Ann-Marie Farren

Ann-Marie Farren (born 29 August 1971)

Biography

Farren started playing aged seven, on a 4 ft by 2 ft snooker table that her father Hugh bought her. She left Chilwell Comprehensive School with one O-level, having prioritized snooker above her studies, and went into snooker as a career. She prepared for the 1987 world championship by practicing on a £4,000 table her father installed for her in a specially built room in the garden.

56 players participated in the 1987 tournament. Farren progressed through to the final, where she played Stacey Hillyard. Farren achieved a 5–1 victory to take the prize of £3,500 and the trophy, plus a double magnum of champagne that she was not old enough to drink, being only 16 years and 48 days old at the time. She was the second-youngest champion, the youngest being her beaten opponent Hillyard, who had won at the age of 15 in 1984.

Farren once modelled waistcoats alongside 1985 World champion Dennis Taylor on The Clothes Show.