PAUL COLLIER will say goodbye to the snooker referee on Monday evening – and he prays it will be less eventful than his first world final.
The Welshman has the honor of being in the middle of the table Kyren Wilson and Jak Jones battle it out over two days for the top prize of £500,000.
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This is his fourth top-level final, but his first in 2004 was famously interrupted by a male STREAKER before the fourth and final session.
Some hairy guy jumped out of the crowd, took off his shirt and pants, and then tried to hide under the table before being led away by security.
Collier, 53, recalled: “I was the youngest referee of a world final That was quite an experience for me at the time.
“I had never done one-table before and normally everyone does a semi-final and then a final, but I got straight into the final.
'I've seen bits of it again. It was a shame because this was the year we had the streaker and that idiot came out of the crowd.
“I'm focused and ready for the last session of the final and this guy is crawling around naked under the table.
“If you look at it, I hit him with the rest while we were trying to get him out from under it.
“It broke the atmosphere. You don't expect that. It would be nice not to have one this time!”
Collier will chorus low-level Q School competitions Leicester this month but will then hang up his gloves and black tie for good to become a global tournament director Snooker Tour.
Between 2005 and 2011 he took a break from the sport, disillusioned with the regulators of the day, and ran a snooker club in his home town, sold cars and bought a cafe.
Off-the-baize it has been a difficult few years as mother Shirley passed away in 2021.
And then he had to give emergency resuscitation to his wife, his “beloved dragon,” when her heart stopped during a dinner party – thankfully she's doing well these days.
Just like in football, a good referee is one you hardly notice because he hasn't made a mistake or become the main topic of conversation.
Yet Collier, who can spend more time with his grandchildren, 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 called.
“I called it like I saw it and after twenty repetitions it turned out I was wrong.
“It was said at the time: 'can you watch the replay?'
“What people don't realize is that we don't have that technology yet.
“If the TV company can queue it up in time, you end up watching it through one of the viewfinders of the floor cameras. You can't always say that, you don't know.
“My opinion is: why do you want to stop the game for four or five minutes and you might not get an answer?
“It's not that I didn't see it, I saw it. I've made a decision. On second thought, I was wrong.
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“I'm not big football fan. I follow rugby union, which TMO has. That frustrates me immensely because it takes so long.
“When you're at the game, you don't know what's happening for the amount of time because you don't have an earpiece and you can't listen to it.
“I would like to stay away from it in snooker. But it's annoying when you get it wrong.”