24 July 2010Last updated at 23:00

Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins: A life in pictures

Alex Higgins pictured during the 1983 World Snooker Championships

Two-time world snooker champion Alex Higgins has died in Belfast after suffering from throat cancer for many years.

Born in Belfast in 1949, Higgins grew up in the Protestant working-class Sandy Row area of Belfast. He won his first world snooker championship in 1972. Aged just 23, it was his first attempt at the title.

Within weeks of winning the title, he began a 20-year trail of self-destruction, wrecking hotel rooms in Australia and being kicked out of India for drunken behaviour.

Confetti scatters at the wedding of Alex "Hurricane" Higgins and bride Lynn, at the United Reform church in Wilmslow, January 1980

His wayward behaviour ended his two marriages. Here he is pictured at his 1980 wedding to his second wife Lynn Avison, with whom he would have a son and a daughter.

Alex Higgins with baby daughter Lauren and wife Lynn, after 1982 world championship final win over six-times champion Ray Reardon at Sheffield"s Crucible Theatre

In 1982, he became world champion again by defeating Ray Reardon in the final. He wept as he beckoned for his wife and daughter to share in his triumph.

Christopher Dean, Jayne Torvill, winner Daley Thompson, Alex Higgins and Steve Cram at 1982 Sports Personality of the Year

His triumph saw him nominated for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year, but he lost out to decathlete Daley Thompson.

Higgins was an obsessive gambler and was reported to have lost £13,000 on horses in one day. He admitted to smoking marijuana and using cocaine.

In 1990, after losing in the first round of the World Championships he announced his retirement saying snooker was the most corrupt game in the world. On the way to making this announcement, he was alleged to have punched the tournament's press officer.

This incident, and a number of others, including a threat to have the Northern Ireland captain Dennis Taylor shot, brought a one-year playing ban. His playing career never recovered and Higgins continued to slide down the rankings.

He developed throat cancer in 1997 but continued to play smaller events in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland.

Although his enthusiasm for the game remained, his health and financial welfare began to deteriorate rapidly.

Higgins had been in remission from the cancer for almost a decade, but he had undergone several operations and suffered pneumonia and breathing problems earlier in the year. He died in Belfast on Saturday.

Northern Ireland

Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins: A life in pictures

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