Profile

Stephen "The Don" Donnelly was born of Frank and Helen on a misty day in Northern Ireland in 1821. He spent the next two centuries dressed in a flat cap, shorts and hand-me-down shoes scampering through the cobbled alleyways of Bangor, bringing home whatever he could earn through pick-pocketing, confidence tricks and, in later years, bare knuckle boxing.

Over the course of 3 months, wee Stephen was given an early introduction into the ways of love by approximately 24 brothel workers who were remarkably all red haired, didn't mind that the young scamp couldn't pay and were all secretly in love with him. He broke their hearts by setting off for 1990s England to seek his fortune with no more than his snooker cue, a packed lunch and a Crystal Tips and Alistair hair cut.

By then a young man, Don spent the next 4 years racing round the dreaming spires of Oxford on a rickety bicycle with his notes full of questionable maths. It was during this period that Don cultivated his now world famous "tongue of concentration"; a tell-tale sign that he was either thinking very hard or was possibly removing the marmalade still on his face from a rushed breakfast 2 hours earlier.

Away from the world of academia, Don was leading a double life as a promising amateur snooker player, hustling the locals in dingy billiard halls down the Cowley Road. Despite a promising career in IT, Stephen's head was turned by the money, adulation and drinking that followed him on the snooker circuit. With the sport become ever more popular, Don soon found himself playing tournaments in Denmark, the US and the Netherlands.

Unavoidably, the late nights and bars brought a string of short-lived affairs with fiery-tempered women. The lifestyle took its toll and when Stephen was knocked out of the Dutch Masters by a young pretender from Romford, he retired from the game, telling the WPBSA that "they could shove their red nipples of commercialism up their jacksie."

Stephen was last seen tending to goats on a Slovene mountain.