As one of the Triple Crown events, the UK Championship is the first of the majors that take place in the snooker calendar. With an enormous Masters-level £200,000 available to the winner this year, let’s find out about one of snookers oldest tournaments.

The UK Championship was established in 1977 and held in Blackpool for its initial staging. It was later held in Preston up until 1997 where the tournament was then transferred to Bournemouth for a few years before naming its home at the Barbican Centre in York since 2001 (Side note: Telford held the UK Championship for a few years from 2007-10).

The inaugural tournament was won by Patsy Fagan with a victory over Doug Mountjoy and the historic championship has been won by all the big names you could probably think of. Literally, if you can think of them, they have probably won it. Notable UK finals include 1983 (A. Higgins and Davis), 1993 (O’Sullivan becomes youngest winner), 2011 (Trump) and 2018 (O’Sullivan overtakes Davis and Hendry).

Funnily enough, the UKC wasn’t always a ranking event. The first seven iterations, up until 1983 were non-ranking and only British residents were allowed to enter. It was in 1984 when the UKC became classed as a ranking event which all players were allowed to enter. It then became the second highest ranking event before the International and China Championships were introduced.

Also, this major was formerly contested over a longer duration. We’re used to seeing the finals of the UKC fought in a best-of-19 (first to 10) matchup. However, in the 1980s and early 90s, the finals would be played over a best-of-31 (first to 16).

Interestingly, all UK titles since 2012 have been won by either Robertson, Selby or O’Sullivan. Although, with the way things are going (this is written in August just after Trump’s International Championship win) this sentence may have to be amended to ‘all UK titles since 2011 have been won by either Trump, Robertson, Selby or O’Sullivan’.