IT is indeed a funny old game. There sits a young man in jeans and T shirt eating his lunch out of a Marks and Spencers plastic bag. Nothing terribly odd about that perhaps but when you consider that this young man has earned £5,261,637 in a career devoted to knocking coloured balls around a green baize covered table and that's before the weekend is over - he may have added another £210,000 to his takings.

He name is Stephen Hendry who hails from Auchterarder in Scotland and the more unlikely looking millionaire you will be unlikely to find. At the tender age of 20, he stunned the snooker world by getting to the semi finals of the world championship, there to be beaten 16-9 by Steve Davis but he is now on the verge of becoming the most successful snooker player in the history of the game having won six world titles five of them in a row. He has not lost a match at The Crucible, the Croke Park of snooker, since 1991 when he lost by 13-11 to Steve James, in the quarter finals of the world championships.

Since then he has put together a round of victories as unprecedented as it is extraordinary.

The old wisdom that the halls where snooker and billiards were played were fatal attractions for young boys and men determined to waste their youth, is like a lot of such wise acre hyperbole, a nonsense and Hendry has proved that beyond all doubt having secured his future while still short of 30 years old.

Take the rewards which were on offer here at The Crucible in Sheffield this week. The winner will get £210,000 the runner up £126,000. A place in the semi finals guaranteed £63,000 and a place in the quarter finals £31,000.

The highest break screened on television earning £18,000 and the maximum break of 147 worth £1,000 per point.

Mind you, the sweeping victory of the Labour party in the British general election this week puts gloomy looks on many faces in Sheffield, not for any great love of the Tories or John Major but the because of fears that the new government may ban cigarette advertising thus removing from this tournament the sponsorship of the Embassy tobacco company.

But to get back to the rewards for prowess in this game it is only fair to mention that Ken Doherty from Ranelagh in Dublin has himself become a millionaire this week. Leaving aside the possibility that he reaches the final, the money already won so far puts his career winnings over the £1 million mark.

Note by the way, that Ranelagh label. He insists that it is his birthright and although he is a proud Irishman and a Dub, he likes everyone to know of his roots in south Dublin and all programme notes and publicity material refer to his birth place as Dublin (Ranelagh).

The Crucible itself is a rather strange place, a maze of corridors and side entrances. The arena where the snooker actually takes place has all the trappings of a brightly lit pantomime with a magical atmosphere when play is in progress. Nearly one thousand seats are banked steeply up from the sunken floor and a hush falls on the audience as the players line up their shots which bring flurries of applause or gasps of despair depending on the outcome.

Players sometimes admit to be intimidated by the close proximity of the crowd. Ken Doherty admitted as much when he lost the first three frames of his quarter final against world number two John Higgins although Doherty later recovered well from those early butterflies. Even more intimidated according to himself was Darren Morgan, the young Welsh player who said that he was on the verge of pulling out of his quarter final against Steve Hendry when "Prince" Nassem Hammad the dual world champion feather weight title holder appeared in the press box to support his friend, Hendry during their quarter final.

Morgan reacted negatively to the flamboyant boxer's presence and forced him to move further away from the scene of the accident but this was not before Morgan had lost his rhythm and several crucial frames.

Referees of course play a vital role in snooker. They lop around the table somewhat like caged tigers. One of the most prominent of these is Len Ganly from Lurgan in the Co Armagh. His was the honour of taking charge of four world finals, the first of which was when Steve Davis beat Doug Mountjoy by 18-12 in 1981. He is regarded as a comedian among the straight faced and strait laced brotherhood.

The presence of a Scot, an Irishman, a French Canadian and a young man from Thailand in this year's semi finals is indicative of the vast attraction of this game and this is reflected in the presence of French, Dutch and Indian journalists as well as from western Europe, here in Sheffield for what is truly an international occasion.