World Snooker have today announced that Sheffield’s Brendan Moore will this year take charge of his first World Championship final at the Crucible Theatre.
Having risen through the ranks since his first professional tournament at the 2005 Grand Prix qualifiers, Brendan first refereed at the venue stage of the World Championship for the first time in 2008.
Since then, he has gone on to take charge of several big matches at the tournament, including the thrilling second round match between Stephen Hendry and Ding Junhui in 2009, as well as his first semi-final between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Matthew Stevens back in 2012.
This year however, Brendan will fulfil a lifelong dream by stepping out to take charge of the Crucible final in his home town for the first time in his career.
While most of us hope that the tournament will remain in Sheffield for many years, the possibility that the tournament may one day move to China remains and I am sure that Brendan will be delighted to have refereed the final there at least once in his career before that happens.
I am especially pleased for him because as well as being one of the best in the business (and he very much is), he was one of, if not the first person from the snooker world to take an interest in this blog and help me out with bits for the referees pages.
Hopefully he will have a final to remember…