Howard Marks: During the mid 1980s Howard Marks had forty three aliases, eighty nine phone lines and owned twenty five companies trading throughout the world. Bars, recording studios, offshore banks - all were money-laundering vehicles serving the core activity: dope dealing.

Marks began to deal during a postgraduate philosophy course at Oxford and soon he was moving much larger quantities into Europe and America in the equipment of touring rock bands. The academic life began to lose its allure.

At the height of his career he was smuggling consignments of up to thirty tons from Pakistan and Thailand to America and Canada, and had contact with organisations as diverse as the CIA, MI6, the IRA, and the Mafia.

After many years and a world-wide operation by the Drug Enforcement Agency, he was busted and sentenced to twenty five years in prison at Terre Haute Penitentiary, Indiana.

He was released in April 1995 after serving seven years of his sentence. Told with humour, charm and candour, Howard's best-selling Autobiography 'MR NICE' is his own extraordinary story.

Howard is a recreational poker player, notably appearing on the upcoming series of "Celebrity Poker Club" alongside fellow Honorary Member Victoria Coren.

 

 

The Hendon Mob: Bio to come!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Victoria Coren: Victoria is a freelance journalist and author of the recent book "Once More, With Feeling", a non-fiction adventure in the sex industry. Formerly the Observer's poker columnist, she now writes a regular topical column in the Observer review section. She hosts monthly poker tournaments at the Century Club in Soho, and plays 2-3 nights per week in London and 4-5 times a year in tournaments abroad. She has also been seen outplaying the pros on several editions of 'Late Night Poker'. Finally, Victoria is taking part in the new series of "Celebrity Poker Club", which starts on Challenge TV in the summer, Tuesday and Thursday nights from June 29th.

 

 

 

Barry Hearn (pictured here with poker legend Amarillo Slim): Barry Hearn qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1970 and spent several years with a major firm of international accountants before moving into the commercial world as finance director of Kensal House Investments. After a period in the fashion industry and property development, he became chairman of Lucania Snooker Clubs in 1974 and began to involve the snooker hall chain in amateur tournament promotions.

In 1976 Steve Davis began playing at the Romford Lucania Club and the two struck up a friendship which was to have a major influence on the world of snooker. In 1982 Riley Leisure acquired the chain of Lucania Snooker Clubs for £3.1 million leaving Barry free to concentrate on the development of snooker, both in the UK and overseas. With the support of the Matchroom professional players, Barry promoted snooker all over the world and has been particularly instrumental in the development of the game in the Far East.

Barry began his involvement in big time boxing by going straight in at the deep end - staging the Joe Bugner v Frank Bruno heavyweight show-down at Tottenham's White Hart Lane Stadium in 1987, in front of 30,000 people. Since then the Matchroom Boxing stable has risen to the top in both Britain and Europe, staging over fifty promotions throughout the season, including British, Commonwealth, European and World Championship bouts.

Together with Sky, who televise many of Matchroom Sport’s shows, Barry has helped discover and develop such champions as Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, Herbie Hide, Carl Crook, Francis Ampofo, Steve Collins, Jim McDonnell and Eamonn Loughran.

Married to Susan with two children, Barry lists his sporting interests as boxing, snooker, 9-Ball pool and golf. Whilst he has no pretensions about his snooker skills or come to that, his boxing ability - Barry is a fanatical golfer and has never leaves home without his clubs.

Whilst sports such as snooker and boxing are firmly established as two of the most popular on television, Barry Hearn has set his considerable sights on other immensely popular but less well known sports. Barry promotes the world’s richest coarse fishing match - Fish'O'Mania - live on Sky Sports for six hours and now entering its ninth year.

The Marlin World Cup from Mauritius is another blue chip event in the Matchroom Sport portfolio and that has been running for seven years now. Finally, Barry is intent on developing the game of pool from a pub game into a huge TV sport, and the success of his Mosconi Cup Europe v America match and the World 9-Ball Pool Masters is a testament to the progress that has been made. In the summer of 1999 Matchroom promoted the World Pool Championship - the biggest event ever in the history of the game. The World Pool Championship has subsequently developed into one of Matchroom Sport’s biggest and most successful events.

Matchroom Sport also dominates the international televised tenpin bowling market with three events. They are the World Masters which has been in existence since 1998, the Weber Cup which is fast establishing itself as the Ryder Cup of bowling and the AMF World Cup, bowling’s biggest international event.

In addition, Barry has also developed poker, one of the world’s favourite games, into a viable live TV draw with the running of Poker Million, the first edition of which took place in November 2000. With one million pounds to the winner and the final stages live on Sky Sports, Poker Million is another innovative idea that will run and run.

In March 1995, Barry Hearn assumed a controlling interest in Leyton Orient Football Club. Despite the ups and downs of professional football, Barry has implemented major plans for stadium development and put Leyton Orient on a sound financial footing.

Over the years, Barry Hearn's Matchroom Sport organisation has grown into one of the world’s most prolific independent sports promotion and television companies, producing over 500 hours of original material each year.

 

 

Guy Bowles: Bio to come!