Record Reconstructor

Dashboard! I was eight and a half years old when the 1985 World Snooker Championship Final was played.  By that point, I already owned a tiny snooker table of my own, a little cut-down thing about 3ft by 2ft with 6 reds a couple of tiny cues.  If you're young, or from beyond the borders of the United Kingdom, you might not realise quite how insane the statistics are around this extremely niche, very British sport, and specifically the 1985 final.  Played in a theatre which seats less than 1000 people, the final was a best of 35 match, where each single frame of snooker can take anywhere between 6 minutes and an hour plus.  The final was divided into 4 hour sections, and the total thing took nearly 15 hours to complete over two days.  Eighteen and a half million people tuned in to watch it, which is a record for BBC2 which still stands 40 years later, with peak viewing taking place past midnight on a Monday night as the final drew to a close with the two competit...