PAUL COLLIER says farewell to snooker refereeing on Monday night – and he is praying it is less eventful than his first world final.
The Welshman has the honour of being in the middle as Kyren Wilson and Jak Jones battle it out over two days for the £500,000 top prize.
Referee Paul Collier stands behind Ronnie O’Sullivan and Graeme Dott ahead of the Embassy World Snooker final
A streaker was a nuisance for Collier before the fourth and final session
This is his fourth final at the highest level but his first in 2004 was famously interrupted by a male STREAKER before the fourth and final session.
Some hairy-a***d bloke jumped out of the crowd, whipped off his shirt and trousers and then tried to hide under the table before being escorted away by security.
Collier, 53, recalled: “I was the youngest referee of a world final at the time, it was quite an experience for me.
“I’d never done the one-table before and normally everybody does a semi-final then a final, but I was straight into a final.
“I’ve seen bits of it back. It was unfortunate because it was the year we had the streaker and that idiot came out of the crowd.
“I’m focused ready for the last session of the final and this bloke’s crawling round naked under the table.
“If you look at it I’ve hit him with the rest as we’re trying to get him out from underneath.
“It broke the atmosphere. You don’t expect that. It would be nice not to have one this time!”
Collier will ref low-level Q School matches in Leicester this month but then hangs up his gloves and black tie for good to become a tournament director on the World Snooker Tour.
Between 2005 and 2011, he took a break from the sport, disillusioned by the then rulemakers, and he ran a snooker club in his home town, sold cars and bought a café.
Off-the-baize, it has been a difficult couple of years with mum Shirley dying in 2021.
And then he had to give his wife, his “beloved Dragon”, emergency CPR when her heart stopped at a dinner party – thankfully she is okay these days.
Like in football, a good ref is one you barely notice because they have not made a mistake or become the main talking point.
Yet Collier, who can spend more time with his grandkids, does not want VAR to become a mainstay in the sport.
The Newport-based official, who oversaw Mark Selby’s triumphs in 2016 and 2021, said: “I was on the wrong end of one of these calls at the Tour Championship when Gary Wilson was playing and I made a call.
“I called it as I’d seen it and it turned out after 20 replays I’d got it wrong.
“It was raised at the time, ‘can you look at the replay?’
“What people don’t realise is we don’t have that technology yet.
“If the TV company can queue it up in time, you end up watching it on one of the floor cameras viewfinders. You can’t always tell on that, you don’t know.
“My view is why do you want to stop play for four or five minutes and you might not get an answer anyway.
“It’s not like I didn’t see it, I saw it. I made a decision. On reflection I got it wrong.
Paul Collier says his goodbyes to the Crucible before the World Snooker Championship final
“I’m not a big football fan. I follow rugby union, which has TMO. That frustrates the hell out of me because it takes so long.
“When you’re at the game, the amount of time you don’t know what’s happening because you haven’t got an earpiece and can’t listen to it.
“I’d like to stay away from it in snooker. But it’s gutting when you get it wrong.”