Thursday 8 January, 2009

Sport
Special Report

By Andrew Halloway

Snooker player Shaun Murphy won the UK Championships in a nail-biting last frame decider just before Christmas – but it is Jesus, the star of the Christian festival, who has become the focus of his life.

Shaun beat Marco Fu ten frames to nine by fluking the pink into the middle pocket. But it was the final reward for his tenacity in a hard-fought match, which he had led most of the way, and restored his ranking to third in the world.

His success has put paid to accusations that he is a one-hit wonder due to the fact that his only previous major tournament win was three years ago when he became World Snooker Champion at just 22. He has won one other ranking title, but by triumphing at the UK event he has joined an elite group of just ten players to have won both of the most prestigious titles in snooker.

“I was so pleased but I was also embarrassed,” says Murphy of his match-winning fluke. “I had not won a match all season, then suddenly I was at the business end of the tournament and when the pressure kicks in you can miss anything.”
Fu said he had been “lucky to be as close to winning as I was, so I am not upset by the fluke. The way I played, I can’t believe I won nine frames.”

Shaun became a Christian when he was a teenager. Looking back to the time before he made that decision, he says: “I was brought up in a God-fearing household, but in a very non-practising kind of way. I used to pray every night because my mum told me to, but churches were all a bit too quiet and sombre for me. I never really understood what it was all about.”

Shaun’s problem was his understanding of who God is: “I just thought God was like an old man with a big stick, so faith didn’t mean much to me.”

That all began to change after an encounter on holiday: “When I was 17, my parents divorced and my dad took me on our first holiday without mum. We went to Lanzarote, and there we met a British family who turned out to be Christians. We got really friendly with them, and the following summer I went to stay at their house in Weston-Super-Mare. I was just meant to stay for two weeks but ended up staying for three months! I really enjoyed being with them.

“They asked if I wanted to go to church with them. I said yes, out of politeness rather than interest, but to my surprise it was the best two hours I’ve ever experienced!

“The exuberant style of worship and the joy on people’s faces just got to me. Joy had been a bit lacking in my life since my parents’ divorce, and I thought, ‘These people have got something I need.’ I went to the youth group and made some good friends.

“My stay with the family came to an end, but I didn’t want it to. I said to my dad that if I didn’t find a church like that at home, I’d have to move. He said OK at the time, but I don’t think he meant it!’

When Shaun got back home, he rang a friend who had a mum who went to church. He asked to speak to her, and asked if he could visit her church. She said yes, so Shaun went along and settled in well there: “I never looked back.”

At that church, he gave control of his life to God, and finally experienced the same happiness that he’d seen on the faces of the people at Weston-Super-Mare.

Shaun says: “I used to think of God as this far-away figure who was a bit irrelevant, but now I think of Jesus as a really good friend, even a ‘best mate’. I don’t say that without respect, but he really does look after me. He’s never too busy to listen, and I always feel like he listens, wherever I am.”

But Shaun’s faith isn’t just about feeling happy. Finding a relationship with Jesus has meant doing what Jesus said. One way in which that expresses itself for Shaun is in charity work: “There’s a charity that runs orphanages in Zimbabwe for kids with AIDS and HIV, run by a Christian couple – missionaries – who see about 15,000 kids a month! I have been heavily involved in the work, backing and promoting their charity and raising money. I went out there to see for myself what they do. Jesus went to difficult and dangerous places, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. And believe me, when you sit a child on your knee who has AIDS, it changes your life. It makes you get life in perspective.”

“When I’ve seen some of the excesses and petty things that people get involved in on the snooker tour, I’ve walked up to them and said, ‘You know, you’re missing the point. There are bigger things in the world than this.’

“I always think of the starfish story. You know, the one where there’s loads of starfish washed up on a beach, and they’re all going to die. Along walks a man who sees this boy picking up a starfish and throwing it back into the sea. The guy says, ‘What’s the point of doing that? You’re never going to save all those starfish.’ And the boy replies, ‘Yes, but I just made a difference to that one.’ When you go to somewhere like Zimbabwe you see the huge needs and you know you can’t help everyone, but you can make a difference for some.

“If Jesus went to Zimbabwe today, he would have ‘got stuck in’. And that’s what those missionaries are doing. They’re trying to bring a little bit of what Jesus was like to these kids. They told us to give these kids all the hugs they wanted, because one of those hugs might be their last.”

Summing up his understanding of faith, Shaun says: “God’s so important to me, because I’m so important to him; not that I’m better than anyone else, but just because he loves every one of us so much.”

Photo: Malta Tourism Authority