World ranking: 15
Last five seasons: 13-17-19-18-11
Date of birth: 09-12-66
Lives: Stoke, Staffordshire
Turned professional: 1991
Ranking tournament victories: 1
Last season’s prize money: £92,800
Career prize money: £588,727
Highest tournament break: 142

Stoke potter Dave Harold was a 500-1 outsider when he won his first and only world ranking tournament to date - the 1993 Asian Open in Bangkok.

His 9-3 victory over Darren Morgan in the final sparked an impressive run of results, which took him through to the final of the 1994 Grand Prix and catapulted him into the top 16.

Victories over Neal Foulds and Rod Lawler enabled him to reach the quarter-finals of the 1996 Embassy World Championship before his run was halted by Nigel Bond.

Harold missed out on a trip to the Crucible in 1999 when he was beaten 10-7 by Joe Perry in the final qualifying round but he made it as far as round two last season before crashing out to eventual winner Ronnie O’Sullivan.

The World Championships remains the jewel in the crown of the snooker calendar and Harold is determined to improve his crucible record.

“You have to be at the Crucible; that’s where all the best snooker is played.

"I have reached one quarter-final and I want to do better than that before my career is out.”