‘I was absolutely terrified’ – Shaun Murphy reveals what doctor said just before operation that cured his food addiction
JUST BEFORE he was put to deep sleep, as the anaesthetic began to travel up his arm, a terrifying thought flashed across Shaun Murphy’s mind.
A lifelong addiction to food, a longstanding problem with booze and reaching “the absolute rock bottom of my life” had led Murphy to dish out £11,000 for two-hour gastric-sleeve stomach surgery.
The 2005 world snooker champion was in his robes, waiting to go under at a hospital in Leicester, and the thought of his two kids came into his mind.
What would happen, he thought irrationally, if I don’t wake up from this? Am I doing the right thing?
And then, seconds before he went under, one of the medics said something that sent a shiver up his spine.
Shaun Murphy, now a leading motivational speaker with the Champions Speakers Agency, exclusively told SunSport: “You lay on the operating table. And then the anaesthetist arrives – the important person in the room.
“I said: ‘How will I know if it has worked?’
“He said: ‘Well, when I turn it on, you’ll have about maybe 10 seconds tops. You’ll actually feel it starting to go up your arm and once it gets to your arm, it’s already up here.
“‘Your cheek will start to tingle and then you’re out. I’m here to look after you. Don’t worry about that.’
“I started to get a bit nervous. I started to think about my kids. I start to think that these surgeries do go wrong sometimes. Very rarely.
“You hear these horror stories. I got a little bit emotional. The anaesthetist comforted me.
“But as it went up my arm, he said: ‘Is now a bad time to tell you about how much money I’ve lost betting on you over the years? Anyway, goodnight.’ Bang!
“I was absolutely terrified. Very funny. Never saw him again. He’s still losing money, probably…”
It was, thankfully, only a joke and the operation went OK.
It had not been a laughing matter before that, however, and there was one embarrassing incident when Murphy stretched over the table and because he was so big, his shirt fouled a ball.
By removing four-fifths of his stomach, Murphy, 42, never feels hungry and says, with a straight face, “portion sizes that I now eat are dwarfed by my six-year-old girl, which is quite funny”.
The Magician has put on weight since the 2022 op but he says that would change if he cut out drinking wine and downing the odd pint of Guinness.
The reigning Masters champion, who once ballooned to 20 stone, said: “I had totally reached rock bottom. I couldn’t control my eating or drinking.
“I never went and got diagnosed but I’d say that a professional would have diagnosed me with depression.
“I had actually enquired about having that surgery many years ago but decided I was too proud for that and wanted to do it the proper way. I wanted to lose weight and exercise.
“I can consume much less than I ever used to be able to. I’ve put some weight back on since the surgery. Just because I do like a drink.
“If I knocked the drinking on the head, it’d fall off. I can’t overeat. It’s physically impossible.
“The surgeon said something like the nerve endings and receptors that are in your stomach that tell your brain you’re hungry are in the bit we throw away.
“That ravenous ‘jeez, I’d eat YOU if you sat there long enough’ – well, you never feel hunger like that ever again. And he was right.
“The days of going to the all-you-can-eat-buffets and doing seven plates are finished.”
Throughout his life, Murphy admits he has had an unhealthy problem with food and drink and his size yo-yoed in his 20s and 30s.
Murphy added: “It’s consistently been the one area of my life that I haven’t been able to tame properly.
“I haven’t been able to master that in search of success as a snooker player.
“My diet – my love of going out for a drink and my love of a Chinese or curry – has always caused me problems. There’s no question about that.
“I can only ever really marry back to the fact, as a kid growing up, I had so little. We had nothing.
List of all-time Snooker World Champions
BELOW is a list of snooker World Champions by year.
The record is for the modern era, widely considered as dating from the 1968-69 season, when the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) took control of the sport.
The first World Championships ran from 1927 – with a break from 1941-45 because of World War II and 1958-63 because of a dispute in the sport.
Joe Davis (15), Fred Davis and John Pulman (both 8) were the most successful players during that period.
Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan share the record for the most titles in the modern era, with seven each.
- 1969 – John Spencer
- 1970 – Ray Reardon
- 1971 – John Spencer
- 1972 – Alex Higgins
- 1973 – Ray Reardon (2)
- 1974 – Ray Reardon (3)
- 1975 – Ray Reardon (4)
- 1976 – Ray Reardon (5)
- 1977 – John Spencer (2)
- 1978 – Ray Reardon (6)
- 1979 – Terry Griffiths
- 1980 – Cliff Thorburn
- 1981 – Steve Davis
- 1982 – Alex Higgins (2)
- 1983 – Steve Davis (2)
- 1984 – Steve Davis (3)
- 1985 – Dennis Taylor
- 1986 – Joe Johnson
- 1987 – Steve Davis (4)
- 1988 – Steve Davis (5)
- 1989 – Steve Davis (6)
- 1990 – Stephen Hendry
- 1991 – John Parrott
- 1992 – Stephen Hendry (2)
- 1993 – Stephen Hendry (3)
- 1994 – Stephen Hendry (4)
- 1995 – Stephen Hendry (5)
- 1996 – Stephen Hendry (6)
- 1997 – Ken Doherty
- 1998 – John Higgins
- 1999 – Stephen Hendry (7)
- 2000 – Mark Williams
- 2001 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
- 2002 – Peter Ebdon
- 2003 – Mark Williams (2)
- 2004 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (2)
- 2005 – Shaun Murphy
- 2006 – Graeme Dott
- 2007 – John Higgins (2)
- 2008 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (3)
- 2009 – John Higgins (3)
- 2010 – Neil Robertson
- 2011 – John Higgins (4)
- 2012 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (4)
- 2013 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (5)
- 2014 – Mark Selby
- 2015 – Stuart Bingham
- 2016 – Mark Selby (2)
- 2017 – Mark Selby (3)
- 2018 – Mark Williams (3)
- 2019 – Judd Trump
- 2020 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (6)
- 2021 – Mark Selby (4)
- 2022 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (7)
- 2023 – Luca Brecel
- 2024 – Kyren Wilson
Most World Titles (modern era)
- 7 – Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O’Sullivan
- 6 – Ray Reardon, Steve Davis
- 4 – John Higgins, Mark Selby
- 3 – John Spencer, Mark Williams
- 2 – Alex Higgins
“The fact that when I finally did get a few quid in my pocket, I was like right: ‘I’m going out now.’
“When we go to the pub, we’re going out because now I can afford to buy a few drinks.
“Now you can afford the chippy on the way home. As a child, because I couldn’t do that, that has bled into my adult life.
“We aren’t Premier League footballers but I can afford to go out and get a few drinks.
“I’ve always found it hard to go out for a couple. If we’re going out, we tend to be going out.”