Cliff Thorburn

Cliff Thorburn born 16 January 1948 is a Canadian retired professional snooker player Nicknamed The Grinder because of his slow determined style of play he won the World Snooker Championship in 1980 defeating Alex Higgins 1816 in the final He is generally recognised as the sports first world champion from outside the United Kingdomsince Australian Horace Lindrums 1952 title is usually disregardedand he remains the only world champion from the Americas He was runnerup in two other world championships losing 2125 to John Spencer in the 1977 final and 618 to Steve Davis in the 1983 final At the 1983 tournament Thorburn became the first player to make a maximum break in a World Championship match achieving the feat in his secondround encounter with Terry Griffiths