Frank Callan

Frank Callan ( 1923 – 2016) was a fishmonger who became known as a snooker coach to leading players including Steve Davis, Terry Griffiths, John Parrott, Allison Fisher, Doug Mountjoy and Stephen Hendry. He took up snooker as a youngster, but did not play for about ten years after joining the army in 1940, after which he resumed the game and won some local tournaments.

Callan took an interest in the mechanics of snooker, and started coaching in the 1970s. He disagreed with the prescriptive techniques of Joe Davis and Billiards and Snooker Control Council chief coach Jack Karnehm, and argued that techniques should be tailored to players. He advocated the use of a standard routine for each shot. Steve Davis worked with Callan from the late 1970s, and won six World Snooker Championships in the 1980s. In 1989, Mountjoy became the only player apart from Steve Davis to win successive ranking titles. Callan was acknowledged as the leading snooker coach of his time by Snooker Scene magazine and in The Times. His book Frank Callan's Snooker Clinic, subtitled Snooker – the Modern Way, co-authored by John Dee, was published in 1989 by Partridge Press.

Early life and career Callan, born 1923 was a fish merchant. Having played snooker as a youth, he joined the army in 1940, and did not play the game again until he was 27. He made his first century break when he was 32.

Callan won the Fleetwood and District Amateur Snooker Championship in 1950, the first time he entered the competition. The following year, he lost in the quarter-finals, and in 1952 his quarter-final opponent was awarded a walkover when Callan opted to play in a Fylde championship match scheduled for the same night. In October 1952, receiving a 21-point start in each , he lost 1–4 to Joe Davis in a match staged for charity. Callan regained the Fleetwood and District title in 1953, and retained it in 1954. His most notable tournament victory was the North West [of England] Amateur Championship. Callan advocated using a long backswing when using a cue, with a pause before striking the ball during which the player should focus on the rather than the . Callan worked with Davis after they met at the Commonwealth Sporting Club in Blackpool in the late 1970s; Callan was impressed that Davis was researching the quality of the various tables at the club before playing in a competition there. Davis would go on to win the World Snooker Championship six times between 1981 and 1989. Hendry won seven world titles between 1990 and 1999, and Parrott was champion in 1991. After winning the UK title, Mountjoy said "Without Frank Callan, I would be nothing".

Callan, who Snooker Scene magazine described at the time as "long recognised by professionals as snooker's leading coach", committed to work only with players managed by Ian Doyle's Cuemasters company, including Hendry, for the 1991–92 snooker season. Hendry stopped working with Callan from the end of the 1997–98 snooker season until February 1999. After winning a record seventh World Snooker Championship in May 1999, Hendry acknowledged Callan's help, saying "I've had help from all kinds of people this season but he is the man for me. He knows my game inside out ... There have been times in matches here where I've not played well but then gone into the interval and Frank has said one thing and it's made all the difference." In The Times, Phil Yates wrote that "transformation" was due to the revival of his coaching partnership with Callan.

Burn wrote that "Anybody less guru-like than Frank Callan... it is difficult to imagine." He described Callan as "Dour, cantankerous, impatient and blunt". Callan had failed the Billiards and Snooker Control Council (B&SCC) coaching course in 1980, and publicly disagreed with the B&SCC chief coach Jack Karnehm, who he felt tried to prescribe a single rather than a tailored approach to good technique. In 1990, Steve Acteson wrote in The Times that "If the leading players were asked to select the greatest coach in the game, they would invariably nominate Frank Callan." Everton called Callan "the father of modern coaching".