Alfred Burden
Career
In his youth, Burden was considered a promising football talent. He has played at Arsenal and Swindon Town. However, due to a serious leg injury he had to give up his football career at an early stage.
In Snooker Burden took first for the season 1994/95 part in the qualifications for the rankings tournaments in the pros. During the first three years, he scored a few victories, until the 1997/98 season he achieved his biggest success of his career: With wins at the Grand Prix over Graeme Dott, Gary Wilkinson and Nigel Bond, he reached for the first and only time the knockout stages of a ranking tournament. In the same season, he also managed to qualify for the final round of the World Snooker Championship 1998. In the round of last 32, he defeated Tony Drago at 8:10.
Until the 2001/02 season he was able to steadily improve its position in the world rankings at No. 38. However, in the following years he lost too many of his opening matches in ranking tournaments so that he finally at the end of the 2007/ 08 lost his Main Tour status.
In the following season took Burden ( now as an amateur ) at the Pontin's International Open Series part. Although he reached a final and one semi-final, he was not finished among the top eight players who qualified for the following Main Tour season. During this time he also get two maximum breaks.
By winning the IBSF World Snooker Championship 2009 ( 10:8 in the final against Igor Figueiredo ) to Burden secured the return to the Main Tour for the season 2010/11. During the Suphan Buri Cup in the same year he also scored his third maximum break.
After his Main Tour return, he was so far in any ranking tournament for the round of last 32 qualify: In the Shanghai Masters 2010, the China Open in 2011 and the Haikou World Open 2012, he made it at least into the round of last 48. A moderate success he achieved at the PTC series 2010/11: with three tournaments he could play down to the last sixteen. He defeated among others players like Martin Gould or Andrew Higginson.