| Alex 'The Hurricane' Higgins was the genius of Belfast who lit up the green baize like no other snooker player. He sparkled into life with the help of his trade mark glass of vodka & coke and the tie off his collar as he wizzed around the 12foot table. But in the last months of his life he battled against the ravages of cancer and his weight had fallen to half his normal body size. Recently the 61yo confessed that his life had sunk so low he wanted to kill himself. As the throat cancer had set in, Alex had been reduced to just a skeleton and even attempts to get him new teeth implants failed. Barely tipping the scales at six stone, he talked in a puny whispered gasp, all his teeth had fallen out and he could'nt eat properly because each of his 10 sets of dentures left him in excruciating pain. And sitting alone in his dingy Belfast flat during the bitter winter Alex had spiralled into a deep depression and even talked of committing suicide. ''I thought about it, i wanted to do it'' said the pitiful former snooker star. ''But i hav,nt got the courage to kill myself, 3 months ago when the weather was really bad, i hit my lowest.'' ''i had seen the television programme about euthanasia and all i wanted to do was go to that clinic in Switzerland, have them give me a pill and just end it there and then. But i think that would have hurt too many people.'' ''i do believe in god thought i don,t go to church, but i still have a bible that my mother gave me when i was just 15yo, i read the bible and told myself,'' ''You can fight, i,v been a fighter all my life. That,s what stopped me going through with it.'' Once the worlds best snooker player, winning the world title twice, he even went back to Sheffield and the home of snooker at the Crucible theatre to play one last time to try and win the £500,000 prize money. It would have been a big payday for the gambling addict 'Higgy' who was surviving on just £200 per week on benefits. He had a big fall from grace after blowing £4 million on booze and beaten betting dockets while his marriage crumbled around him. As he stared down the barrel of his last months of his life, he desperately tried to raise £20,000 he needed for teeth implants which his dentist insists would help him eat properly again. However it was,nt to be. Doctors at a hospital in mainland europe examined him and told him the bad news. We can,t do the implants. Mr Higgins. For 12yrs, the 1972-1982 world champion had been living off a diet of baby food after his teeth fell out following radiotherapy which had been treating his throat cancer. Two throat operations had left the tortured Hurricane only able to speak in whispers. In his last interview before he died, The 'Hurricane' Said: ''There are days i just feel completely out of energy, i cannot even get out of bed.'' ''I just lie there and listen to the radio, i,m so weak i don,t have a choice, if you can,t eat and you can,t smile. It causes deep depression.''... |
