ALEX DIES ALONE
PEOPLE'S champion Alex Hurricane Higgins was found dead alone in a charity flat yesterday afternoon.
The 61-year-old snooker legend, who made millions from the sport he helped transform, died penniless and battling throat cancer, depression and blood poisoning.
Worried friends broke down the door of the sheltered accommodation when he failed to answer his mobile phone.
His lonely death was in stark contrast to the joy the two-time world champion brought to millions of fans during a dazzling career.
Last night, a clearly shocked Ken Doherty told the Sunday World: "He was a God. I can barely speak. I have to try take this in."
'HIGGINS WAS A GOD'
SNOOKER legend Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins died alone in a dingy flat despite a last ditch bid by pals to save his life.
The two times world champion was less than six stone and could barely speak or eat.
Last night tearful pal and fellow player Ken Doherty described the Hurricane as a "God."
Speaking to the Sunday World from a tournament in Thailand where he is playing with Jimmy White and Joe Swail, former world champ Ken paid tribute to his hero as he tried to take in the news.
"I can barely talk," he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
"I just got the news. I don't know how to tell the other lads, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news."
Doherty said that although Higgins did not have much quality of life in his last years, he would still be sorely missed.
"He was a god," he declared. "He was what got me into snooker in the first place. I was entranced by him, how he moved, how he acted. His charm and his charisma. He was a once off and there will never be the likes of him ever again on the table."
Doherty once played a testimonial for Higgins in the Waterfront Hotel in Belfast in 1997 to raise funds for the fading star, a Sunday World-sponsored event that he described as the best night of his life.
Experience
"That was a dream come true for me," he added.
"To stand up there and play him in front of his home crowd was a joy, a delight and an experience I will never forget.
"I didn't want to beat him. I just wanted to be at the side of the table with him in front of 2,300 fans who were packed in there.
"I'm thinking of that now and I swear to God, I can just see him, in all his glory and I can't believe he's gone."
The night raised over 10,000 euro and Ken beat his hero 5-4. Doherty admitted that he would be devastated if he didn't make the funeral.
"I have to go, he added, before hanging up. "I'm sorry but I have to go and take this all in."
The 'Hurricane' died a lonely death in a charity flat in Belfast. The frail 61-year-old was warned recently that he would die of blood
poisoning if all his teeth weren't pulled out.
Friends raised ten grand to get the skint ace sent to specialist dentists in Spain.
But they told him they couldn't operate -- because he was too weak. He had fought a marathon battle with throat cancer which was diagnosed in 1998.
There were reports last night that the two-times world champion who made millions from snooker could have been dead for two days, without anyone knowing.
In the last months of his life, living on €220 a week disability benefits, he battled against the ravages of cancer and a life of boozing.
Recently, he confessed his life had sunk so low he wanted to kill himself. As the throat cancer set in, Higgins had been reduced to just a skeleton.
Sitting alone in his dingy Belfast flat during the bitter winter, he had spiralled into a deep depression and even talked of committing suicide.
"I thought about it, I wanted to do it," he said.
"But I just haven't got the courage to kill myself.
"I had seen the television programme about euthanasia and all I wanted to do was go to that clinic in Switzerland, have them give me a pill and just end it there. But I think that would have hurt too many people.
"I do believe in God. I don't go to church, but I still have a bible that my mother gave me when I was just 15. I read my bible and told myself, 'You can fight'. I have been a fighter all my life. That's what stopped me going through with it. There are days I just feel completely out of energy, I cannot even get out of bed."
Pneumonia
In March, Higgins, one of the most naturally gifted players of the sport, spent six days in the Belfast City Hospital suffering from pneumonia.
But he showed his true inner determination to battle on and signed himself out of hospital to Sheffield to play against fellow former world champ Cliff Thorburn in the Snooker Legends Tour.
Higgins said: "I was in hospital for six days and the doctors wanted me to stay. But I could not let the people of Sheffield down.
"But when I got to the Crucible I realised I was not capable of giving people what they wanted."
Barry Hearn, Chairman of the sport's governing body the World Professional Snooker and Billiards Association (WPSBA), former snooker referee Len Ganley and lifelong fan Jimmy Nesbitt led the tributes to the People's Champion.
The fallen star, who made his first maximum 147 break at the age of 16, single handedly led snooker into the big time, his flamboyant style winning over a generation of fans to the green baize.
But like Belfast's other sporting bad boy George Best, the Hurricane had a dark side and spent years battling his demons, which included booze and gambling, as well waginf war with snooker chiefs.
Womanising Alex also had regular bust-ups with the ladies in his life and the law.
But he still held a special place in the heart of Irish sports' fans.
Last night Barry Hearn said he was ``heartbroken'' at the news. ``I've never encountered a man who endured so many highs and lows in his career, there was never a dull moment with Alex ,'' he said.
``I know he had been ill for some time but it is still a shock and I want to pass on my condolences to his family and friends, it is a very sad day.
Devastated
Lurgan man Ganley, for years a professional snooker referee, said he was ``devastated'' by the news.
``Alex made snooker what it is today, a multi-national world wide sport, I'm just shattered at the news and I know that despite his past troubles the world of snooker will be in mourning at this news,'' he said.
``I'm just so upset, its a very, very sad day.''
Actor Jimmy Nesbitt told the Sunday World the news had come as a ``hammer blow.''
``Alex was my hero, growing up there were only two people who mattered, George Best and Alex Higgins. Higgy grabbed our attention, he was a rare breed and we will never see the likes of him again a true sporting genius.''
Higgins won 24 professional snooker titles over a 19 year career, but it was his world championship wins in 1972 and 1982 which captured the world's attention. While most players sipped water between frames Higgy knocked back a few pints of lagers, and his trade mark fedora hat marked him out as a true character.
But controversy was never far from the surface and it is estimated he blew a €3 million fortune on drink drugs and gambling. One of his greatest friends was hell raising actor Oliver Reed and he once recounted a story when the pair resorted to drinking aftershave when they ran out of booze.
It was perhaps unsurprising that Alex and the world governing body of snooker never saw eye to eye, given Higgins personality and his love of drink, gambling and women. Their first coming together arose in the 1973 World Championship where he was fined for turning up late to his match and wearing clothes unbecoming of a professional - white trousers.
It was to be the first of many fines.
In 1980, he got married for a second time to an English woman called Lynn Avison after splitting with first wife Cara and they had two daughters. In 1982 he blew away the opposition at the Embassy World Champsionship to reclaim the crown that meant so much
to him.
But within two years Higgy was on the downward spiral.
Cracks were beginning to show in his marriage and, whilst on holiday in Majorca, Higgins overdosed on sleeping tablets following a row with Lynn.
Impact
For most people a near death experience such as that would have had a huge impact on their lives but not for 'The Hurricane', who simply went home, booked himself into rehab for four days at a nearby hospital and prepared for the UK Championship.
As with his previous stint in rehab, the break must have done Higgins some good as he went on to win the UK Championship, pulling off one of the great snooker comebacks to beat Steve Davis in the final 16-15 after earlier trailing 7-0.
It was to be his last major tournament victory and what followed over the next 15 years was far more a series of off the table incidents
than on the table successes. Higgins was becoming increasingly volatile and his relationship with Lynn had reached breaking point.
The marriage finally collapsed in 1985 after a huge row resulted in Higgins making another court appearance. Then, the following year, after a match at the UK Championship he was involved in an argument with a snooker representative, Paul Hatherell, after being asked to take a drugs test.
The red mist descended and Hatherell felt the full force, finding himself on the receiving end of a Higgins head butt.
He then relieved himself in a potted plant - it was clear Higgy's days were numbered.
Controversy followed him round and he hit the headlines when he threatened to have fellow professional Dennis Taylor shot by paramilitaries.
It was the beginning of the end and Higgins was consigned to the sporting backwater. His battle against throat cancer left him a shadow of his former self and he was reduced to scraping a living round snooker halls and bars.
He recently had to decline the offer of taking part in a veterans tour because of ill health.