WHO has handled more trophies than any sportsman over the past 30 years? The names which come to mind are Phil Taylor, Stephen Hendry, Frankie Dettori, Sir Alex Ferguson. But they are all wrong.
It’s Mike Shorer. Yes, who? We hear you cry.
Shorer (pictured right) is the incredible jeweller who is celebrating his third decade of working for Barry Hearn as trophy maker for Matchroom and the PDC. From the humble beginnings of Romford in Essex, Shorer has a quite extraordinary CV which includes producing work for The Queen, Princess Diana and Elton John and trophies lifted by the likes of Oasis, U2, Coldplay, Paula Radcliffe, Taylor and Hendry.
Shorer will see his ‘Big Sid’ World Championship lifted yet again next month and reveals in this exclusive interview that the original trophy was REJECTED after using the same marble as Michelangelo used in the Sistine Chapel! He admits: “This is the 30th year I’ve done all the major trophies for Barry Hearn, I think I’ve done around 250 now. I used to work in a famous jewellers in Chelsea. But I got fed up sitting on a train for four hours commuting in and out of London from Essex.
“I started up my own business in 1990 in an old farm building in Abridge, Essex and to get new clients in I sent out 430 letters but only three replied, and one of them was Barry, being from Romford he was just around the corner. “He got in touch and asked me to do a couple of trophies and they were huge. It was in the days when the sponsors would pay a lot of money in snooker in Asia. They were solid silver, enameled and engraved with the same pattern engraving machinery as Faberge used on his chocolate eggs!
“Barry absolutely loved them and ever since then I’ve done all the trophies in darts, snooker, fishing, pool, trick shot and 10- ball. “I’ve done the World Championship darts trophies ever since it started with the PDC. I’ve also done ‘Big Sid, which is what we call it. That’s right next to me at the moment as we speak.” Shorer has a remarkable story, a family tale and curriculum vitae of A-listers that would make the red carpet at the Oscars look a tad ordinary.
He revealed: “I’m a seventh generation goldsmith, my family have been in this trade in England for about 275 years. “We changed our name, we’re originally from Alsace-Lorraine in Germany and had a German-sounding surname. My grandfather was a senior diamond cutter at Cartier, he changed the spelling of the surname in 1937 because he could see what was going on.
“I’ve made pieces for most of the Royal Family. I presented one of my brooch commissions to Princess Anne a few months ago. “When I worked in Chelsea we produced a lot of stuff for many Royal families, rock n rollers, sports and film stars. It was everything from wedding rings to little presents. The stuff we did for royals was mainly trophies. But we did wedding presents for the Yorks. I’ve worked on a few things for Princess Diana, Prince Charles plus the Queen and Prince Philip.
“I’ve also had a hand in making pieces for Elton John, he had outrageous stuff from us. The main thing I worked on was when he was Chairman of Watford, his manager John Reid wanted to get him a birthday present. “We had four days to do a two week job, we slept under the benches and just kept on going. It was a full-size Watford rosette with yellow diamonds, rubies, black sapphires and clear diamonds with a profile of Elton’s head in the middle. So it was as if he was wearing a fan’s rosette. It was huge. “I’ve also made The Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Awards. Coldplay, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Oasis, Paul Weller, U2, the Eagles and many others all have trophies I have made on their mantelpiece.”
In sporting terms, there is a special place in Shorer’s heart for ‘Big Sid’. He’s done all the most recent creations, including the Premier League. But it also gives him sleepless nights. He added: “My favourite piece in darts was definitely Big Sid. It’s such an enormous over the top thing. When Barry commissioned me to do it he said he wanted Sid’s signature on it, he wanted it big and he wanted it noticed. “It took a lot of making. The globe on the top is eight inches in diameter, solid silver and I had to hand engrave all the countries of the world on it. “I’m usually working on about 10 jobs at once but the Sid Waddell Trophy start to finish took three weeks. To get all the angles right and the texturing, engraving is very detailed and time consuming.
“The one you see now isn’t the original. The first one I wanted to include some of the colours of the dartboard. “Barry had asked for some granite on the plinth, which is black. I thought it would be nice to have some red marble, the middle part was the same marble Michelangelo used in the Sistine Chapel, such a beautiful red. “I presented it to Barry and he picked it up and said it’s too heavy. It was 23 kilos. It was decided that, it looked fantastic, but logistically it was too heavy for players to pick up. So we had to re-make it!
“Barry has a discussion with Matt Porter and Dave Allen within the PDC. They tell me what the competition is and they’ll give me a budget to work to. That’s how I work with all my corporate clients. “I never do a cup with two handles. They just get dusty and they don’t say anything about the competition or the sponsor. “There’s a huge amount of pride in what I do, reflected glory when I see event winners, award winners and World Champions pick up my trophies at their greatest moment. The adrenalin rush is massive.
“But that also comes with responsibility. I have to submit several designs to Barry and Matt. There’s a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with tweaks. Over the years I got to know what they like in their trophies. “However it does scare me witless. I’ve been known to wake up at four in the morning. Being a jeweller I worry about something being a tenth of a millimetre out.
“Everything has got to be absolutely perfect. I really worry about them a lot. I even put gloves and instructions in the packing case of how to handle them. I keep on worrying about them like they are my little babies.”
In just a few days another player will lift ‘Big Sid’ A trophy that even the perfection of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel couldn’t be a part of. It’s a pure work of dart.
—–ENDS—–
Images: Christopher Dean / PDC
Words: Phil Lanning
A version of this article was originally published in Darts World Magazine (Issue 572)
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[…] the Sid Waddell Trophy, which is presented to the PDC World Champion, see the story of its creation here, as well as the perpetual trophies used for the Premier League and World Grand Prix, PDC Hall of […]