Mark Allen surprised fans by revealing that he had been "thrown out" of the World Snooker Championship venue before he had played his opening match of the competition.
The Belfast potter is scheduled to play his first round tie against Scott Donaldson on Easter Monday. However, it seems he had already got into hot water with snooker officials before even fastening his waistcoat and taking his cue out of its case.
Allen took to his Twitter account to claim he had got into trouble after attempting to film the players as they walked into the arena for one of the sessions on Saturday. He posted to tell his 80,000 followers what had happened and to apologise for the lack of footage it appears he had intended to share with them himself.
"Have to retweet this one for my followers as I wasn’t allowed to video the 4 players walk ins this morning myself," he wrote. "Got thrown out [laughing emojis] done it nearly every year but someone on a power trip this morning. Sorry."
The claim that Allen was "thrown out" of the Crucible on Saturday has not yet been confirmed. Mirror Sport has reached out to the World Snooker Tour for comment, but at the time of publication there has been no response.
Allen has enjoyed plenty of success in his career including six ranking titles, one of them being a triple crown success at the 2018 Masters. But silverware in Sheffield has eluded the 36-year-old, whose best result in the Steel City came more than a decade ago.
The Pistol reached the semi-finals of the World Championship in 2009, beating Ronnie O'Sullivan on the way to the last four. But his bid for the biggest prize in snooker came to a halt at that stage as he lost to John Higgins – the man who would go on to lift the trophy that year.
His 2021/22 season so far has largely been one in which he has flattered to deceive. On several occasions he has reached the last 16 or quarter-finals of competitions, only to fail to make further progress and challenge for titles.
Allen does have one victory to his name this season, though, as he delighted his home crowd at the Northern Ireland Open by beating Higgins in the final. He also recorded just the second maximum break of his career in that tournament, pulling off a 147 in his first match against Si Jiahui.
The man from Belfast knows that he is in for a tricky time when he does face Donaldson in their first-to-10 clash on Monday. "It'll be very tough," he said. "I've played some really close matches with Scott over the years and I've a good record against him but he has beaten me before."
