you are still there, bewitched, bewildered, ever so slightly bothered”. 

At this year’s World Snooker Championships, however, all anyone can talk about is whether the tournament is about to leave our city behind for richer pastures. In 2027, the event will celebrate its 100th birthday, plus the end of its 50-year contract with the Crucible theatre. Does Sheffield have any real chance of convincing it to stay?

Catch up and coming up

For our weekend read, Dan marked Sheffield’s card for this Thursday’s local elections, and picked out six main wards to watch out for on the night. You can read that piece here.

Last week, paying members got to read about some innovative ideas for the empty Debenhams building on The Moor, including turning it into a high street hospital. They also received the sad story behind the sudden closure of one of Sheffield most well respected performing arts venues: Theatre Deli. An extract from that second piece is below.

“In Manchester and Leeds, there’s countless theatres supporting artists of varying levels because those cities value it,” they argued, adding that a number of artists they know have chosen to move out of Sheffield for this reason. According to the event listings website Theatres Online, Sheffield has only six theatres — seven if you include the outdoor amphitheatre — compared to 11 in Leeds and 18 in Manchester. “It’s outrageous that a city the size of Sheffield has only one major professional theatre. That speaks to what is wrong with the cultural strategy of the city. Arts and culture is not valued here.” 

This week, members can expect a piece about the late activist and poet Ethel Haythornthwaite and an update on the long-running saga of the Abbeydale Picture House. 

Editor’s note: It’s coming up to a year since The Tribune stopped being a one man band and employed our second full-time member of staff. While I think our output in those first two years was actually pretty good considering, I’m sure you’ll all agree that it has improved markedly since we added Victoria to the team. Just imagine how good it could become when we have enough paying members to fund a third, fourth, fifth, etc Tribune writer. There’s no limit on our ambitions, only on our funds. If you want to see us grow and thrive in the next few years, please join today. It costs just £1.34 a week or 23p a day if you pay for 12 months up front (£70).

Discover – or rediscover – the joy of making music

From today's sponsor: Music is a pathway to calm, expression and joy – but it can be hard to learn and practice on your own. AS Music School in Woodseats (map) has been teaching students in Sheffield for 35 years and can help you express yourself through music. Whether you're looking for something new or want to start playing again after a long time away, their supportive style of tuition covers piano, vocals, guitar, drums, ukulele and violin. Even better: Tribune readers are being offered a free lesson to try it out and make sure it works for you.

Contact them on info@asmusicschool.com to book your free trial lesson or visit their website to find out more.

The big picture: The girl in the bubble 🫧

Cycle Sheffield’s annual Big Ride took place on Sunday, bringing hundreds of cyclists to the city centre. The ride began at Devonshire Green before setting off around the city centre in an event aimed at raising the profile of cycling in Sheffield as well as calling for safe cycling routes to the city centre and schools. For more photos of the day click here.

This week’s weather 🌥

Our weather forecast comes from dedicated Sheffield weather service Steel City Skies, who say it will be rather changeable at times, but feeling much warmer than recent weeks.

Monday 🌦 Milder and rather windy from the south, with large cloud amounts developing and the hills bearing the brunt of developing showers. 14°C.

Tuesday 🌥 A better chance of a dry day, with warm spells of sunshine and variable cloud. The odd shower possible, with breezy winds from the SE. 18°C.

Wednesday 🌦 Uncertain, with the risk of rain or showers from the south, but also the likelihood of brighter spells breaking through low cloud from the E. 17°C.

Thursday 🌥 Chance of low cloud and drizzly patches, but brighter spells should develop inland, too. North-easterly breezes with highs of 17°C.

Friday 🌦 Chance of showers drifting inland off North Sea coasts, with large cloud amounts. Some brightness, and staying fairly warm with highs of 18°C.

Outlook: Low confidence, but a continued mild mix of cloud, some sun and the risk of heavy showers looks likely through the Bank Holiday weekend. Decent overall.

To see the full forecast and keep up to date with any changes to the outlook, follow Steel City Skies on Facebook.

The big story: We’re the Snooker City - but for how much longer? 

Top line: “Sheffield is the home of snooker. The World Snooker Championships and Sheffield go hand in hand.” Thus begins the official statement put out by the council’s chief executive Kate Josephs last week, in response to increasing debate about whether the event will leave our city behind once its contract with the Crucible ends in 2027. What would it take to keep it here?

Sheffield’s ‘smelly’ venue: According to some players, the Crucible is no longer a grand enough home for such an important global event. 

• Snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan told the Sun the event would be “done properly” if it moved to China or Saudi Arabia. “I know at the Crucible you get nice tea there, you might get lasagne if the guys are cooking. But that’s about it.” 
• Iran’s Hossein Vafaei was even more critical – he claims the Crucible “smells really bad”. 
• Player Shaun Murphy, however, argues it is “almost sacrilege” to be so critical of the event’s long-standing home. “I don’t think anyone wants to leave apart from Hossein and Ronnie O’Sullivan. I think everyone else wants it to stay,” he told the Times. “But it can’t stay as it is and something will have to give.”

What gives? Barry Hearn — former director of World Snooker Ltd, which runs the championships, and president of Matchroom Sport, which is a majority shareholder — has seemingly been very up-front about what it would take to keep snooker in Sheffield. “I am doing absolutely everything I can to stay,” he told the BBC, but it “takes two to tango”. A 980-seat theatre simply won’t do for an event of this size; the council should build something that could fit 2,500 to 3,000 people instead. “I’m looking for Sheffield to come to the party and if they do, we’re staying. If they don’t, they’re really saying that we don’t want to, so it’s not really my call.” 

According to the Star, World Snooker Ltd had a “positive meeting” with the council last year, which the paper took as a sign that the new venue — the “Billiardrome” — could really be on the cards. In her statement this month, Kate Josephs said only that the council wants Sheffield’s snooker legacy “to continue for generations to come” and is in “regular contact” with World Snooker Ltd. 

‘It’s all about money’: A glitzier venue isn’t the only thing that could entice snooker away to richer pastures. “In any sport, the first demand is prize money,” Hearn also told the BBC, “and players want to see it as big as possible.” O’Sullivan, for example, wasn’t just excited at the prospect of a more interesting lunch than the lasagna he gets at the Crucible, he also told the Sun that the prize money “would be astronomical” if the championships moved elsewhere. 

Some important context: Last month, Saudi Arabia held its first ever professional snooker tournament — the World Masters of Snooker in Riyadh — with a top prize of £250,000, won by none other than Ronnie O’Sullivan. If he wins the final in Sheffield next month, his grand prize will only be double that sum.

Intriguingly, the first Riyadh tournament was actually supposed to take place in October 2020, with a grand prize equal to the £500,000 currently offered by the World Championships. While the event was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the BBC reported it was the result of a 10-year deal between Saudi Arabia and World Snooker Ltd. The kingdom has also worked closely with Hearn’s company Matchroom Sport to host a number of high-profile boxing events.

Our take: Is this really a negotiation in good faith? It certainly looks like Hearn wants to move the championship — when asked by the BBC if money would trump Sheffield’s history, he insisted “money has the edge every time”. But he also knows the move would be heavily criticised by some players and fans. If he asks something of the council that it clearly doesn’t have the funds to provide, like a new 3,000-seat venue, he can blame the local authority for forcing his hand. 

The Weekly Whitworth ✍️

Our cartoonist James Whitworth with his own take on this week’s big story.

Our media picks 🔗

Undocumented steelworks unearthed at castle site 🏰 Archaeologists digging on the site of Sheffield castle have found a 19th century steelworks that is not mentioned on maps from the time. A 3D diagram of the furnace, which would have been used to refine blister steel into higher quality crucible steel, has been produced and the team said they had uncovered several clues about the people who worked there. Our recent piece on the castle dig is here.

‘I painted iconic graffiti proposal and this is the true story’ 🏢 A plaque has been unveiled at Park Hill flats commemorating the woman who inspired the city’s most famous graffiti. The ‘I Love You Will U Marry Me’ marriage proposal was spray painted by Jason Lowe to his partner Clare Middleton in 2001, but Clare sadly died of cancer before they could get married. The plaque contains a poem written by Clare, whose sister attended the ceremony last week.

‘It feels right to treat the river as a living thing’ 🌊 Doncaster writer, podcaster and musician David Bramwell’s Cult of Water project began as an experimental BBC radio programme about the River Don, combining magic realism with interviews with folklorists, river experts and witches. Here, Now Then speak to him about what the River Don might actually say to us if it could speak, and why he supports radical proposals that would give rivers legal rights.

Home of the week 🏡

This beautiful three bedroom ground floor Walkley apartment is deceptively spacious and is full of modern fixtures and fittings and characterful features. It is on the market for £210,000.

Tribune Tips: If you want to tell us about a story or give us some information, please email editor@sheffieldtribune.co.uk. We are always happy to speak to people off the record in the first poll instance, and we will treat your information with confidence and sensitivity.

Things to do 📆

Film 🍿 Kelham Island Film Club’s coming-of-age season begins on Tuesday with Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 Mexican road film Y tu mamá también. Set in Mexico in 1999, the film tells a coming-of-age story about two teenage boys and an older woman who embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life and each other. Other films in the series include the 1985 classic The Goonies and Kids from 1995. Tickets are £5 and the doors open at 7.30pm.

Theatre 🎭 At the Lyceum from Tuesday is Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller, The 39 Steps, brilliantly and hilariously recreated for the stage. The wonderfully inventive Olivier and Tony Award-winning comedy is back out on a UK tour after nearly 10 years in London’s West End. The show features four fearless actors playing 139 roles in 100 minutes of fast-paced fun and thrilling action. Tickets are priced £15-45 and the show runs until Saturday, 4 May.

Talk 🧠 On Tuesday at The Leadmill, Unmasking ADHD is the first of the venue’s new Insight Exchange series. Why do people with ADHD experience such emotional highs and lows? Boom and bust energy? Why do they often feel overwhelmed? And how does this impact their work, relationships and studies? ADHD specialist Jane McPhillips will lead an engaging, interactive session, aimed at demystifying the condition. Tickets are £11 and doors open at 6.30pm.