Neal Foulds offers up solution for snooker's mobile phone issue - 'A bucket of water is where that needed to be'

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The mobile phone is to modern-day snooker what the sweet wrapper was to those who played in the 1980s, and it proved to be an irritant for the players on Saturday.

'Do you need some help?' - Referee offers help as phone refuses to turn off

Video credit: TNT Sports

TNT Sports commentator Neal Foulds was a handy player during the 1980s, when mobile phones were a thing of fantasy.

Fast-forward some 40 years, and the 2026 World Championship at the Crucible has had more than its fair share of interruptions due to phones going off.

At the start of each session, spectators are reminded to turn them off or into silent mode.

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Those calls have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears - pun intended, sorry - and it was the case again during the final session of the semi-final between Mark Allen and Wu Yize on Saturday evening.

The resumption from mid-session intervals is often a prime time for the ping of a phone, as those who did bother to turn them off tend to catch up on the outside world before forgetting to turn them off again.

That was possibly the case on Saturday evening, as a phone went off just after a shot had been played.

Referee Marcel Eckardt sprang into life, saying: ”Can you make sure that is switched off please.

”No panic, just make sure it is switched off.”

The ring continued, to the amusement of some in the crowd, to which Phil Studd on TNT Sports commentary said: ”Locating the off button is proving a challenge.”

So much so, that Eckardt offered to lend a hand.

”Do you need some help?” the German official said.

'Do you need some help?' - Referee offers help as phone refuses to turn off

Video credit: TNT Sports

The off button was eventually located, to the relief of Foulds, who offered up a solution many may have welcomed.

”I tell you now, that seemed to be impossible to turn off,” Foulds said in his role as co-commentator for TNT Sports. ”I think a bucket of water is where that needed to be put into, and that would have certainly disarmed it.

”The last thing on mobile phones I will say is that sometimes the frame after the mid-session interval is when they start to resurface, as spectators will check on stuff and forget to turn them off.”

Back at the table, Allen and Wu were locked in battle for the right to face Shaun Murphy in the final following his win over John Higgins in the other semi-final.

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