LDS wrote:Juddernaut88 wrote:I'm amazed loads of people have voted for Taylor. Is it anti Judd Trump people on the wind up?
Quite the opposite I would suggest.
This thread has saddened me greatly. I'm almost lost for words. Ok, let's try and think about this for a moment. And I did think long and hard about this one, something others didn't seem to do.
Greatness.
Taylor was a very popular snooker player. I guess it's quite difficult for some to appreciate this. I can understand that. In fact I can very much understand that as, like BTC, he wasn't someone I found hugely enjoyable to watch either, that is, I didn't hate watching him, he'd just often be second choice for me personally if there were a choice of matches to watch. However, we're trying to be objective here, right? Trying to be realistic.
Well, let's look at those major snooker events then:
WSC:
Taylor: 1 x W, 1 x F, 3 x SF, 4 x QF
Trump: 1 x W, 1 x F, 2 x SF, 3 x QF
And Taylor's win here is one of the all-time great wins in the entire history of snooker. Versus Trump beating an old Higgins on a run of runner-ups. An achievement which adds to his greatness but was not even romotely comparable in greatness to Taylors win.
So, on the biggest stage, Taylor is ahead, by quite a margin. Sure, Trump might be one day, even very soon, but that's just what-ifs, the very thing Pink was so upset about in the Hunter/Robertson thread.
So lets see if Trump trumps Taylor with the other majors:
UK:
Taylor: 2 x SF, 1 x QF
Trump: 1 x W, 1 x F
So Trump pegs Taylor back a bit here, that's for sure. But not by a huge amount. Enough to make it look more like a closer run thing at the moment.
Masters:
Taylor: 1 x W, 4 x QF
Trump: 1 x W, 3 x SF, 1 x QF
And again, it's actually a very close thing, Trump is only marginally winning here. So at this point in time, I'm calling it a draw overall.
Ranking tournaments:
Trump is getting most of his love for cleaning up a lot of ranking tournaments. Well, he does have 20 of them to go at every year. So when he wins 6 in a year then that's just under one-third.
In Taylor's day, in and around when he won the WSC, he was also winning ranking tournaments, and a good year for him was 2 Rankers, which, in those days, was one-third of them.
It would not be a stretch to argue that had there been 20 rankers in Taylor's prime then he probably would have snagged 6 of them at least. He was ineed winning 4 or 5 random titles a year at that point.
Break building:
Taylor was actually a very proficient break builder. Infact, and this may surprise you all, but Taylor, throughout all his career, scored more centuries against Davis than Davis scored against Taylor, and this includes the entire 5 years from 1988 when Taylor never beat Davis again.
And this may really surprise you, but when Taylor beat Davis 9-5 in the Canadian Masters Final in 1985 he rattled in 4 centures in those 9 frames. And 4 centuries in 9 frames in those days... well... let's just say he was up to the task.
So what I'm thinking here is:
It's a draw. A this point in time it's a draw.
If I vote for Trump then I'm voting on expectation, not on actual.
If I vote for Taylor then I have a mild case.
I cannot vote for a draw.
And the case that tips it for Taylor is that his WSC win was uniquely iconic. It would not be unreasonalbe to argue that Taylor's win had a huge influnce on the class of 92, who would hav been 9/10 years old at the time. To be at that age at that time, within the hysteria of the 85 final, could well have been that 'excitment' factor which really helped shove those class of '92s on their way. You could even make the argument that there would be no Ronnie without Taylor, he could well have ended up playing full-back or whatever for Deadbeat Rovers FC or whatever.
Now, that's a little speculative what-if there at the end, but it's just icing on a cake that had already just been marginally marzipaned with Taylor's name on it.
The idea that this vote was 'automatically Trumps' and the responses herein is something that I find as equally bizzare as Pink found bizzare with the Hunter vote. But then he's a Robertson fan and rates him a top 10 all-timer. I don't even personally rate Taylor beyond acknowledging him as
a true great of the game.
He didn't help his own cause by always speaking of himaelf in a very depricating manner. He was one of those players who always acted surprised whenever he won a match and would always rate everyone else over himself. However, this is just how a lot of people back then were. You could see very clearly, as soon as he hit that snooker table, he was an even fiercer commpetitor than Ebdon.
Nexy year, maybe. But not yet for Trump IMO.
And, yes, I wanted to make this post when is was 9-9. I think people should have left it as a draw.
It always can be a good idea just trying to relax a bit while playing snooker. Perhaps a few then. In that way "the law of constant change" is always there. Things won´t get too complicated or boring, and the sheer joy of the game can easily flourish.
