No Ordinary Joe

Leicester’s Joe O’Connor has always been handy with a cue, firstly becoming a junior pool champion before breaking into snooker’s top 32 in 2023.

Joe has enjoyed a fruitful 12 months on the World Snooker Tour (WST), during which time he has reached his first ranking final at the Scottish Open, a semi-final at the Players Championship and a quarter-final at the Welsh Open. The current world number 31 also boasts a victory over world champion Luca Brecel and several other notable names, such as Mark Allen, Mark Williams, and Neil Robertson.

Had things worked out differently, Joe may not have given snooker a passing thought as he attracted interest from a few scouts as a young footballer, he told Fen Regis Trophies. “When I was younger, I played football from the age of four to 10, and I was just on the cusp of getting scouted.

“My mum and dad used to go down to the local conservative club, and it had a pool table there. It was winner stays on and, over time, I played more and more frames and I started to win a little bit.

“I just got used to winning, I was naturally quite good quite quickly and started playing [pool] a little bit more. 

“I had the choice to play for a pool team or to go to football training…I chose pool and pretty much knocked football on the head.”

Moving from Pool to Snooker

Joe enjoyed a successful time playing pool, winning his first club trophy as an 11-year-old and winning silverware aplenty as a junior before eventually moving on to snooker. He was successful in winning various junior titles, including the 2012 Junior World Pool Championship, and represented England internationally.

Eventually, though, as Joe became older and started to consider his options career-wise, he began to make the transition into snooker.

“When I was around 15 or 16,” he said. “There was no real money in pool and if I wanted to play for a living, snooker was the way to go and I transitioned into that.”

He added: “At junior level [in pool], I won probably 10 or 11 majors in about four or five years and didn’t earn a penny for it, because it was junior level.

“I thought that I’m not earning anything, so I’m going to have to go and get a job in two years.

“Snooker turned out to be a lot more enjoyable for me. I didn’t know that at the time when I had just sort of seen it, but that was the only way to go if I wanted to play something I was good at for a living at the time.”

The Transition

Numerous players have attempted to make the crossover from pool to snooker, some more successfully than others. Coming from Leicester, Joe wouldn’t have had to look too far for inspiration with Mark Selby having won a pool world title before switching to snooker and winning four Snooker World Championships at the Crucible.

“The transition was a tough one mentally,” Joe said of his own experience moving from pool to snooker. “I had gone from, especially in junior tournaments, being the favourite to win most competitions to being a nobody at the bottom of the barrel.

“It took a long time, but it took a while to get used to losing more often and not being as good in this field as I was at pool.”

Success, though, would eventually come Joe’s way in snooker. In 2018, shortly before securing a two-year tour card and turning professional, he captured the English Amateur Championship, a title previously won by the likes of Ray Reardon, Terry Griffiths, and Stuart Bingham.

Looking Ahead

Having now broken into the world’s top 32 on the WST, the hope will be now for Joe that he can continue to build on an encouraging 12 months and find his way more regularly into the latter stages of events. He knows that, in professional snooker, there is no such thing as an easy game.

“You’re not going to get many chances,” he said of playing against players on tour. “You’ve got to play well and if you don’t you almost never win.

“Their bad days are still very good. I just concentrate on my own game and if I play well I know I can win.”

Joe’s ultimate goal will be to qualify for next year’s World Snooker Championship which, if successful, he would make his debut at the Crucible. For now, he will be continuing to learn and develop his game, striving towards becoming one of the biggest names on tour.

By Aaron Gratton