Cliff Thorburn

Former world number one Cliff Thorburn is a retired snooker player who has cultivated a career as a sports speaker appearing at snooker events and after dinner speaker functions around the world for more than twenty years. Beginning his career in his home country of Canada, Cliff Thorburn shot to fame in the late 1970s after he was advised by former champion and fellow snooker speaker John Spencer to take his talents to the UK. By 1977 Thorburn was already a runner-up for the World Championships and by 1980 held the title.

In the more recent years of his snooker career, Cliff was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2001 and has competed in the Snooker Legends Tour against the likes of Jimmy White, Alex Higgins and John Parrott.

In his work as a sports speaker, Cliff covers the broad topic of snooker, discussing the current state of the game, contemporary players and the outcome of upcoming matches. His own talent has provided him with an excellent eye and ability to critique the technique of other players as well as offer advice and ways to improve.

However, Cliff’s snooker speaker presentations also cover his own experience of the sport, his triumphs and the few failures he underwent during his impressive career, not to mention brilliant and entertaining anecdotes about some of the players and challenges he met during his time as a professional.

As well as working as a snooker speaker Cliff Thorburn will be remembered by many for his endorsement of the inter alia billiards equipment brand and for the infamous portrayal of himself as an after dinner speaker and corporate video presenter in Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge series.