Fallen legend Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins is set to make a shock comeback, more than five years since his last tournament appearance.
The twice world champion is among nearly 200 players to enter the Benson and Hedges Championship in Mansfield later this month.
Higgins, now 53, has been drawn against local professional Lee Spick in the £40,000 event at the Towers snooker club. The controversial Irishman is scheduled to play his match on October 23rd at 10 o'clock in the morning.
Higgins last appeared in an officially sanctioned event in August 1997 at the Pavilions in Plymouth - but it was an inglorious end to a professional career spanning three decades. After losing his match, Higgins was ejected from the arena and next morning was found in the streets of Plymouth, claiming he had been stabbed.
The self styled ‘People's Champion’ has not played since and has spent the last few years battling against cancer - he underwent a successful operation to have a cancerous lymph node removed from his neck.