Green, green baize of home

THERE it was, the Barbican, like an old friend throwing its doors open to the public once again.

Travis Perkins UK Championships, said the huge signs plastered all over the building. Book Your Tickets Now!

The last time I set foot inside this building was a year ago, when the 2004 snooker championship drew to a close with Stephen Maguire lifting the title.

Okay, so the building has been press-ganged into use a couple of times since then, for the Festival Of Remembrance and the community carol concert, both last month. But it still had an air of recent disuse, despite the best efforts of the team from World Snooker to get the venue ready.

"The girls have done a marvellous job," said a nice chap in a black suit who escorted me up to the arena to watch some of the first round matches that were just getting under way. "I came in here on Wednesday last week and it was like a ghost town, tumbleweed drifting around, that sort of thing..."

No signs of tumbleweed this week. The bar was open (though at 10.30am on Monday there was, thankfully, only one punter sitting with a glass of beer) and the auditorium was the usual hushed shrine to snooker that it becomes every year for this event.

Five green-clothed tables stood in a row on the blue-carpeted floor, separated from each other by flimsy dividing walls. The banked tiers of seats in front were in a deep gloom that contrasted sharply with the lurid light flooding the tables. Most seats were empty, with just a smattering of spectators at this early stage of the contest. But there was the usual reverent silence, broken by the occasional embarrassed cough or ripple of restrained applause.

There was nothing to indicate this place had been shut up for most of the past year: except that - was it just my imagination, or was there a hint of mustiness or dustiness in the air? I felt I wanted to sneeze.

Andy Stevens, Tom Spindler and Andy Prickett, three students from Leeds who had come over to watch snooker star Ian McCulloch in his first round tussle with Jamie Burnett, admitted the Barbican was looking, perhaps, a "bit shabby around the edges" - but it was nothing they could put their finger on.

Ivan Hirschowitz, however, the press officer for World Snooker, insisted that everything was in tip-top form. If anything, he said, the fact the venue wasn't being used for anything else had made it easier for the World Snooker team to prepare, once they had gone round and picked up all the old fly-posters.

Certainly, there had been nothing but positive feedback from the players, he said. "It is one of their favourite venues on the circuit. It's a great arena, there's always a good atmosphere, and it's a lovely city."

Musty or not, it is great to see the building back in use again. There were more black-clad World Snooker staff on show yesterday morning than spectators. They were everywhere - at the bar, sitting in front of the doors leading through to the arena, blocking the way to the players changing rooms and the press room.

As the week goes on, however, and the big names start to arrive - the TV cameras move in on Friday in time for the entry into the competition on Saturday of the world's top four players, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry, Stephen Maguire and world champion Shaun Murphy - the crowds will grow and the Barbican will come fully to life once more. If only temporarily.

There were not many big names on show in the first round of matches that kicked off at 10am yesterday - especially when Australian Quinten Hann failed to turn up and so forfeited his match against Gerard Greene - and the size of the audience reflected that.

The biggest beast on show was McCulloch, the world number 12 from Preston. And even he showed signs of struggling. By 11am, he was already 2-1 down in his best-of-17 frame match against the unknown Jamie Burnett.

The lack of a big-match atmosphere - no TV cameras, no big name players, no big crowds - appeared to be taking its toll.

Burnett even took an early 25-point lead in the fourth frame. Then McCulloch - slimmer in real life than he appears on the TV - began to get into his stride. A Burnett miss let him in and he raced to 57, then knocked in a difficult black (which had been hampered by the reds) to rack up a 71 break. Burnett made a token attempt to get a snooker to claw his way back into the frame, but soon capitulated.

That made it 2-2. In the next frame, McCulloch began to look good. He broke, Burnett left the white pinned awkwardly against the balk cushion - and from there, McCulloch knocked in a long red. His cueing getting smoother he racked up 118 with scarcely a pause for breath, missing a final pink to spoil what would, potentially, have been a 131 break.

One of the stars of the game, beginning to find his feet in one of snooker's favourite venues. It didn't last, however. McCulloch went on to lose 9-7. Let's hope the Barbican's new resurgence isn't as short lived.

Why the Barbican delays?

Save Our Barbican protesters are still pursuing three legal challenges to the Barbican's refurbishment and redevelopment.

Two relate to Absolute Leisure's application for a licence to serve drinks into the early hours. There is a high court hearing outstanding which will look at whether notices advertising the proposed late (2.30am) drinks license were properly posted.

There is a separate appeal against City of York Council's decision to grant the 2.30am licence, which is due to be heard by York magistrates in February.

The third legal challenge relates to the city council's decision to grant planning permission for the Barbican site's redevelopment. Protesters are challenging the Legal Services Commission for restricting their entitlement to legal aid at a High Court hearing this summer, in which they were seeking a judicial review of the council's approval of the Barbican redevelopment plans. They ended up representing themselves in court, and claim they were therefore denied a fair hearing.

Because of the legal challenges, the city council and Absolute Leisure both lay the blame for the Barbican lying empty firmly at the door of the protesters.

Steve Galloway, leader of the Liberal Democrat-run council, said the Barbican was closed after the 2004 UK snooker championships finished almost a year ago because it was thought then that the sale to Absolute Leisure was "imminent".

"Because we expected them to buy it straight away no shows had been booked," he said. "You have to book them six to 12 months in advance." Keeping it open without a programme of concerts and events would have been uneconomic, he said.

Tony Knox, Absolute Leisure's managing director, added the expectation had been that refurbishment of the auditorium would have begun almost at once. It was expected to take between six and nine months, he said, and would have meant the refurbishment being completed in time for this week's snooker championship.

The protesters delayed that. "If they hadn't held it up, the refurbishment would have been going ahead straight away," he said.

The protesters, however, insist the blame is not theirs. They had never wanted the Barbican to be closed in the first place.

"We think it is a very great shame that it isn't open," said Save Our Barbican spokesman Ernie Dickinson. "It wasn't the users of the Barbican or the residents living nearby who closed it."

Campaigners had the right to protest about a late licence that could potentially see as many as 4,000 people drinking late into the night, Mr Dickinson said.

Despite everything, Coun Galloway is still optimistic that with the Save Our Barbican protesters' appeal against the late licence due to be heard in February, things can start moving again soon.

Updated: 11:01 Tuesday, December 06, 2005