Talk:John Spencer (snooker player)

Which Radcliffe?
Which of the various Radcliffes in England was he born in? Calsicol 08:37, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The one near Bury in Greater Manchester.

Date of birth
Most sources give Spencer's date of birth as 18 September 1935, not 18 June. This also makes his age at death wrong (70, not 71). Can you clarify please? Haydn01 10:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Review notes
Some things you might want to address before nominating for GA review: More tomorrow. Rodney Baggins (talk) 22:26, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely happy about including photos of other players, not sure what they add and maybe primarily decorative. MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE
 * In "Early years" section:
 * "At the time, participation in snooker was in decline." is an unsourced sweeping statement.
 * "There were effectively no officially organised professional tournaments at the time" > ditto
 * Ref. 90 has page number as zero - is that correct?
 * In "Retirement and final years" section, we haven't actually stated exactly when he retired!
 * Thanks for removing the images. I can see why they were there – the article is a massive sea of text otherwise but the MOS guidelines say "not every article needs images". You could always put them back in and see if they're mentioned in the GA review? Rodney Baggins (talk) 08:07, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've added back the Reardon photo; let's see what review comments come back. I've removed the two sweeping statements as I couldn't find a good single source - I think its a reasonable summary of Everton's view but he takes several pages over this rather than providing a definite statement. Corrected the page 0 to page 9. Added Spencer's retirement year - I couldn't get a month. I also removed the sentence about him being the first player since Joe Davis to win the World Championship at the first attempt, as I checked a few sources and none of them mentioned this. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:42, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that's everything covered now. All copyediting done on my part. I added a proper caption to the Reardon photo to give it a solid context and justify its inclusion. Good to go for GA nom. Cheers, Rodney Baggins (talk) 21:51, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Citation needed
The last sentence in the first paragraph of the "Early professional career" section is lacking a citation. Cielquiparle (talk) 07:53, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've removed it. If anyone can justify its inclusion, and find a cite they can add it back.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:44, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Split Hayton & Dee citation?
Hi there, it's occurred to me that ref.65 (Hayton & Dee 2004, pp. 912–914) has an awful lot of ref tags (which I hate). Would it be possible to split into two or three separate citations, each with consequently fewer tags? Ref.101 is Hayton & Dee 2004, p. 914. so could we just use that along with two others: Hayton & Dee 2004, p. 912. and Hayton & Dee 2004, p. 913. Or, if there's a natural split somewhere on page 913, we could perhaps just have these two: Hayton & Dee 2004, pp. 912–913. and Hayton & Dee 2004, pp. 913–914. and absorb the current ref.101 into the latter? I don't have access to the book but pretty sure you do! Rodney Baggins (talk) 15:51, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * yes, it's hardly pleasing to the eye as it is. For each player, the book has a chronological list of match results. For Spencer, page 912 covers up to the end of the 1979-80 season (The Pontins Professional). Page 913 covers from the start of the 1980-81 season to a few walkovers from 1991-92 (Rothmans Grand Prix, Dubai Classic, Strachan Professional, Asian Open). Page 914 has the rest of that season and the two following ones. Unfortunately, I think in the table a lot of the tournaments cover more than one of these periods, but most of the uses in the body text will only need a single page. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 16:09, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Spencer/Reardon rivalry
I think the third paragraph of the current "1972 to 1976" section is out of place. It talks about Spencer's relationship (or lack of it) with Reardon, and then jumps ahead to their brief doubles partnership in the early 1980s. I suggest splitting and moving it elsewhere (as shown in my next edit). I've also moved the Reardon image down for now to sit with the related text. I'm aware that the 1970s Spencer/Reardon rivalry/dominance thing isn't strictly speaking to do with Spencer's playing style and legacy but I couldn't see where else to put it. I did wonder about including a new section or sub-section to deal with the whole Spencer/Reardon issue separately, but that might appear to be drawing too much attention to it. Rodney Baggins (talk) 13:09, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Spencer/Reardon doubles partnership
I've fixed the dates of the first two events (1982 and 1983), but then it states that the Spencer/Reardon partnership ended when Spencer realised he would be too ill to play in the 1985 event. I assume that also needs to be corrected to 1984. The thing I don't get is that Spencer partnered up with Tony Knowles in 1984 and they did in fact do pretty well, making it through to the semi-finals, so Spencer was probably relatively OK at the time of the tournament. He also took part in the other three doubles championships (1985, 1986, 1987) but with different partners each time. Would you say the reason his doubles partnership with Reardon came to a premature end was that it didn't seem fair on Reardon to be shackled by a potentially ill partner? Putting that into words in a sensitive encyclopedic manner might be tricky though. What does the source say? ("Spencer's double vision" in Snooker Scene, September 1984, page 5.) Rodney Baggins (talk) 22:16, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

World No.2 – 77/78 season
Hi there, here's another query for you whilst waiting for the FAC to wrap up. The infobox states that JS reached his highest ranking of world no.2 in 77/78, but this is not covered in the article. The Retirement and final years section starts off by mentioning that he fell to a career-low 34th in the world rankings for 86/87, but no other mention is made of his world ranking position anywhere. He presumably rose to world no.2 after winning the 1977 world championship and the Pontins Pro title, so that would slot into the first paragraph of the 3rd world title section. Do any of your sources say anything about this? It might be nice to add it in, with source, if you have one. Regards, Rodney Baggins (talk) 18:42, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Although Spencer didn't play again on the professional circuit after the 1992 World Championship, he retained a ranking for the following two seasons, and I've added them in. I think it is worth including more about his ranking; the placings are referenced in the table. The WPBSA typically published the rankings after the World Championship, which until 1983/1984 were based only on World Championship results. Althought these were usually published within a matter of weeks of the championship, they sometimes changed later. (e.g. 1984/1985). I'll see if I can find any sources that comment on his rankings. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 01:56, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Morrison (1987) p. 127: "The eye trouble was part of the reason for Spencer's decline and his drop from 20th to 34th in the rankings, but he showed true fighting spirit in the 1986-87 season and hauled himself back into the top 32 and into 28th place in the rankings. That upward trend was largely thanks to a great performance in the Dulux British Open, when, after fine wins over Tony Meo and Dave Martin, Spencer found himself in the quarter-final." BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 10:50, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

autobiography
in his autobiography, does spencer describe a date in 1985 as "the worst day of his life"? a footnote in the article asserts this, although the corresponding text in the article body appears to be referring to a 1984 tournament. (i am admittedly unsure if the 1985 date is actually referring to when he was first diagnosed.)also, the wording in the footnote suggests that the quote "the worst day of his life" was taken directly from his autobiography, which, i would have assumed, was not written from the third-person perspective. if the quote wasn't taken from another source, should the quote be "the worst day of my life" (or "the worst day of [his] life") instead?by the way, i think the use of double quotation marks would be more appropriate here, as per mos:double, assuming the quote was taken directly from his autobiography. dying (talk) 02:59, 3 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I think we both missed this query. Benny, is it worth addressing it before tomorrow? I'm fairly sure you have a copy of the autobiography. Rodney Baggins (talk) 13:28, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * thanks, . On page 9 of his 2005 autobiograpy, Spencer does say "The worst day of my life was May 9, 1985. I was at Pontin's Holiday Camp..." and goes on to describe feeling very tired, takng a nap, and waking up with double vision. The July 1984 Snooker Scene article has "John Spencer... is receiving treatment for double vision. The condition has persisted since the Pontins Open at Prestatyn in May." I think that note e is OK as it mentions the discrepancy in sources which could due to be a typo or a misremembrance in Spencer's book. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:48, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * - sorry forgot to ping you. thanks, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:26, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * oh,, i had not realized that the footnote was meant to explain a discrepancy in the sources! thanks for that clarification.  i had erroneously interpreted the footnote as giving additional detail, and had wondered if "1985" was simply a typo.  (it might have been, though perhaps one that was made in the autobiography itself.)  thanks for addressing this issue, BennyOnTheLoose!  dying (talk) 01:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Places of birth/death
As in the article:

Born 18 September 1935 Radcliffe, Lancashire, England Died 11 July 2006 (aged 70) Bolton, Lancashire, England

But the articles for both Radcliffe and Bolton say the towns are in Greater Manchester, not Lancashire. BhamBoi (talk) 08:05, 18 February 2024 (UTC)


 * So, it looks like Radcliffe was a part of the administrative county of Lancashire until the 1970s.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:54, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * As for Bolton, it says "The town is also within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire.". I'm not sure that is enough to suggest it is in Lancashire.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:56, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Looking at the Lancashire article, it doesn't talk about any territorial changes since 1974. That doesn't mean nothing happened, but I'm left assuming Bolton was in the same county as is is now. BhamBoi (talk) 15:04, 18 February 2024 (UTC)