Pot Black was a British series of snooker tournaments televised by BBC, which didn't carry any ranking points, but played a large part in the popularization of the modern game, from 1969 to 1986. The event was revived in the form of several one-off tournaments throughout the 1990s and up to 2007. Pot Black helped transform snooker from a minority sport with just a handful of professionals into one of the most popular sports in the United Kingdom.Mark Williams holds the events' highest break record of 119.

The first Pot Black was held in 1969 at the BBC Studios in Birmingham. BBC began broadcasting in colour, and were looking for programmes that could exploit this new technology. The programme first aired on 23 July 1969, on BBC2. The event continued until 1986, at which time more and more televised snooker events were held and the Pot Black format was out dated. It returned in 1990, but it was discontinued after the 1993 event.

A one-day Pot Black tournament was held on 29 October 2005, and broadcast on the BBC's Grandstand. The invitational event featured eight players, namely Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry, Stephen Maguire, Matthew Stevens, Paul Hunter, John Higgins, Jimmy White and Shaun Murphy, with Stevens beating Murphy in the final. The 2006 edition of Pot Black took place at the Royal Automobile Club in London on 2 September 2006. Mark Williams beat John Higgins and achieved the highest break in the history of the tournament with a 119 clearance in the final. The 2007 edition, the final Pot Black to date, was aired on Saturday 6 October 2007 on BBC One. It was won by Ken Doherty, who beat Shaun Murphy 71–36, making him the first Irishman to win the competition.

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery (plural "potteries"). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery.

The definition of pottery used by ASTM is "all fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products." Some archaeologists use a different understanding by excluding ceramic objects such as figurines which are made by similar processes, materials and the same people but are not vessels.

Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high temperatures in a kiln which removes all water from the clay, which induces reactions that lead to permanent changes including increasing their strength and hardening and setting their shape. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing. Prior to some shaping processes, clay must be prepared. kneading helps to ensure an even moisture content throughout the body. Air trapped within the clay body needs to be removed. This is called de-airing and can be accomplished by a machine called a vacuum pug or manually by wedging. Wedging can also help produce an even moisture content. Once a clay body has been kneaded and de-aired or wedged, it is shaped by a variety of techniques. After shaping it is dried and then fired.

Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light. Although black is sometimes described as an "achromatic", or hueless, color, in practice it can be considered a color, as in expressions like "black cat" or "black paint".

The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blah ("black"), Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek phlegein ("to burn, scorch"). Black supplanted the wonted Old English word sweart ("black, dark"), which survives as swart, swarth, and swarthy (compare German schwarz and Dutch zwart, "black").

Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. (This makes a contrast with whiteness, the impression of any combination of colors of light that equally stimulates all three types of color-sensitive visual receptors.)

Stephen Gordon Hendry, MBE (born 13 January 1969) is a retired Scottish professional snooker player. In 1990, he was the youngest-ever snooker World Champion, at the age of 21. He has won the World Championship a record seven times and was snooker's world number one for eight consecutive years between 1990 and 1998, and again in 2006/2007. Hendry has the distinction of holding the most world ranking titles (36) and leads the field of snooker players with 775 competitive century breaks. He also holds the record with Ronnie O'Sullivan for the most competitive maximum breaks, with 11.

Hendry started playing snooker in 1981, aged 12. Two years later he won the Scottish U-16 Championship. He also appeared on BBC's Junior version of Pot Black. The following year he won the Scottish Amateur Championship and also became the youngest ever entrant in the World Amateur Championship. In 1985, after retaining the Scottish Amateur Championship, he turned professional. At 16 years and three months old he was the youngest ever professional.

Edward Francis ("Eddie") Charlton AM (31 October 1929 – 7 November 2004) was an Australian professional snooker and English billiards player. He remains the only player to have been world championship runner-up in both snooker and billiards without winning either title. Later in his career, he became a sporting goods marketer; his namesake brand of billiard room equipment remains popular posthumously.

Charlton was born in Merewether, New South Wales, Australia and came from a sporting family. His brother Jim was also a professional snooker player but never joined the world ranks. Eddie himself was also a senior grade footballer, a champion surfer, a good cricketer and a boxer. One of his proudest moments was when he carried the Olympic torch on part of its journey to the 1956 Games in Melbourne.

Having been a coal miner, he turned professional at cue sports in 1963 at the age of 34 and the following season he won the Australian Professional Championship, a title which he went on to win, with one exception, every year for the next 20. Known for playing with a very straight cue action and rarely hitting the cue-ball with sidespin, Charlton was the most successful snooker player from Australia before Neil Robertson. He was ranked number three in the world for five consecutive seasons from 1976/77, the first year of the rankings, though surprisingly he never won a ranking tournament (in those first few seasons only the World Championship counted). The dogged antipodean reached the world final in 1968, 1973 and 1975, losing agonisingly 31–30 to Ray Reardon on the latter occasion.