JOHN Virgo believes social media and celebrity culture’s intrusion into sport have turned snooker’s charismatic characters into privacy-guarding potters.

During the mid-1980s snooker boom years, the likes of Alex Higgins, Jimmy White, Kirk Stevens and Tony Knowles were household names as much for their vibrant personalities as their sublime snooker skills.

But Virgo says modern stars, in snooker and across the sporting spectrum, are denied the freedom to cut loose and enjoy themselves because the slightest hint of a misstep could count against them.

He predicted ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, who died in 2010, would have smashed the camera phone of any modern-day interloper.

Crucible stars used to populate Sheffield’s nightclubs between matches at the World Championship, but the new generation are more likely to enjoy a quiet meal and turn in early.

Virgo won the UK Championship in 1979 and swiftly saw the one-time minority interest sport become a mainstream fascination.

“It is a different world now and I think the world started getting different round about then,” Virgo said.

“Particularly now with social media, you only need to turn round and someone will have a camera in your face and occasionally someone will be talking to you at the bar, asking you to pose for a picture, and someone will say, ‘They’re videoing this’.

“In the old days of (Alex) Higgins and people like that, that would have been some video. The phone would have got smashed.”

However, Virgo sympathises with the current cue stars.

He said: “It’s a different world now and as we see with footballers and everybody else, and the fall from grace of any sportsman, it’s a difficult balancing act now of going out and being nice to the general public and being very wary.”