32 Facts About John Pulman

Herbert John Pulman was an English professional snooker player who was the World Snooker Champion from 1957 to 1968.

John Pulman first won the title at the 1957 Championship and retained it across seven challenges from 1964 to 1968, three of them against Fred Davis and two against Rex Williams.

John Pulman turned professional in 1946, shortly after winning the English Amateur Championship, and achieved three News of the World Snooker Tournament titles, in 1954,1957 and 1958.

John Pulman generally played attacking snooker in his early career, but he made more use of tactics in the 1970s.

John Pulman became a television commentator towards the end of his playing career and retired from competitive play in 1981 after breaking his leg in a traffic accident.

John Pulman died in 1998 following a fall down the stairs at his home.

John Pulman was one of the inaugural inductees to the World Snooker Hall of Fame in 2011, alongside seven other winners of multiple world championships.

John Pulman's father was Ernest Charles Pulman, a master baker and confectioner, and his mother was Ernest's wife Gertrude Mary Pulman, nee Kent.

In 1929, Ernest John Pulman sold his bakery and confectionery business, and the family moved to Plymouth, where he bought a billiard hall with two tables.

John Pulman attended Exeter Episcopal School, where he was a swimming champion and represented his county at water polo.

In 1938, John Pulman entered the British Boys Billiards Championship but left his cue on the train on his way to the event at Burroughes Hall.

John Pulman was invited to choose a cue from a selection at the venue, and he used that particular cue for the rest of his career.

The cue that John Pulman had chosen included a metal plate with professional Sidney Smith's name engraved on it; he later filed Smith's name off, as he felt he could not play exhibition matches with a cue bearing another professional's name.

Aged 20, John Pulman was the youngest player to win the event since it was established in 1916.

At the start of his professional career, John Pulman was living at the home of his patron Bill Lampard, who was a baker from Bristol and a member of the Billiards Association and Control Council.

Lampard built a billiard room at his house, where John Pulman was able to practise.

Snooker historian Clive Everton alleged that this arrangement ended after John Pulman was discovered in bed with Lampard's wife.

John Pulman practised playing snooker for eight hours a day over several years, in pursuit of a level of consistency that would bring him to the standard of the top professionals.

John Pulman first reached the final of the World Professional Match-play Championship, which was now effectively the world championship, in 1955.

John Pulman made three century breaks during the final: 103 on day two, another 103 on day four, and 101 in the last of the.

In preference to finding an alternative career, John Pulman continued to play exhibition matches, despite the limited income he was able to earn from this.

John Pulman was one of the four competitors, along with Fred Davis, Rea, and Williams, and won the event.

The championship was reinstated on a challenge basis, with the first match scheduled between John Pulman, who had won the most recent championship in 1957, and the challenger Fred Davis.

Williams and John Pulman met again in late 1965 in a series of short matches in South Africa, where John Pulman won 25 of their 47 matches.

John Pulman won the world title for the eighth time in 1968 by fending off a challenge from Eddie Charlton.

Spencer led by 57 points, but John Pulman then made a break of 39 before failing to the, allowing Spencer to as far as the and win the match.

John Pulman did not progress to the quarter-final stage of the World Championship again until 1977, the first time the event was held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

John Pulman did not play professionally again after his leg was broken in five places when he was hit by a London bus in October 1981.

John Pulman later said that he had already lost his enthusiasm for playing snooker by the time his accident happened.

John Pulman was an emotional player, prone to venting his frustration and missing important shots.

At 6feet 2inches, John Pulman was unusually tall among the leading players of the 1940s, and adapted a stance where his legs were relatively close together, meaning that more weight was transferred to his back foot than was typical among professionals.

John Pulman was one of the inaugural inductees to the World Snooker Hall of Fame in 2011, alongside seven other winners of multiple world championships.