Sheffield retro: 21 photos to bring back memories of 1977, when love affair with snooker began

Snooker is today so indelibly linked with Sheffield, which has become the cradle of the global sport, that it’s hard to imagine a time when that was not the case.

It’s nearly 50 years since Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre first hosted the World Snooker Championship in 1977, beginning the love affair that survives to this day.

This retro photo gallery looks back to that fateful year, showing how many empty seats there were back then before the sport built the huge global following it enjoys today.

It also shows how different the city looked back then, before all the changes which have taken place during the Crucible’s five-decade reign as the home of snooker.

Old nightclubs including the Hofbrauhaus, Tiffanys and Baileys, are pictured inside out, along with a popular pub which has long since been demolished.

Celebrities including Bruce Forsythe, Coronation Street star Patricia Phoenix and Queen Elizabeth II are pictured during visits to the city that year.

These nostalgic images also show how Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium and the Blade’s Bramall Lane home looked back then, and they feature the newly installed Owls manager Jack Charlton with his car.

Lost shops, from the city’s ‘smallest’ store to the So Lo Supermarket on Halifax Road and a popular butcher’s on London Road, are pictured too.

How many of these sights of the 70s around Sheffield do you remember, and what are your favourite memories of 1977?