Stephen Hendry reminisces on Scotland World Cup glory with throwback 'Dream Team' photo

Hendry has been part of the commentary and punditry teams for Channel 5’s ongoing live coverage of this week’s Tour Championship - the penultimate event of the professional snooker season - at the Manchester Central.

It is the second top-flight event that terrestrial channel 5 has covered since claiming the rights for several tournaments from the World Snooker Tour that used to be broadcast by ITV4. The station made its debut at this level in February with the Players Championship from Telford.

Thirty-six time ranking event winner Hendry has been in front of the camera and behind a microphone this week, working with several other big names from the sport such as Ken Doherty and Matthew Stevens. And the 57-year-old was able to share a special moment with Scottish compatriots Higgins - who has been multi-tasking this week as a player and pundit - and McManus.

It is nearly 30 years ago that the Scottish ‘Dream Team’ of Hendry, Higgins and McManus lived up to expectations and won the World Cup snooker title for their country.

Often fondly talked about amongst many in the sport, the cosmopolitan 1996 World Cup took place at the Armari Watergate Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. The competition featured 20 teams initially split into four round robin groups of five with the top two from each pool qualifying for the knockouts.

At a time in the mid-90s when Hendry was still the undisputed world champion and world number one, Higgins was one of the biggest rising stars in the sport with several ranking titles to his name already, and McManus had been a major champion at the Masters - the Scottish team was seen as the hot favourite for the trophy.

The trio breezed through the groups phase winning all four matches and dropping just seven frames from 36 in total.

In the quarter-finals, Scotland defeated Northern Ireland 10-6 - although it was very close at one point being 7-6 - before ending the hopes of hosts Thailand 10-5 in the semi-finals.

Scotland’s opponents in the final were the Republic of Ireland. Dubliners Ken Doherty, Fergal O’Brien and Stephen Murphy ousted England 10-9 in the last four, with captain Doherty getting the better of Ronnie O’Sullivan in a deciding frame that finished well past 3am local time.

In the title match, Scotland got off to a very strong start in establishing a 4-0 lead, although the Irish clawed their way back in contention, and a grandstand finish was in prospect when they trailed by just one frame at 8-7 down.

But Higgins defeated O’Brien to make it 9-7 before captain Hendry denied Murphy to claim the six-figure prize and World Cup glory for the Scots.

The first time in six years that the competition had been held, it was the first time that Scotland had reached the final, yet alone win the title.

Whilst having a moment of downtime in Manchester, Hendry took a photo of himself alongside Higgins and McManus. He posted the photo on his Instagram account next to an image of the three of them during their successful time in Thailand nearly three decades ago.

Hendry added: “The Dream team. The 3 of us won the snooker World Cup in Bangkok in 1996. Today, 30 years later we’re in Manchester for the Tour Championship. John, incredibly is still playing at the highest level of the game, Alan and I just talk about it.”

Unfortunately, the three were never able to defend the World Cup title together as the tournament did not return to the calendar until 2011 when it was held under a different format of two-player teams.

However, Scotland also won the last edition of the World Cup, and are still the title holders. In 2019, Higgins - alongside Stephen Maguire - managed to get his hands on the trophy again after they defeated hosts China, 4-0, in the final in Wuxi.