SNOOKER'S eternal 'bad boy' Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins lines up a broadside at today's stars as he engages in lively conversation with Evening Press sports reporter HUGH MACDOUGALL.

THE word ennui is not one you would ever associate with snooker legend Alex Higgins - but that is what the current pack of world stage stars make the York-bound cue maestro feel.

Indeed, he finds most of them so boring to watch that he said it twice. "Ennui, ennui," the twice former world champion stressed about the total lack of interest they spark in him.

"There is something lacking in some of the players' personas," he added in his telephone interview with the Evening Press. "When I watch most of the players on television they seem very lacklustre in their attitude."

Apart from the new world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, that is. He gives the 'Rocket' five-star status to join himself and great pal Jimmy White as snooker's most excitingly talented entertainers.

The 'Hurricane' blows into town next Tuesday for a duel with the 'Whirlwind' at York's Barbican Centre, an exhibition match rescheduled following a sudden white-out blizzard causing the original date to be postponed in January.

The irrepressible Irishman has thrust himself back into the limelight on the back of the widely acclaimed one-man play 'Hurricane' about the ups and downs of his life.

He has been consistently beating White in their series of exhibition matches around the country and Higgins is lapping up every minute of it, playing with the panache and style only he can produce.

Throat cancer took him out of the game for several years, but he is now well enough to return to the public eye, although when asked about his health these days he responded: "Put it this way, I won't be running the London Marathon."

He hasn't lost his bad boy image, either.

When the play of his life went back to London last month for a second stint he was thrown out of the theatre for allegedly smoking hash. A national newspaper carried a big cartoon of him sitting in a theatre with his open cue case by his side and a very long reefer in his hand, with an usher in the background claiming he thought Higgins had his cue in his case.

Quick as ever to seize a mischievous opportunity, Higgins returned to the theatre the following week with his cue case and, twinkle in his eye, he opened it to take out his cue wrapped in white paper.

"Life gives some people their 15 minutes of fame but I'm one of those lucky bastards it doesn't want to leave alone," he quipped in his phone interview with the Evening Press.

"I was Merlin the Magician of the green baize," he added, referring to his years on top of the snooker world. "I'm a little bit more crinkly now and older, maybe not wiser though."

As for the possibility of him coming back into world ranking competition, the key is the fact that having been out of the match arena for so long he doesn't have any ranking points.

"If I could get even half my ranking points back and come in at, say, 64 then I think that even at the age of 55 I could get back into the top 25 without much bother.

"But starting at the bottom and playing in qualifying rounds in small cubicles or venues with lots of tables it's an impossible task. It's hard enough to scrape and strive in championship play without having to play at small venues.

"But I live and breath snooker. When I get round a snooker table I come alive."

His huge following of fans have not deserted him, either. Crowds at his matches with White have been huge. In his home city of Belfast last month he spent 90 minutes signing autographs.

Higgins first set the snooker world alight when he beat John Spencer 37-32 in the 1972 world final, winning the title at his first attempt. Ten years later he regained the world crown, beating Ray Reardon.

He also reached four successive Benson & Hedges Masters finals from 1978-81, winning the first and last of those, and he took the 1980 British Gold Cup and the 1984 UK title, beating Steve Davis 16-15 after having been 7-0 down. In 1984 Higgins and White won the world doubles crown.

And Higgins has revealed that he and White are keen to revive the world doubles event. They are looking into the possibility of trying to stage it in London or Ireland.

White made sure of staying in the world's top 16 when winning the Players' Championship in Glasgow last month, beating Yorkshire's Paul Hunter, but he had a disappointing Embassy World Championship, going out in the first round in Sheffield to Barry Pinches.

The 41-year-old people's champion then took his cue back to the exhibition arena for more action with Higgins in London. Now they both have York looming large in their sights to keep their mass of Yorkshire fans happy.

All 200 table-side tickets for the York match on Tuesday are sold out, but there are £15.50 and £17.50 tickets still available in the main auditorium.

The Barbican box office number is 01904 656688.

Updated: 08:40 Saturday, May 08, 2004