Scottish snooker sensation Anthony McGill’s parents bought him a small snooker table for Christmas one year after he’d gained a fascination with cue sports on holiday and it proved a canny decision.
The other option was to get the young cuesmith a playstation - how things could have been different if they’d opted for that course of action.
Not content with that, his parents got the bricks and mortar out in an effort to back their son’s ambitions. In an interview with the Scotsman, he revealed the following:
“There is an extension built at the back of the house that's got a table in it, they built that especially to put a snooker table in it for me. I'm not sure how much that cost, but it must have sent them back a bit. They would just do anything for me."
Since then McGill, who is now aged 27, has won two ranking tournaments and racked up a not-insignificant haul of prize money.
Not only would he not have achieved all that, he wouldn’t have been able to live to beat his idol Steve Davis on the baize, a feat that not many snooker players can claim to have achieved.
His latest achievement is to have shocked the normally somewhat-dreary Stephen Hendry by showing him something he’d never previously seen happen on the snooker table.
Playing live on ITV4 in the World Grand Prix this afternoon, he scored the unlikeliest of pinks to set Hendry into motion in the commentary box.
Watch the shot - and the reaction - below:
@SHendry775 has never seen it done before! #LadbrokesSnooker
