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Mitchell Mann set for World Championships debut at The Crucible

Image: Mitchell Mann will play a top 16 seed at The Crucible

Mitchell Mann grew up with the dream of playing football at Wembley but will settle for snooker at the Crucible after earning a World Championship debut.

The Birmingham-based 24-year-old locked in his place at the tournament with a nail-biting 10-9 win over Thai showman Dechawat Poomjaeng on Wednesday, in the final qualifying round at Ponds Forge.

Now he awaits Thursday's first-round draw, when along with the likes of fellow qualifiers Ding Junhui, Peter Ebdon, Ali Carter and Graeme Dott, he will be paired with a top-16 seed.

At the age of eight, he was diagnosed with Perthes disease - a condition that rots the hip bone - and had to give up footballing ambitions.

But Mann found a passion for snooker thanks to dad Jeff, and the biggest win of his career secures a minimum £13,000 in prize-money, and a return to the venue where in 2007 he won Junior Pot Black.

"I used to play football when I was a kid and signed for Birmingham City - although I'm a Villa fan," Mann said.

"I had some pains in my leg one day and we went to the hospital and had X-rays and they said it was growing pains. The pain never went away so we looked into it further and found out it was Perthes disease and I've had to have numerous operations on my hip, and they told me I could never do high-impact sports again.

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"When I was bored in the house one night, my dad took me to a local snooker club and I've never looked back. I don't really follow the football much anymore - when you support Aston Villa, you don't want to be following that."

Image: Peter Ebdon has also qualified for this year's tournament

Mann will be the only debutant at this year's World Championships and is relishing the opportunity of playing on snooker's biggest stage.

"You can't argue, it is snooker's Wembley. It doesn't get much bigger than the Crucible, so I'm looking forward to it," he said.

"I'm buzzing inside. I think I was always going to do some sort of sport and I'm glad it's snooker now with this kind of feeling.

"My dad has remortgaged his house about five times to keep me going."

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