Barry Hearn Interview: I’m Not Paying Inheritance Tax, I’d Rather Give It Away

Barry Hearn has transformed snooker, boxing and darts, had a dabble in football, still plays cricket and pool to a high level, and has turned his back on all thoughts of retirement - Paul Grover/The Telegraph

“Basically I’m s---. No natural ability… but I’d die to win,” declares Barry Hearn, while arranging a rack of pool balls into a diamond and reflecting with some modesty on his own sporting prowess.

If infectious enthusiasm was all it took, he would have knocked out Muhammad Ali and scored the winning goal in the FA Cup final for Leyton Orient. As it is, Hearn plays for the Essex Over-70s cricket team and is still dining out on a London Marathon personal best of 3hr 22min.

“For an old fat geezer of 45, it wasn’t too bad,” he says. “But I trained religiously – ran 80 miles every week. I do things properly.”

The best story, though, is perhaps how his desperation to win something at school culminated in a tactical entry into an event called the one mile ‘sprint/walk’. An Essex title was at last in sight, largely due to the lack of competition, but the over-eager young Hearn somehow got himself disqualified for ‘lifting’, which basically means breaking out into a run when he was supposed to be walking. “I got complacent… but it was a good lesson,” he says, wistfully.

At the age now of 76, Hearn has a wildcard into next month’s UK Open nine-ball pool championship in Telford and just the smell of the Spots and Stripes Pool Club in Southwark soon transports him back to acquiring a chain of snooker halls at the start of a remarkable career.

“The greatest days of my life – so many characters; some were layabouts, some were villains, some were respectable – everybody had a nickname, everybody had a reputation,” he says, recalling such legends as Blind Les, Fat Sid and Robbo Brazier, the man who would eventually chauffeur him and Steve Davis everywhere in a black Cadillac limousine with the number plate THE 147S.

Snooker halls made Hearn his first fortune and his partnership with Steve Davis earned him the limo lifestyle - Bob Thomas /Getty Images

“He died holding a betting slip in his kitchen – which was how he would have wanted to go,” says Hearn, remembering how Robbo would even drive the limousine in front of him on his marathon training runs with the Rocky theme blaring out.

Tense money matches included one when he missed the birth of son Eddie because a best-of-three against Crunchy Warne had gone to a decider (Hearn did at least win the £50 with a pink down the cushion), and another when he returned home to Susan, his wife now of 55 years, after winning the £6,000 price of their first house in cash. Hearn would turn on the light and throw the money on to their bed after a good night. If he had lost, he would quietly undress downstairs before creeping into bed. “She heard me once but I pretended I’d just been to the toilet,” he says, smiling.

Hearn used to wake up his wife and throw his winnings from money matches on to their bed - Bob Thomas/Getty Images

Hearn breaks off in our first frame and, as he is potting balls, moves seamlessly on to tales of Davis. “Imagine Davis coming up through the ranks and my big mouth. We cleared up. I kept a note for many years. He had 33 matches, and lost one. That was against Jimmy White in Manchester when Steve had a cold. I’d give him £25 a day, plus a bonus out of the winnings. I think Steve enjoyed the protection. He was quiet, timid… frightened of Alex Higgins. If I was there and my people were there, Steve was like a giant. Football had its troubles, and snooker became really the number one sport. In terms of TV audiences, nothing could live with it.”

Hearn and Steve Davis formed the greatest partnership in snooker as ‘The Nugget’ racked up six world titles in the game’s imperial era - Eamonn McCabe/Popperfoto

As Hearn lines up his next pot, he suddenly recalls the rare rack he did win while playing against some of the best professionals in the world at the US Open last year. “I’ve got this long range plant, I’m 4-0 down, my bum’s gone and, all I kept thinking was what Steve had told me: ‘Believe, put your head on the cue, push it through straight, and you mustn’t stop believing.’ I was down on the shot and saying to myself, ‘You mustn’t stop believing, you mustn’t stop believing’ and it went in! One of the great days.”

WHAT A CELEBRATION ????

Matchroom president Barry Hearn hits a great shot to win a rack in his opening match of the US Open Pool Championship ???? pic.twitter.com/tn38UocozL

— Sky Sports (@SkySports) August 20, 2024

It all seems to have provided some inspiration and Hearn duly pots the one, two, three, four, five and six ball before I have a shot. The first rack then ends about 30 seconds later when Hearn clinically mops up on his second visit. “I’ll play you again,” he says.

The second is scrappier but the opinions and anecdotes are really now flowing, not least on the character-forming value of sport. “I’ve always said, whatever we spend on defence, which I’m in favour of in today’s troubled world, we should spend exactly the same on sport,” says Hearn. “One protects the country and the other one builds the character of the country. Someone who plays sport generally doesn’t get into trouble because they are dedicated. I started boxing. I was s--- as usual, but I loved it and I was still sparring when I was 57.

“I used to be quite lairy. It gave me a discipline. We are developing into a country where there isn’t that safeguard. The discipline of sport could cure that. The Minister of Sport has never been in the Cabinet – says it all. We should be looking at how sport can change society.”

Telegraph Sport’s Jeremy Wilson levelled the match going into the third-frame decider - Barry Hearn/The Telegraph

Has he ever been invited into the corridors of power to perhaps offer some help?

“I tell them all the time. I’m sponsoring a dinner at Speaker’s House for the Government this week and I shall be telling them about St George’s Day and how we should remember the old rules. We are out of control as a country. We have no leadership either side. It’s not political. They are all basically f------ useless.”

Hearn shakes his head, but is soon back to happier topics. Like his failure, four years after making the announcement, to actually retire. He has just got back from a trip to Tallinn in Estonia where he says that he didn’t stop laughing and, between wine and roulette, was asked what it would cost to bring over Luke Littler, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ding Junhui for a select audience of Chinese businessmen.

He is fizzing with excitement over the Conor Benn v Chris Eubank Jnr fight that, more than anything else, stands as the ultimate compliment to the classic two originals between their fathers that he so famously promoted in the Nineties. Eubank Snr has been vocal in saying that the fight should not happen due to past differences in weight. Hearn’s Matchroom company is in the Benn family corner this time but it is obvious that he still loves the man they called ‘Simply The Best’.

Hearn was in the thick of Chris Eubank Snr’s two fights with Nigel Benn as the former’s promoter and is excited by the battle of the sons on Saturday - Arnold Slater/Getty Images

“I spent an hour on the phone with him the other day – does your head in,” he says. “We’ve always disagreed on things. But I have respect for him. He’s a decent man. He’s expressing his honest opinion. Eubank started off as a middleweight and ended up as a cruiserweight. I think Eubank might be concerned for Conor Benn, thinking: ‘My boy is going to be too big.’”

Hearn is also following news from the Crucible which, as we play, involves O’Sullivan’s return. “He might win it – because he is a miracle maker – or he might get the hump halfway after not playing a good shot,” says Hearn. “Geniuses are not normal people. We have to respect them and handle them in a different way. Ronnie O’Sullivan: genius, Alex Higgins: genius. But can be difficult b-------. Thing is, we both need each other. Eddie did a deal with him [in Saudi Arabia] for a shed load of money. Fortunes. And so he should be looked after – geniuses are special.”

Hearn respects Ronnie O’Sullivan’s ‘genius’ even if it makes him hard to handle - Paul Ellis/Getty Images

Our second frame has, by now, descended into a shoot out on the nine-ball that keeps going everywhere but a pocket. “God this is like the ’85 final,” says Hearn, before a respectable mid-range pot draws me level at 1-1. We had initially planned to sit down for a coffee after two racks but Hearn looks outraged by the idea. “Play the decider,” he says, while again setting up the balls, and telling me about his trip to watch Brentwood Town play football on Saturday.

“North Isthmian League, usually get 350 people,” he says, eyes lighting up. “I’ve just acquired a little interest, much to everyone’s fear and trepidation. We’ve just got promoted. There were 1,467 people there. Oh mate, I f------ loved it. I’m looking around and all I’m seeing is potential which is always dangerous.

“I’m going back on the 30th, giving them a plaque. I need an excuse to give them some money. I shall enjoy the Isthmian League Premier next year and see what happens.”

Hearn spent 19 years as Leyton Orient’s chairman and fancies another dabble in football - Tommy Hindley/Getty Images

Hearn’s Matchroom company might have established itself through snooker and then boxing – forays that he still describes as “genius moves” – but he does not hesitate when I ask for his greatest achievement.

“Darts would be number one – and the education of people in terms of the perception,” he says. “I always judge it by my wife. She plays at her tennis club, she’s a nice lady, she would say to me: ‘Darts! None of my friends like darts. It’s just fat blokes smoking and drinking.’ I went to her tennis club a few years ago and I got mobbed by her mates: ‘Can you get us some tickets for the darts.’ Now my wife says to me: ‘What time is Luke Littler on?’”

Hearn then also reveals that “my new bestie”, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Bahrain, snuck in unrecognised to watch the Masters event there last year. “Just a lovely man… he said to me: ‘I just put on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and I saw Luke Littler make a nine-darter.’ He said: ‘I’m going to put darts on the school’s curriculum and my population will play darts.’ This kid [Littler] has come along who does things that I’ve never seen. There’s certain ways to finish 125 but I watched the other night and he went 25, bullseye, bullseye.

“If it was a nasty atmosphere, the other players would think he is taking the p---. But they should like him because he is Tiger Woods. In an age where TV rights are going down globally, we went up 105 per cent. It wouldn’t surprise me in five years’ time to see like a WWE business [which turned over £1 billion in 2024]… and ours is real. It’s not fake.”

Hearn says that Littler will make £5 million in 2025 even while turning down dates that are “worth fortunes”. It is quite the contrast, I observe, with Olympic athletes, who are so heralded for a few weeks every four years but then go comparatively unrewarded. Hearn seems genuinely outraged.

Hearn thinks the rise to prominence of darts is his greatest achievement - John Gichigi/Getty Images

“The day after a medal, no one says: ‘Who is going to put food on your table?’ You try eating a medal. You’ll lose your teeth. We are one of five countries in the world that don’t reward medal winners. To my mind, if you won a gold medal in something proper in the Olympics – because I’m not talking about synchronised swimming – give them a million quid and say: ‘Go and buy yourself a nice house because the country is proud.’ We spend billions staging the Olympics.

“The people we should be looking after, and the International Olympic Committee should be looking after, are the players but they don’t. They put their blazers on, they present their trophies, they fly first class.

“See where some of these great champions are who have sacrificed their life and it’s bloody scary that no one really cares about them. The Government will invite them in. They’ll want a picture at Downing Street but they won’t give them anything. I find it distasteful.”

I wonder, then, what factors would persuade Hearn to get involved in a particular sport?

“Number one, I have to be passionate about it,” he says, revealing that horse racing and Scottish football have been in touch. “If I don’t like the sport, I can’t do it. So Formula One, tennis, these type of sports, whilst I appreciate it, I’m not passionate. I go once a year to Wimbledon to keep my wife quiet. I went once to Formula One. I was bored s---less. There’s only 24 hours a day, and God’s biggest mistake was that he only gave me 365 days a year. I forgive him, but it means I’ve got to pick very carefully.

Hearn and his son Eddie will only get involved in sports they feel passionate about, which excludes ‘boring’ F1 - Alex Livesey/Getty Images

“I’m selfish. I’ve always thought: ‘What would I like out of an evening?’ I like atmosphere, I like to watch characters, I like technical excellence, I like the roar of the crowd, the smell of the grease paint and everyone going home saying ‘f------ hell’.

“We live on data, trends. We are always looking at where we are going to be in three years, five years. The market is changing between young people, hospitality and the traditional fan. We have got to evolve into something that caters for every subsection. Another subsection is broadcast. Think of the numbers. There’s 4.83 billion people in the world. I can reach them all [with digital streaming]. How many subscribers do I need to replace the traditional broadcaster?”

Hearn has always been open about how the recession of the late Eighties almost derailed his dreams. So what advice might he offer to those facing challenges?

“You’ve got to commit,” he says. “Go all in. Focus. Don’t let anyone or anything stand in your way. Especially your own mind. Believe in yourself. And you will get through. It may not be easy – and we’ve all got bumps in the road – but later on you get the motorway and it’s a lot of fun driving fast.”

The oratory is certainly stirring but the standard of pool has dipped and, unlike that showdown against Crunchy Warne some 45 years ago, Hearn has by now found himself on the wrong end of a 2-1 scoreline. “No Barry, no Barry,” he exclaims, having been admittedly a little unlucky that one of his misses had left the deciding nine-ball over the middle pocket. “Now I wish we hadn’t played the decider,” he says, before warning the Telegraph photographer that he won’t be able to sit down for any subsequent pictures because “I’ve just had my a--- spanked”.

Wilson clinches a surprise victory - Paul Grover/The Telegraph

When we do then finish our chat, Hearn becomes more reflective. “I’ve made enough money but the idea of sitting at home in my later years has never appealed,” he says.

“My wife’s proper East End, hard as nails. She comes from the same council house background as me. She’s a top horse breeder, she’s bred the winner of the Ascot Gold Cup. She understands the passion side.

“What she doesn’t understand is that she doesn’t see very much of me… but there’s always things to do. I’m hoping I live to 150, but I’ve done well to get 77 with the life I’ve led. I’m very aware that there’s not that many years.

“We’ve got a family benevolent charitable fund. I’m not paying these b------- inheritance tax – I’d rather give it all to that. I’ll leave a legacy that will do some real good in our community, and the communities of England where we have done really well. Like Sheffield [home of the Crucible] and Bristol [the former headquarters of World Snooker] and London areas for the boxing.

“Life’s a game. We’ve won. What do you do when you’ve won? You celebrate. We’re celebrating… I’ve got the UK Open to play… but we have got to leave something that makes it worthwhile.”