Snooker legend Ken Doherty inadvertently swore at Sir Alex Ferguson after being invited to parade the World Championship trophy at Old Trafford. The Manchester United supporter clinched his only world title in 1997 by beating the dominant player of the era, Stephen Hendry, at the Crucible.
Doherty returned to Ireland as a national hero and was rewarded with an open-top bus parade around Dublin. He won acclaim further afield, with snooker fan Ferguson even getting in touch to pass on his congratulations and invite him to Old Trafford to show off the trophy.
However, the phone call didn’t go as planned, with Doherty, believing he was being pranked by friends, issuing a rather rude response. He explained: “I got a phone call a week later.
“I didn’t recognise the number, the voice went [does an impression of Ferguson], ‘Kenny, do you fancy coming and parading that trophy around Old Trafford?
“I told him to f*** off! I thought it was one of my mates winding me up. He said again, ‘Kenny, it’s Alex Ferguson here, I’m not going to ask you a second time’. So I had to apologise. Not many people have said that to him and got away with it! But he saw the funny side. He loves snooker.”
His VIP trip to the Theatre of Dreams was a day to remember for Doherty, who said: “He showed me around the place. It was the last match of the season and they were picking up the Premiership trophy.
“Walking out on the pitch with the trophy, my legs were like jelly. I met all the players. Cantona came up to me, shook my hand and said, ‘Congratulations Mr Doherty, welcome to Old Trafford’. Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Keane, they couldn’t wait to have a look at the trophy and look at the names on it. It was amazing.”
Doherty was invited to various major sporting venues to parade the trophy, including Celtic, much to the chagrin of snooker rival and Hoops fan John Higgins.
“So I did the half-time draw at Celtic,” he recalled. “And I got a text from John Higgins, who’s a big Celtic fan and was at the game. He goes, ‘what the f*** are you doing in the middle of the pitch? You’re not even a Celtic fan, I should be out there!”
Higgins beat Doherty in the following year’s Crucible final to claim his first of four world titles. Doherty, 55, is still playing but failed to come through qualifying for the World Championship. He is at the tournament as part of the BBC’s commentary team.
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