The Life and Times of Alex Higgins the People’s Champion

by Roy Brindley, 17 January 2026

Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins won the World Snooker Championship twice. Still, it was the Northern Irishman’s actions away from the green baize that saw the charismatic former stablehand make the front pages of the UK’s notorious red-top newspapers throughout the 1980s.

Alex in action at the 1984 Benson & Hedges Masters. ©Getty

Alex Higgins: Snooker’s Flawed Genius

Never one to shy away from controversy, Higgins passed away in 2010 at the age of 61. At the time of his death, his fortune, once valued at £4 million, was gone. The man labelled as ‘the people’s champion’ throughout Snooker’s golden years, was living on a disability allowance that barely covered his lifelong 80-a-day cigarette addiction.

Here, we will examine some of Alex Higgins’s incredible highs and heartbreaking lows. A showman, bold, and rarely modest – reflecting on his career, he once said, “I think I was the most natural, charismatic player who ever lifted a cue.”

One of the most controversial sportsmen of the 1980s and the definition of a ‘flawed genius’, Alex Higgins rose to fame in 1972 when becoming the youngest-ever World Snooker Champion. At the time, twenty-two years old, his prize for beating John Spencer 37-31 in a competition that began in March 1971 and concluded in February 1972 was £480.

The Hurricane Who Broke the Rules

His success led to an invitation to play in a series of exhibition matches in India. However, a planned tour of the country lasted a single day as his decision to play while drunk and shirtless mortified his hosts, who sent him back to the UK on the first available flight.

Higgins’s first of many incidents with tour referees came two years later during a 1974 World Snooker Championship match. Higgins was reprimanded for suggesting referee Jim Thorpe should “read the f***ing rule book” after Higgins was penalised for a push shot.

The first of several assault allegations was also cast in his direction during the 1970s. In 1979, a prostitute claimed she had been attacked in a hotel. Higgins successfully defended himself in a Plymouth court on this occasion.

1972 & 1982 World Snooker Champion, Alex Higgins. pic.twitter.com/2DoguTQjd0

— Sports & Betting History by BestBettingSites (@BettingSitesCom) May 7, 2024

Major Titles and Major Turmoil

At the tables, Higgins had been beaten in the 1976 and 1980 World Championship finals as the bookmakers favourite. But he took his second World Championship in 1982, adding it to his 1978 and 1981 Masters titles.

Strikingly, at a time when Snooker was beginning to prosper as a TV spectacle and betting sport, he came from 7-0 behind to beat Steve Davis 16-15 in the 1983 Coral UK Championship final.

But turmoil and Alex Higgins were bedfellows throughout the 1980s. Taking advantage of his superstar status by charging fans extra for autographed posters he had signed with a gold pen during the 1983 World Snooker Championship was one example of the negative news stories he generated.

More seriously, twelve months later, Higgins attempted to commit suicide in front of his wife, Lynn and their two-year-old daughter, Lauren, while holidaying in Majorca. In 1985, he went berserk, smashing up the family home as Lynn locked herself in the bedroom with the children. It took six police officers to arrest him.

Fines, Bans and a Final Victory

Twice divorced, drinking heavily, and collecting more black eyes than a fairground prize-fighter, the ‘Hurricane’ acquired numerous and ever-increasing fines for disciplinary offences as the decade progressed.

The pièce de resistance was the £12,000 fine and five-tournament ban he received from the sport’s governing body for headbutting the tournament referee at the 1986 UK Championship. The incident began when Higgins reportedly became troublesome while giving a urine sample for a drug test.

A fracas and scrum spilt out into a corridor, resulting in criminal charges brought against the snooker star. Ultimately, Higgins was fined £200 for assault and £50 for criminal damage to a door by Preston Magistrates Court.

In 1987, Higgins was fined £500 for being abusive towards the tournament director at the Irish Masters. The history books show Higgins’s last professional tournament victory came in the same competition two years later.

Given he had only just dispensed of the crutches needed to recover from a foot injury – sustained after he jumped from his girlfriend’s second-floor flat during an argument – his tense 9-8 victory over Stephen Hendry was an amazing performance.

Spiralling Out of Control

As the 1990s dawned, Higgins spiralled out of control. Two 1990 incidents: Threatening to have fellow Irishman and snooker pro Dennis Taylor shot at the World Cup in Bournemouth and punching the sport’s press officer who held a door open for him at the World Championship – led to a 15-month ban.

The cue man never recovered. He fell from the sport’s top 100 and never returned. The courts were to see plenty more of him. In June 1996, Higgins pleaded guilty to kicking a 14-year-old boy who had interrupted a conversation with his ex-wife. He was conditionally discharged.

Higgins’ last professional match came in an August 1997 Plymouth qualifying event. Losing 5-1, he became troublesome after the match and was escorted from the venue by police. They later found him sprawled on the ground outside a nightclub at 4 am.

A New Love and a Premature Death

Later in 1997, hopelessly in love with alcohol, Higgins did have a new girlfriend, 26-year-old prostitute Holly Haise. It was a relationship that ended when she stabbed him three times during an argument. Police found him hiding under a bush outside her Manchester house, bleeding. He never pressed charges.

The following year, Higgins was diagnosed with throat cancer, which he battled along with other health-related issues for over a decade. By the time of his 2010 death, he was penniless and living in sheltered accommodation.

In a Guardian obituary, Clive Everton wrote: “When Snooker could no longer serve as the glue to hold his life together, he [Higgins] made no concessions, no pleas for sympathy. Twelve years later, a Mirror newspaper editorial noted: “Higgins represented Snooker’s first real superstar, akin to Paul Gascoigne in his standing as a cult figure.”

“When Snooker was particularly popular in the 1980s, it was Higgins who undoubtedly appealed to a wider audience. For all the negative publicity Higgins received as a result of ill-advised actions, the positivity the ‘Hurricane’ brought to the sport of Snooker will surely never be forgotten.”