PETER EBDON was once known for being better than everyone.
Now he is wanting to make everyone better.
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Nicknamed the Force, Ebdon was snooker’s world champion in 2002, beating Stephen Hendry 18-17 in a thrilling Crucible final.
He followed that up with the 2006 UK Championships and two 147 breaks in his 29-year career, retiring in 2020.
But as he prepared for life away from the baize, the Londoner became a professional healer.
However, that barely touches the sides on the story of one of snooker’s quirkiest characters…
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COLOURFUL CHARACTER
First things first, Ebdon overcame his own difficulties to rise to the top of his sport – because he is both left-eye sighted and colour blind.
Naturally, that presents plenty of challenges in snooker where there are eight different colours on the table and hitting the right point of the cue ball is so important.
He particularly struggled to differentiate between red and brown, leading to some accidental fouls when he simply aimed at the wrong colour unintentionally.
Ebdon told the Times Of India: “I have done it at various stages throughout my entire career.
“On each and every occasion I thought I was potting the correct ball and very often it has cost me frames and probably matches in the past.
“My colour blindness is severe. It is little better than seeing in black and white and probably not too much better.
SHAUN MURPHY Life outside snooker – bullying, religion, golf and music
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“It is quite embarrassing when you think you’ve played a good shot and sometimes the first thing I hear is ‘foul’.
“Very often, I can’t see red for brown or a brown for a red and I do make mistakes. If I do have any doubts, I ask the referee where the brown is before I play the shot.”
KY’S THE LIMIT
As well as being an all-time snooker great – peaking at No3 in the world and winning nine ranking titles – Ebdon has taken some of the sport’s next generation of stars under his wing.
He mentored the likes of Shaun Murphy, Jack Lisowski and even 2024 world champ Kyren Wilson – first playing against the Warrior when he was six.
Ebden told the BBC after Wilson beat Jak Jones in last year’s Crucible final: “To be so close to him in a professional sense and see him go through and become a world champion – knowing how hard it is – was magical. I couldn’t be happier for him.
“He put the work in and came through every test with flying colours. He was by far the best player at the Crucible this year and a very, very worthy champion.
“He had the all-important ingredient – he believed in himself.”
SLOW TO FAST LANE
Ebdon earned a reputation for his incredibly slow playing style around the table, often infuriating his opponents.
But he is enjoying a significant gear change in retirement as a thoroughbred pedigree horse racing consultancy.
He has bred a number of winners over the years and has now launched his own company, Designer Pedigrees, giving breeders advice on which stallions their thoroughbreds should visit.
Ebdon said to the Racing Post: “I decided to set up a business so that I can share my knowledge with breeders with a view to helping them breed group horses and, hopefully, future champions.
“I’m determined to become a better professional pedigree consultant than I ever was as a snooker professional.”
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POSITIVE CAREER CHANGE
But as well as being a professional snooker player and professional horse breeding consultant, Ebdon has also become a professional healer.
Having completed his two years of training, he is now a certified “spiritual and energy healer” at the College of Healing in Malvern, Worcestershire, delivering more than 1,000 healing sessions.
On the college’s website, Ebdon says: “I offer healing, distant healing, negative energy clearing and protection when needed.”
In his own two-hour video monologue, he said: “As a trained healer, it’s wonderful for me to be able to use the universal energy life force energy for another person’s highest and greatest good.
“There’s nothing more I can do as a human being than channel that unconditional love. That means more to me than anything I ever achieved in my snooker career.”
Featuring on Jonny Wilkinson’s I Am podcast in 2024, Ebdon added: “Although it was wonderful and fantastic to be world champion, I get so much more reward out of helping people through healing.
“I am a singular part of the one great consciousness. We are all connected through unconditional love.
“We are all truly great, I believe we all contain that spark of God and the ability to do incredible things, to be healers if we choose to be healers.
“I don’t have any recollection of previous lives but two very experienced professional healers said they felt I had been a healer in a previous life.
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List of all-time Snooker World Champions
BELOW is a list of snooker World Champions by year.
The record is for the modern era, widely considered as dating from the 1968-69 season, when the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) took control of the sport.
The first World Championships ran from 1927 – with a break from 1941-45 because of World War II and 1958-63 because of a dispute in the sport.
Joe Davis (15), Fred Davis and John Pulman (both 8) were the most successful players during that period.
Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan share the record for the most titles in the modern era, with seven each.
- 1969 – John Spencer
- 1970 – Ray Reardon
- 1971 – John Spencer
- 1972 – Alex Higgins
- 1973 – Ray Reardon (2)
- 1974 – Ray Reardon (3)
- 1975 – Ray Reardon (4)
- 1976 – Ray Reardon (5)
- 1977 – John Spencer (2)
- 1978 – Ray Reardon (6)
- 1979 – Terry Griffiths
- 1980 – Cliff Thorburn
- 1981 – Steve Davis
- 1982 – Alex Higgins (2)
- 1983 – Steve Davis (2)
- 1984 – Steve Davis (3)
- 1985 – Dennis Taylor
- 1986 – Joe Johnson
- 1987 – Steve Davis (4)
- 1988 – Steve Davis (5)
- 1989 – Steve Davis (6)
- 1990 – Stephen Hendry
- 1991 – John Parrott
- 1992 – Stephen Hendry (2)
- 1993 – Stephen Hendry (3)
- 1994 – Stephen Hendry (4)
- 1995 – Stephen Hendry (5)
- 1996 – Stephen Hendry (6)
- 1997 – Ken Doherty
- 1998 – John Higgins
- 1999 – Stephen Hendry (7)
- 2000 – Mark Williams
- 2001 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
- 2002 – Peter Ebdon
- 2003 – Mark Williams (2)
- 2004 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (2)
- 2005 – Shaun Murphy
- 2006 – Graeme Dott
- 2007 – John Higgins (2)
- 2008 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (3)
- 2009 – John Higgins (3)
- 2010 – Neil Robertson
- 2011 – John Higgins (4)
- 2012 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (4)
- 2013 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (5)
- 2014 – Mark Selby
- 2015 – Stuart Bingham
- 2016 – Mark Selby (2)
- 2017 – Mark Selby (3)
- 2018 – Mark Williams (3)
- 2019 – Judd Trump
- 2020 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (6)
- 2021 – Mark Selby (4)
- 2022 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (7)
- 2023 – Luca Brecel
- 2024 – Kyren Wilson
Most World Titles (modern era)
- 7 – Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O’Sullivan
- 6 – Ray Reardon, Steve Davis
- 4 – John Higgins, Mark Selby
- 3 – John Spencer, Mark Williams
- 2 – Alex Higgins
“I’ve always been a bit of a loner, an introvert so it was a real challenge to go to the College of Healing but within challenges are personal growth.
“I’m a big softy, I really am and you have to be to be a healer, with compassion. I never allowed that softness to come out playing snooker.”
He also practices yoga and Reiki, a Japanese stress reduction and relaxation technique.
HEALTH GURU
The sad death of Ebdon’s father from cancer in 2011 prompted the snooker ace to explore his own diet and health.
He eventually was convinced to turn to veganism – as well as various controversial and wild conspiracy theories – and said: “We’re primates after all. If we stay as close to nature as possible by eating as many organic fruits and vegetables, that’s when we’re looking at having the strongest possible immune system.
“If I were to become seriously ill, I wouldn’t even consider the standard treatments.”
Part of his big fitness drive also seems him continue to swim a mile every day.
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SINGING THE BLUES, PINKS AND BLACKS
As well as his steady sporting hand, he also has the ear – and voice – for music.
So much so that Ebdon – who emigrated to Dubai from 2005 to 2009 – has released various music singles over the years.
His cover of David Cassidy’s I Am A Clown in 1996 nearly broke into the UK Top 40.
His debut single Fall Of Paradise came out in 2002 before co-producing an acoustic version of Everlasting Love with Steve Ellis in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
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He said: “I wouldn’t discount doing another single or maybe even an album in the future.
“I love my music and whilst unfortunately I don’t have the voice of Andrea Bocelli, I can ‘hold a note’, as my ex-manager, the former pop singer Troy Dante, once commented.”
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