It doesn’t take great sport to make great spectacles

Great sporting spectacles can be ordinary quality There’s always an air of giddiness on the Friday evening of a bank holiday weekend, as the great and good get set for an extended weekend’s break away from the job and a chance to chill out.

In many cases, you might skip out of work slightly early and head for a drink to set yourself up for the weekend. Or, in the case of last Friday, you could flick on the snooker.

For those of you that might have missed it, the longest frame ever recorded at the World Championship took place last Friday, in the 14th frame of Mark Allen’s clash with China’s Wu Yize. It lasted 100 minutes and 15 seconds, with neither player potting a single ball for close to an hour.

The background to the whole thing was that, with Allen leading by 30-odd points, a bizarre situation developed where all remaining reds on the table were clumped together over the corner pocket, which was protected by the black ball. What ensued was a series of shots from both players nudging off the reds to safety, in an effort to avoid potting the black and receive a penalty.

Sound boring? Not at all!

The Crucible crowd was terribly excited with what they were witnessing on the table, getting to the point where those present vociferously cheered every single shot, however basic, with great gusto and only a small hint of sarcasm.

As word spread on social media, it turns out that up to 1.4million people were tuned into this unfolding mess, which Steve Davis later described as ‘an embarrassment to snooker’.

When the BBC then decided to shove their coverage onto the BBC iPlayer because the frame was taking so long and went beyond the allocated TV time, uproar amongst the viewing public ensued.

Earlier last week, another social media hit was Premier Sports’ analysis of the Champions League semi-final first leg between Paris Saint Germain and Bayern Munich, which finished in a 5-4 victory for the French side. The second leg takes place in Germany this week.

By any stretch, on an initial glance at just the scoreline, you can guess with a fair degree of accuracy that it was a classic. If you watched it, you’ll definitely appreciate the sheer madness that took place. It was exhilarating and unforgettable, for a myriad of reasons.

But a great game? Kenny Cunningham thinks differently.

The former Irish captain made the point – much to the horror of many watching on – that it was not in fact as great a game as everyone thought it was.

Cunningham, who is an extremely shrewd and knowledgeable analyst, made the point that it couldn’t have been that great a game given that both defences were marked as absent for much of the 90 minutes and therefore, if not everyone was excelling at their job, it was hard to consider it a really great match.

Cunningham said: “Really, both teams need to be at their optimum level in terms of a collective attacking point of view, and also I think from a defensive point of view. I think the great games have both.” While many were aggrieved that Cunningham decided to challenge the general consensus that a 5-4 scoreline is anything but great, it’s still hard to argue with his point that not everyone on the field excelled.

In the case of the Champions League last week, the Wednesday night fare was far more turgid but no less compelling in its own right, with Arsenal and Atletico playing out a 1-all draw that sets up what promises to be a fierce second leg at the Emirates this week.

The contrast in styles between the two semi-final ties is incredibly stark, but that doesn’t necessarily mean one is filled with less quality than the other. For all of PSG’s attacking quality, Arsenal could point to their defensive solidity as the key area of the game at which they excel. Few in the world are better.

Similarly, the snooker semi-final was not of the highest quality – but it was absolutely gripping when it came to a finale on Saturday night.

Wu Yize, who is just 22 years of age, played some careless safety shots with barely a shrug of the shoulders or a puff of the cheeks in the final few frames when his chances appeared to be waning.

Allen, on the other hand, was nervy. He too found himself in a decent position to close out the match on a couple of occasions, but failed to play real quality shots when it mattered most. Yet, he stumbled into a position where he had a routine black off the spot to win and book his place in the final. And, inexplicably, he missed.

The groan from the crowd when that black rattled the jaws and stayed out was an iconic sound, one which can only come from a crowd at the Crucible feeling the tension of it all under the lights below.

Wu Yize won the match, while Allen faces the difficult task of trying to forget that missed black and wondering whether it has cost him his best chance at winning an elusive world title.

The match itself might have lacked quality at times, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t one of the most compelling we’ve seen at the Crucible in modern times.

Sport requires lots of things to provide entertainment but at the nub of it all is that, whatever unfolds, there’ll be contrasting opinions on just about everything. And that's what makes it great. Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

When it comes to snooker, football or anything in between, there's something for everyone in the audience.