John Dee Funeral Details

John Dee’s funeral will take place on Friday August 9th at 1.30pm at Gornal Crematorium. Everyone is welcome to come and celebrate John’s life.

One of snooker’s longest-serving journalists, John died at the age of 82 last Sunday.

John covered snooker for the Telegraph newspaper for many years and was a familiar face on the circuit during the 1980s, 90s and 2000s.

He was editor of Cue World magazine and also wrote several books about the sport. He helped compile the CueSport Book of Professional Snooker which was a complete record of results, published in  2004.

Two years ago, John published Dee Tales, a book packed with stories about his career covering football and snooker.  It featured anecdotes about Alex Higgins, with whom John had a close friendship during the Hurricane’s hey-day – indeed they once shared a house together.

Born in Gloucester, John lived most of his life in Wednesbury. He completed national service with the RAF before starting his career in journalism at a variety of weekly newspapers in the West Midlands.

From there he moved to the Express and Star where he had the esteemed role of chief football reporter covering Wolverhampton Wanderers.

As snooker boomed in the 1980s he became one of the sport’s leading writers and traveled the globe covering the circuit. He developed friendships with many of the star players, including James Wattana. The Thai ace improved his English through boundless games of  Scrabble with John.

During the 1980s he worked as an official statistician for the WPBSA and the BBC and was given a Services to Snooker award in 2001.

An enthusiastic club player, John captained a team which must go down as one of the best in the history of league snooker; the other members were Steve James, Jim Chambers, Martin Clark and Anthony Harris.

Until shortly before his death, John was still writing about snooker and would visit Thailand each year to cover the Six Red World Championship.

Three -time World Champion Mark Williams said: “I met John when I first came on to the circuit and he was a great friend for many years. He was one of the big characters backstage and I always enjoyed sitting in the press room chatting. We had some very funny moments and the trips overseas were always more enjoyable when John was there. It’s a sad day for his family and all of the players who knew him.”

Just woke up and seen the very sad news about John Dee. A lovely man who really knew and loved his snooker. RIP ?

— Joe Perry (@joegentlemanjoe) July 29, 2019

Away from journalism, his biggest passions were supporting Wolves and Gloucester Rugby, watching live rock music and spending time with his three children.

John passed away on Sunday July 28th after a short illness.