Honoured with an OBE, snooker ace Shaun Murphy wishes his friend John Virgo was still here to share his news. He loved joining the hugely popular snooker player and broadcaster, who died suddenly in February, in the commentary box. Shaun, 43, laughs: “We used to share an egg custard together in the commentary box at the Crucible. At Wimbledon they’re having Champagne, but in snooker we were sharing egg custard from the bakery opposite the stage door.”
As he celebrates his honour, for services to snooker and charity, he reflects on the kindness John – or JV – showed him, before his death from a ruptured aorta, aged 79. He says: “John was always so free with his time and always had a cheeky story to tell. He was great at putting his arm around you when you’d lost.”
The last time he saw John in January, he’d just lost 6-2 to China’s Wu Yize at Alexandra Palace and was out of the Masters. Seeded to play in the Shanghai Masters next month, he says: “I was sick after the match and had just cleared out of the dressing room – my hopes and dreams in a bag. I walked through the players’ lounge and JV was sitting there. He said, ‘unlucky there, son’.
9View 9 ImagesShaun has just been honoured with an OBE for services to snooker and charity(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
9View 9 ImagesShaun Murphy in his snooker room at home in Formby(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
“It was brief, I had to go to beat the traffic, but we did the, ‘Hope you’re ok, love to Rosie [John’s widow], see you later JV’. I had no concept that would be the last time we’d ever see him. It’s horrific really, absolutely horrific.”
Shaun, who co-parents his children, Harry, nine, and Molly, seven, with Ireland-based second wife Elaine O’Reilly, since their amicable split in 2023, got engaged last year to pianist Jo Rochell, 37. Dubbed ‘The Magician” after winning the snooker world championships in 2005, aged just 22, last year he won the Masters and the British Open.
Speaking at the impressive home he shares in Formby, Merseyside, with Jo and their chocolate Labrador, Elton, he still hopes to become world champion again. Shaun, who came second in the world championships in May, says: “I still feel in my prime and can’t wait to see what’s to come. On my bucket list? To be world number one. Watch this space…”
View 9 ImagesA very young Shaun Murphy playing snooker at home(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Looking forward to launching a ‘part romance/part sport’ podcast with Jo called Cleaning the Table, Shaun – who has not yet set a wedding date – has had an extraordinary life. And it’s Dr. Martens – the iconic British shoemaker – combined with a precocious knowledge of the antiques market, that he thanks for his success.
For, aged 13, Dr. Martens sponsored him, buying him the snooker table from the Big Break TV show set and paying for an extension to the family home in Irthlingborough, Northants. – not far from their factory – to house it. Shaun says: “It was a sliding doors moment. And the start of things getting big. At 13, they invited me to a store opening with Madonna. She must have thought, ‘who on Earth is this child on stage with me?’”
If she’d heard his backstory, the singer would probably have been fascinated. For, while most boys his age were perusing The Hardy Boys books, or Roald Dahl’s The BFG, his bedtime reading was the Miller’s Antiques guide. Shaun, who first picked up a snooker cue, aged eight, explains: “We had nothing. My family, my mum and dad [Tony and Jean] went through extremely bad financial times in the mid to late 80s, lost everything they had. We lived in a little house, had a white van and survived by doing car boot sales and house clearances.
9View 9 ImagesA young Shaun Murphy with snooker legend Willie Thorne(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
9View 9 ImagesA young Shaun Murphy with Steve Davis at Madame Tussauds(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
“If we weren’t playing snooker, we were emptying somebody’s house. That led us to antique fairs and car boot sales, and the money we earned at those bought. My dad was a bit of a wheeler dealer. Him, my mum and I used to sit there and study. That [Miller’s Antique guide] was my night bedtime reading.”
They hoped they would recognise something of value if the owner of the house they cleared was deceased. He adds: “We would then turn that into some money at auction.”
Realising the value of their son’s snooker gift, Shaun’s parents also put it to good use. Shaun continues: “Any money we had spare paid an entry fee for me to play in a junior tournament. The money I won paid the rent on the house. The winner sometimes got up to £500. Losing wasn’t an option. We couldn’t afford to lose. My parents got me a battered, scaled down snooker table, under which my mum strung a bedsheet to catch the balls, because it had no nets.”
But this tough childhood gave him the resilience to weather professional sport. He says: “Snooker was a tough place in the early days – clubs were quite frightening for a young child. The sport has cleaned up its act.”
View 9 ImagesClearing the Table: a new podcast coming soon by Shaun and Jo
Aged 10, Shaun was nearly snookered by his own success, after the Rushden Embassy Snooker Club tried to ban him from playing – a decision that was overturned – because he kept winning. He says: “These grown men tried to snooker me! That money was the difference between us paying the rent or not.
“They [the snooker club] invited me to their grand reopening a while back, and telling them where to go was one of the best moments of my life. That, and buying a Mercedes Benz after winning the World Championship. I’d previously worked in the dealership selling them. I walked back in and bought one.”
Shaun’s tricky childhood left him with a complex relationship with his own parents and he”s determined to bring his children up differently. He says: “It’s difficult because, obviously, I’m parenting from a distance – across the Irish Sea – but I’m open and honest in a way that was never allowed in my house growing up. I’m so proud of my kids. Harry loves to play snooker – I just bought him a table. And Molly loves to be a referee. They’re a great team.”
View 9 ImagesShaun and Jo met online, after he slid into her DMs on social media to ask about her piano playing(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Jo, a Yorkshirewoman with a cupboard devoted to tea, who met after Shaun after he sent her a message on social media about her music and booked her to play piano at a party, says they have discussed having children, adding: “They’re not on the radar just yet. We love our life together – it’s perfect – and we don’t need anything to change.”
Shaun proposed on one knee in their kitchen last year and she accepted, saying: “He makes a great cup of tea.” Shaun, who finally tackled a lifelong weight problem in 2022, by having a gastric sleeve operation to remove 80% of his stomach, feels the future is full of promise.
Describing his relationship with food before surgery as “pretty self destructive,” he says: “I couldn’t reach across the table, my stomach got in the way. People would body shame me in comments online, which made me feel worse. At my heaviest, I was pushing 21 stone.”
Trying and failing endless diets, he adds: “The gastric sleeve worked – I wish I’d had it 20 years ago. It’s saved my life.” Shaun, who runs a popular YouTube channel – Shaun Murphy Snooker – stopped commentating for the BBC in April over a contractual dispute, but still provides regular commentary for Eurosport and discovery+.
View 9 ImagesPress cutting (left), about a petition (right), to stop 10 year old Shaun Murphy from playing snooker as he was beating everybody(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
And he is looking forward to adding his OBE to his already packed trophy cabinet. Recalling the day the letter arrived, informing him about the honour, he says: “When an envelope arrives with ‘His Majesty’s Service’ on it, you’re either going to the Palace or to prison… so I’m pleased it wasn’t the latter.”
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In the immediate future, Shaun and Jo have their podcast to launch. He says: “The idea behind the podcast is that we’ll bring something that has irritated us that week to chat about.” Jo jokes: “It’s going to be a long list – the podcast will take hours!”