Black ball final: Photos from 40 years ago as we remember the greatest ever Snooker World Championship game

The 1985 World Snooker Final at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield is widely regarded as the greatest game ever played. In fact, it didn’t end until the early hours of the following morning.

Davis, a red-hot favourite at the start of the tournament, had been tested somewhat by Neal Foulds in the opening round, but had subsequently booked his place back in the final by sweeping aside former winners Terry Griffiths and Ray Reardon. Meanwhile his opponent, Dennis Taylor, had beaten his own pair of ex-champions in Eddie Charlton and Cliff Thorburn en route, before hammering Tony Knowles 16-5 in the semi-finals to suggest he posed a threat to the reigning champion.

What followed was a genuine clash of titans, with play going on for hours until Taylor finally won 18-17, potting the final black ball in a decisive frame after Davis overshot his attempt. Nicknamed the “black ball final”, it was a game that has now captured the hearts and minds of snooker fans for 40 years.

A total of 18m people tuned into BBC to watch the match on TV that day.

Foulds, now a snooker commentator, said: “It was a huge match, an incredible occasion, especially that last frame. It hadn’t been a particularly high standard final, and there wasn’t even a century break in it, but it did so much for the game, and clearly brought snooker to everybody’s attention.

“You will never relive that kind of drama. We’ve since had a Masters final that went down to a respotted black, but it wasn’t quite the same. They were already the halcyon days of snooker, it was so prevalent on BBC TV at the time that people just couldn’t help but follow the plot lines.”