BBC SPORT | Other Sport | Snooker | Shaun Murphy (original) (raw)

Murphy is marrying his fiancee Claire this summer

Shaun Murphy caused a huge upset in claiming the snooker World Championship at the Crucible on Monday.

Although he has been a professional for eight years, few outside the sport had heard of him - and even insiders gave him no chance when the event began.

Snooker fans are destined to hear much more about the 22-year-old in the future but here are a few facts to be going on with:

1. The �250,000 World Championship first prize is more than 16 times bigger than Murphy's previous best pay day.

2. The 22-year-old plans to spend some of the money on a Mercedes and on his forthcoming wedding.

3. He met his fiancee on the internet in a Christian chatroom.

4. Murphy was 150-1 to win the World Championship before the tournament started.

5. He turned professional when he was just 14.

6. Murphy was born in the same week that Dexy's Midnight Runners' smash hit Come On Eileen reached number one in the charts.

7. His dad bought him his first cue from a jumble sale when he was eight years old - by the age of ten he had knocked in a century break.

8. As a budding 13-year-old player, he picked up a �5,000-a-year sponsorship deal with the Doc Martens shoe company.

9. By then he had made two 147 breaks - and had beaten Jimmy White and Stephen Hendry in one-frame exhibition matches.

10. Even at that young age, his aim was to beat the record of Hendry who at 21, became the youngest-ever world champion. Murphy missed out by a year.

11. His run to the final earned him the nickname "Magician".

12. His father Tony is a World Snooker board member.

13. Murphy had never won a match at the Crucible until this year's World Championship.

14. He won using an adapted 1930s cue once owned by Ray Reardon. Cue maker Rodney Hinde fitted the new tip just two weeks before the tournament started.

15. Murphy is a single-figure handicap golfer.