With Mick and Dud downstairs at the bar, Pete took his turn gaining himself four more points by potting a red and then a green but missing the next red. It was my turn.

Feeling lousy as hell from a late night, a hangover and a feverish head-cold, I took aim at a red ball, some ten feet away down the long table, already conceding the game mentally. The cue ball travelled slowly towards the red, glanced it and sent it into the left-hand corner pocket, some 18 inches from where it had been standing. Just lucky, I thought to myself.

Then I potted a blue, followed by another red, followed by a brown. Dazed by my success, I missed the next red but had added a further 10 points to our score.

As Mick and Dud had obviously been delayed at the now crowded bar, Pete took Dud’s turn and missed an easy red, probably stunned by my sudden change in performance.

Taking Mick’s turn, I jumped on the easy red and then potted another colour, can’t remember the details from this point. It was like a blur. What was really baffling was that some of my pots were not easy ones, some were long distance and would have required the skills of a professional to undertake.

Suffice to say that by the time Mick and Dud had returned with our drinks, I had, in between bouts of sneezing and nose blowing, cleared the table of reds and was now working my way through the order of colour balls. I was astounded; it was like being possessed by the spirit of the great Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, a world champion at this time.

Mick and Dud were incredulous as they looked at the scoreboard. Dud took his turn and potted a few, equalling up their lost lead that I had so amazingly demolished in what must have amounted to about ten minutes of their absence from the game.

Now the pressure was on.

Having missed his pot, Mick gave the table over to Pete, who potted the blue but missed the penultimate pink ball.

In order to win this game, I calculated, in my fuzzy state, that I simply had to pot this pink and then the black. This I did without even thinking about it. I had won by two clear points!

As Pete and Dud stared at one another in sheer disbelief, Mick gave me a wide grin and words of congratulations and we headed back down to the bar to celebrate this strange turn of events.

I remember reading an article in the Reader’s Digest about this phenomenon and I had experienced it sometimes on a tennis court, but nothing had ever come close to this strange baffling wonder on the snooker table that summer lunchtime. Needless to say, this story was the “talk” of the club for some years afterwards.

If anyone has had this happen to themselves or can offer an explanation, I would be grateful for your comments.

And if you have been, thanks for reading.