Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy have snooker's longest-running feud that will 'never be resolved'

Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy have snooker’s longest-running feud that will never be resolved.

20 years ago, Maguire and Murphy met at the Grand Prix but there was controversy ahead of their match.

Maguire was docked a frame after he forgot his chalk, which meant the match had to start later than the scheduled time.

At the time, many speculated Murphy was behind the decision after he was spotted chatting to the referee.

Speaking ahead of their match-up at the snooker World Championship, Murphy again insisted he had nothing to do with the incident and also hinted why their feud has not been resolved.

He said: “People still think that I had him docked a frame for forgetting his chalk, which isn’t the case. The tournament director docked him a frame for forgetting his chalk, because he forced the match to start late.

“It wasn’t the referee, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t anyone else. People saw me and the referee talking and assumed I had him docked a frame. I perhaps should have sat in my chair and said nothing, I was guilty of talking to the referee.”

Murphy continued: “It looked as if I said A, B and C and that led to X, Y and Z, but it’s not the case.

“There are more cameras and microphones around so it would have been much clearer what I actually did say and we wouldn’t have had this non-issue for 20 years. It’s always brought up, he hasn’t forgotten his chalk since and he will probably have it when we play as well.”

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Reflecting on their careers, Murphy said: “We’ve been putting on good shows since we were 10 years of age. He was Scottish number one, I was English number one and we’ve been knocking hell out of each other for a long, long time.

“He was one of the dangermen coming from the qualifiers. He was one of the grenades everybody wanted to miss.”

The Englishman added: “In some ways people overlook Stephen Maguire because he hasn’t won here, hasn’t won the Masters and because his UK win was so long ago they forget how good he is.

“Ronnie O’Sullivan tipped him to go on and dominate the game when he played here many moons ago and that hasn’t happened. On his day he will beat and demolish everybody, not just beat them but trounce them into the ground in any tournament.

“We’re very different, we’re different people and different blokes. But isn’t that what makes snooker so interesting. It’s the tapestry of life, everyone’s different.”