| Rex Williams was a
brilliant junior who, like many of his generation, was at his
best when snooker was at its lowest ebb in the late 1950s and
early 1960s. He was probably better at billiards than snooker
but played a major part in bringing the latter back to popularity
and in forming the WPBSA.
By the age of 15 Rex won the National Under-16 titles in
both billiards and snooker and repeated the feat in 1949.
In 1950 he was under-19 billiards champion winning the snooker
version the following year along with the English Amateur
title. At 17 he was the youngest winner of that title until
Jimmy White in 1979.
In 1951, at the age of 18, he turned professional, but both
games were starting to decline and there were only a handful
of professionals which meant he had to rely on exhibitions
to earn a living.
From 1952 the official world championship was not held but
Rex competed in the Professional Matchplay championship, which
was regarded by most as the world championship, on five occasions
but each time lost his opening match. No world championships
of any sort were held between 1958 and 1963 but Rex was determined
to bring back the event and it was largely due to him that
the title was revived, albeit on a challenge basis, in 1964.
He challenged John Pulman for the title both in 1964 and 1965
but was unsuccessful on both occasions.
In 1968 he was responsible for reviving the defunct Professional
Billiards Players Association which was renamed the World
Professional Billiards & Snooker Association and this
resulted in the revival of the world billiards championship
and for the snooker equivalent reverting to a knock-out format.
Rex won that 1968 world billiards title and retained it until
1980 but he only reached the semi-final of the first new style
world snooker championship in 1969. He repeated that effort
in both 1972 and 1974 but that would prove to be the best
he managed in that event.
By the early 1980s he was finding it harder to compete at
the top level and by the end of the 1984/5 season had dropped
to 27th in the rankings but then he had a bit of a revival
with some good finishes including one semi-final and in the
following season he became the oldest ever ranking finalist
at 53 when he lost to Jimmy White in the Grand Prix final.
That was his last real success although he continued on the
tout until 1993/94.
He has much greater success at billiards, winning the world
title on seven occasions between 1969 and 1984, five of which
were on a challenge basis, and the UK title twice.
As an administrator, Rex was chairman of the WPBSA from its
revival until 1987 during which time it became the governing
body of the professional game and began promoting all the
ranking events. After a gap of some ten years, he returned
to chair the association in 1997 but this time his tenure
was dogged by controversy and he was replaced in 1999.
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