For the second year in succession, a Welshman won snooker's second biggest prize when Matthew Stevens triumphed in last year's Travis Perkins UK Championship final at York's Barbican Centre.

The 26-year-old from Carmarthen recovered from being 4-0 down to beat seven-times world champion and five-times UK champion Stephen Hendry 10-8.

It was the first world ranking tournament title of Stevens' career and he succeeded fellow Welshman Mark Williams as UK champion.

That was Williams' second UK success, following his 1999 triumph over Stevens, who was suffering his second successive loss in the final after his 1998 defeat to John Higgins.

The first Welsh triumph in the tournament, however, was way back in 1978 courtesy of Doug Mountjoy, who had also reached the final of the inaugural tournament 12 months earlier, losing to Irishman Patsy Fagan in Blackpool.

Mountjoy beat all the odds to win it again ten years later and in between times, former world champion Terry Griffiths - defeated in the 1979 final by Salford's John Virgo - became the second UK champion to hail from the Valleys when he beat Ireland's Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins in the memorable 1982 UK final.

Griffiths - who is now an advisor to Williams and Hendry - and the 'Hurricane' interrupted the six-times winning streak of the legendary 'Nugget', Steve Davis.

Mountjoy returned to end Davis' reign in 1988, just before Scotsman Hendry took his vice-like grip on the competition with five triumphs in eight years and eight final appearances in ten years.

John Higgins took the title back to Scotland twice more, while, barring the Welsh raids, at all other times it has been Englishmen at the helm, with John Parrot, people's hero Jimmy White and fans' favourite Ronnie O'Sullivan - who was the victor of the tournament when it was first held in York, in 2001 - sharing the crown.

Updated: 16:25 Wednesday, November 10, 2004