Sheffield Retains World Snooker Championship, Boosting Northern City

The Guardian view on Sheffield and snooker: hope for an overlooked northern giant | Editorial

Keeping the world championship in the UK is good news for a city and region which have punched under their weight Sheffield was still an industrial powerhouse when George Orwell suggested that it “could justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the Old World” – adding that “its inhabitants, who want it to be pre-eminent in everything, very likely do make that claim for it”. The steel mills and smog that he loathed disappeared, but much of the city’s confidence dissipated with its heavy in...

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