Player Popularity Contest 2009
Look, we know that professional sport is not a popularity contest and every sportsman or woman would sacrifice being popular for being successful.
But surely, you can have both, and while snooker's elite are enjoying a well-earned break away from the green-baize, we thought we'd run our own ranking tournament on Global-Snooker.
We looked at the phenomenon that is, Facebook. We searched for the top-20 players, a few legends and a couple of random, 'wild-cards' and compared their support level on the social-networking site.
And, from the results we produced snooker's alternative top-32...
|
Rank |
Player |
Country |
Fans |
|
1 |
England |
47752 | |
|
2 |
England |
8158 | |
|
3 |
Scotland |
1974 | |
|
4 |
Scotland |
1756 | |
|
5 |
Australia |
956 | |
|
6 |
England |
925 | |
|
7 |
Hong Kong |
889 | |
|
8 |
England |
717 | |
|
9 |
Rep. Ireland |
376 | |
|
10 |
N. Ireland |
360 | |
|
11 |
England |
325 | |
|
12 |
England |
321 | |
|
13 |
England |
305 | |
|
14 |
England |
249 | |
|
15 |
England |
249 | |
|
16 |
Jamie Cope Eng |
England |
247 |
|
17 |
Wales |
239 | |
|
18 |
PR China |
225 | |
|
19 |
England |
200 | |
|
20 |
Willie Thorne |
England |
185 |
|
21 |
Wales |
177 | |
|
22 |
Scotland |
153 | |
|
23 |
Wales |
116 | |
|
24 |
John Virgo |
England |
99 |
|
25 |
N. Ireland |
85 | |
|
26 |
PR China |
80 | |
|
27 |
England |
39 | |
|
28 |
England |
37 | |
|
29 |
N. Ireland |
35 | |
|
30 |
England |
26 | |
|
31 |
N. Ireland |
1 | |
|
32 |
England |
0 |
No surprise there then. We're sure that you would have all wagered a small amount on The Rocket topping the popularity charts. We do find it 'INTERESTING' though that six-times world champion and all-round funny guy, Steve Davis is languishing in 19th place.
Spare a thought for the Mark's (King and Allen) who between them on Facebook can only muster one fan.
A special mention must also go to Cliff Thorburn and Michaela Tabb.
The Grinder has a group set up in his name, "Cliff Thorburn for Prime Minister, with a link to his 1983 maximum break and a footnote, "I'd like to see Gordon Brown try this..."
And after her first world final, Michaela would beat Neil Robertson into fifth spot if we were looking outside of players.
We then thought it would be a great idea to see how our snooker players compared with other sports. We took leading players from various sports and compared them with snooker's top two and here is what we found...
|
Rank |
Player |
Country |
Sport |
Fans |
|
1 |
Roger Federer |
Switzerland |
Tennis |
1,380,537 |
|
2 |
Lewis Hamilton |
England |
F1 |
377,143 |
|
3 |
Tiger Woods |
USA |
Golf |
353,665 |
|
4 |
England |
Snooker |
47,752 | |
|
5 |
Phil Taylor |
England |
Darts |
23,056 |
|
6 |
Andy Murray |
Scotland |
Tennis |
21,197 |
|
7 |
Jenson Button |
England |
F1 |
20,467 |
|
8 |
England |
Snooker |
8,158 | |
|
9 |
Raymond Van Barneveld |
Holland |
Darts |
1,984 |
|
10 |
Paul Casey |
England |
Golf |
335 |
Now that is interesting! Federer hammers Woods, and maybe a shot in the arm for snooker over darts. Snooker's number one and two prove to be considerably more popular than their darting counterparts.
Your favourite player needs you...(especially if he is King or Allen!). So get on there and show your support, and while you are there, come and say hi at the Global-Snooker Group...
Information correct at - 26th May, 2009
