Joe Swail may be one of Northern Ireland’s greatest ever players, but he is unlikely to be watching the snooker in Belfast over the coming days as the competitive itch becomes unbearable and impossible to scratch.
The Outlaw had nearly 30 years on the professional circuit, reaching two World Championship semi-finals, a Welsh Open final and a high of number 10 in the world rankings, but never getting his hands on a big ranking title.
He retired in 2019 after health issues had contributed to declining performance but, while he is still follows the sport, he cannot bring himself to go and watch it, even if the Northern Ireland Open is on his doorstep this week at the Waterfront Hall.
‘I watch it on TV and catch up with my old snooker pals, but I have no real interest in going and sitting in the auditorium to watch snooker, because you want to be there. And the fact that you’re not there, it’s like something’s missing. So I choose not to go to it,’ Swail told Metro.
‘However, I did go to the last session of the final last year, with Jack Lisowski and Judd Trump, and that was a fantastic atmosphere. But, I’ve no real interest in going and sitting in the auditorium.
‘No, no, it doesn’t [leave you], to be honest with you. Don’t get me wrong, I love the game, but the competitive side is still there. It’s not as if I can just turn off a switch and that’s it. You just move on and deal with what’s ahead of you.’
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The Waterfront Hall was the scene of one of Swail’s more memorable wins, as he downed Ronnie O’Sullivan in the last 16 of the 2005 Northern Ireland Trophy in front of his home crowd.
‘Yeah, that was very, very special because obviously he is who he is, you know what I mean?’ Swail said. ‘And to beat him in front of my own crowd, it was very, very special. Great memory.
‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great venue, but I just cannot go in and watch snooker! It’s still burning inside me. Even though I’m out of it now and I’m in a far, far happier place.’
The 57-year-old was not a good place in the latter stages of his pro career, suffering from depression that he has thankfully conquered since hanging up his cue.
Explaining the extremely difficult time, he said: ‘I just lost control of myself, because obviously I wasn’t getting the results, money was very, very scarce and a mortgage, bills to pay and everything gets on top of you, everything accumulates, and that did set in.
‘Now I’m out of it, I get to my own bed at night and it’s great. You do what you want to do. You coach whoever you want to coach. You go wherever you want to go. Looking back, snooker always told you what to do. If you’re playing at 10 o’clock in the morning, you’ve got to be there at 10 o’clock in the morning. Whereas now, it’s the other way about, you do what you want to do and that’s all lifted now. The depression has lifted. You’re able to take stock of your life and decide what’s best for you and your family.
‘My brother, he’s completely deaf and has a lot of mental issues. And my dad died in 2018, so he needed someone to look after him, so I’m more or less his carer. So everything just happens for a reason. Family and friends are the most important thing. Snooker is just a job, a hobby, and I’ve got to take stock of where I was and what I’ve become now.’
The end of Swail’s playing days may have been testing, to say the least, but he looks back with great fondness on his career as a whole.
‘Oh yeah, great memories and storytelling and loving life,’ he said. ‘It took me a couple of years to get out of the bubble, but once I got out of it and then I’m able to reflect, I did all right and I had a lot of good times. I burnt the candle at both ends and I probably should have done better, but I’ve no regrets. I had a great time, met some brilliant people, been to some wonderful countries, and it’s just been brilliant.
‘If I were to do it all again, would I change? No. Because that’s just the way I am, you know what I mean?’
Perhaps the Outlaw enjoying himself too much cost him more success on the table, but he also felt it was down to motivation as he got too comfortable in the good times and only put the really hard work in when things got a bit desperate.
His one ranking final, at the 2009 Welsh Open was a surprise success, some years after his other standout runs. But a shock result is no shock to Swail.
‘To be honest, my whole career I’ve always come out of nowhere. If you’ve seen the rankings all through my career, it’s always hit the top and then all of a sudden you’re outside the top 32 and then you’re back in again.
‘The Welsh Open was just a typical example when I got to the final out of nowhere. The bottom line is, if I feel as if I’m struggling, I’ll get my head down. If I’m skint, I’ll get my head down. If I feel like I’m playing all right, I’ll not practice. If I’ve got a few quid in the bank, I’ll not practice, and then everything suffers.
‘That’s why my rankings were always up and down like a yo-yo. That’s a reason why I probably got to the Welsh Open final out of nowhere because nobody was expecting that. But that’s just the way I was and I have no regrets.’
Swail is still involved in the game, both in coaching and he will still get his cue out for local league action, but nothing more serious than that.
‘I’m doing a bit of coaching, and I play for a local team in the Belfast League on a Thursday night,’ he said. It’s only three frames but it keeps my arm in. I don’t mind going up the road and playing a league match, a few Guinness, bit of craic with the boys. I don’t mind that, but as for Seniors or local tournaments, all that sort of stuff, no, no, I’m glad to be out of it.
‘I’ve got my eyes done. That was another thing why I started getting rubbish, my eyes were starting to deteriorate. Two or three months ago I got a lens replacement, so it’s given me a wee bit of enthusiasm to play a wee bit more now because I can feel a lot better.
‘I’m coaching all different levels. There’s a young kid that I’m coaching at the minute, Joel Connolly, he’s got a lot of talent and he’s got time on his side, and it all depends how much he wants it.
‘It’s becoming a lot more difficult than it was whenever I came onto the scene. It’s just so, so tough. Whenever I came into the game, there was only maybe, 20-25 players that could really, really beat each other. But now you can get anybody beating anybody, it’s frightening!
‘The good thing is that Joel practises with the likes of Jordan [Brown], Aaron Hill, Robbie McGuigan and Mark Allen, so he’s in a good environment. But it’s up to him how far he wants to go.’
Swail was a very popular player on the circuit and retains that popularity in retirement, even if he can’t be tempted down to the Waterfront next week.
‘If I had a stuck at it, had been a lot more dedicated, I definitely would have done a lot more damage,’ he reflects. ‘But no regrets because I’ve always been happy go lucky and probably enjoyed my life too much, if you can do that. It’s all good.’