I’m a former snooker champ, I sneaked out of hotels to go on wild booze benders and once took my dead brother to the pub

JIMMY WHITE’S antics both in and out of snooker have earned him legendary status – now he hopes to add one more chapter to his iconic career.

The 60-year-old last appeared in the Snooker World Championships in 2006 but he is determined to end that long wait and return to the Crucible this year.

News Group Newspapers LtdJimmy White, pictured with Alex Higgins and Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, was a wild man in his heyday[/caption]

GettyThe 60-year-old once took his brother’s corpse to a boozer for one final pubcrawl[/caption]

However, if the 1984 Masters winner does achieve that ambition then he is highly-unlikely to repeat any of his boozy party antics.

The “Whirlwind” recently appeared on the Anything Goes with James English podcast and described himself as a “bad b******” as he revealed how he used to sneak out of his hotel during the World Championships to go wild.

He said: “During the World Championship, because we were in Sheffield for two weeks, I’d go to my room, and then I’d sneak out the hotel going down the fire escape.

“Then all of a sudden I’m in a nightclub drinking, and there are people there over the other side who thought they had just put me to bed. I’m not moaning, because I had a f****** great time, but if I’d have done it properly I’d have won plenty more.”

White, who counts rock stars Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood as close friends, has opened up about a number of crazy incidents involving him from his past.

And those include him capsizing and sinking a speedboat in Hong Kong that left him and fellow snooker icon Steve Davis needing to swim back to shore.

But perhaps nothing was stranger than when he and his pals took his dead brother’s corpse on a pub crawl.

Martin passed away after a fight with cancer in 1996, but the 10-time major winner was determined to give his sibling one last send-off.

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Speaking in his autobiography Second Wind, White said: “We were so sad. We’d been drinking in the pub the night before the funeral and the bill came to £4,600. It was a proper drink.

“We were all crying and so I told my sister we were going to get Martin.

“I kicked the door of the undertakers and the lock fell off. Just like that, it opened! I went in, there was no alarm.

“He was there, in his suit, so I phoned a driver and we took him out and carried on drinking. We felt we had to spend more time with him.

“We were crying, laughing, crying, laughing. It went on for about five hours. The driver going back realised my brother wasn’t alive, so he refused to take us.

“We had to get a taxi. On the way, the next driver looked in the mirror and said: ‘He don’t look too well.’

“We put him back and then the police came. They sympathised with me, there was no damage done. We lost his hat somewhere, but no charges followed.”

White, who bravely told how he would have “drink after drink and line after line” on benders with fellow cue king Alex Higgins, now feels that he is performing well enough to get through at least three qualifying rounds to make the World Championship next month.

He said: “I’ll take a couple of days off now and get back to practice on Friday. I’ll be getting to the Crucible, I am playing too well.”

Jimmy White won the 1984 MastersPA:Press Association

GettyThe legend is desperate to reach The Crucible one more time[/caption]