Snooker Mavericks

The first programme, Snooker Mavericks, explores how the sport was in danger of becoming a forgotten pastime until a young man from Northern Ireland - Alex ‘Hurricane' Higgins - rocked the status quo and pushed the sport into the mainstream.

With a fast and furious style of play on the table and an attitude to match, the self-proclaimed ‘Muhammad Ali of snooker' made headline news on the front and back pages. The first ‘people's champion' of the game, Higgins opened the door to the snooker boom of the ‘80s when players were treated like rock stars, which climaxed as 19 million tuned into the 1985 World Championship final.

He was followed by the likes of Jimmy White and Ronnie O'Sullivan, who proceeded to dominate column inches for years for their entertaining styles of play and for their personal lives.

But for every hero there has to be a villain, and in Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry the game delivered the perfect antidotes to the maverick players. When the likes of Higgins, White and O'Sullivan came head to head with the two most successful players in the history of the sport, the game became a must-watch for fans.

With many of those personalities long since retired, the programme asks if the game needs a new Hurricane - to blow it back to where it once belonged.