It is hard enough mastering side in the first place, and Doug's method made it that much more difficult because big allowances had to be made with each shot as the cue ball went even further off line. It certainly didn't help consistency, but it did show how much natural ability he possessed to have got away with a method like that for so long.

When I first discussed Doug's problems with him, I also realized he didn't know which was his master eye. I knew it was the right eye, yet he was playing with his left eye over the cue. At first I got Doug to play shots as he always had over the years. Then I showed him how I wanted him to play them. He couldn't believe it when the balls started going the way he wanted. The fact that his left eye had been over the cue instead of the right eye was the reason why he wasn't middling the cue ball when he thought he was.

Fortunately, Doug was a willing pupil. He was prepared to put in a lot of hard work.

After all, everything had to come from him once he knew what to work on. The World Championship that year (1988) was his first opportunity to test out the new methods, which he realized would take time to develop. He won his first match against Barry West, 10- 6, then lost 13-1 to Neal Foulds. The match report in Snooker Scene said: 'Under pressure he was undone by having to concentrate on technique rather than what he was trying to do with it.'

Unfortunately, it does take time for new methods to become internalised so that all your concentration is free for the game. Doug never expected to do anything in the World Championship, but it was a start and throughout the summer he visited me three or four times as I set about knocking his game into shape. I could see he was going the right way at the practice table and, to help him progress with a new action, he played in a handful of pro-ams, reaching the final in one of them.

It takes courage to stick to a new method when you're getting hammered into the ground, as Doug was by Neal Foulds, or to risk your reputation at events in which top players don't normally play, but you have to expose your technique to the strains and stresses of matchplay because, in the end, this is what matters.

Practice was concentrated on the drill, and this is what the new action was all about. It surprised me really that he had coped so well with it having played along completely different lines for thirty-odd years. To change from something which had come naturally to him was very hard. More>>>>>.