Victoria’s Snooker Academy. This is where the magic happens 🏆
📖 Article published 8 April 2026.
Walk up Scotland Street in Sheffield city centre, and you’ll pass the home of some of the world’s biggest snooker stars.
Victoria’s Snooker Academy is home to 20 professional players - including current world snooker champion Zhao Xintong - with a global reputation and a booming online following.
But, with only one unassuming sign outside, most people have no clue it even exists.
“It is a hidden gem”, says Andrew Bromley, director and husband of the academy’s founder Victoria Shi, as he opens the doors.
“But we are proud of what we’ve done, proud that we’ve created a world champion. Every big name in snooker has been to our academy. Stephen Hendry was in yesterday, Ronnie O’Sullivan still comes here when he is playing in Sheffield.
“We have a community of players from around the world that we’ve nurtured and helped over ten years. They are getting better and better.”
Former journalist Victoria created the academy in 2016. A Chinese football writer who switched to covering the rise of snooker’s Ding Junhui, she eventually became his manager.
Then, she astutely spotted the need for an academy that helped young players both on and off the table.
Supported from the start by snooker’s biggest personalities, the academy is home to serious professional talent and the self-declared ‘most successful’ in the UK.
Zhao was a teenager when Andrew first picked him up from Manchester Airport. Today, he’s one of China’s sporting icons.
Other academy members include international championship winner Zhang Anda and World Snooker Championships semi-finalist Si Jiahu, alongside players from Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Thailand and Germany.
Andrew said the academy’s key to success was being a home away from home.
“At first our players might not be able to speak much English. It might be the first time they’ve been away from home on their own, they might not know how to open a bank account or speak to a doctor.
“Anybody with funding can put six to ten snooker tables in a room. The secret is how we help them off the table - Victoria is like a second mother to them. We help them with all aspects of their lives, as well as enabling them to practice in the very best conditions.”
Inside the Victoria Snooker Centre, members are absorbed in practicing on premium Xing Pai Star tables (the academy is also the official European distributor.)
They are the same tables that will be used when the 2026 World Snooker Championship begins just half a mile away at The Crucible, running from Saturday 18 April 18 until Monday 4 May 2026.
All eyes will be on Zhao, to see if he can retain his title to break the ‘Crucible curse’ no first-time winner has overcome.
And there will be an especially celebratory atmosphere after last month’s confirmation that The World Snooker Championship will stay at the theatre until at least 2045.
Andrew, aged 48, said: “Zhao is the favourite to win it. But who knows? There are a lot of top players and it’s hard enough to win one championship!
“The Crucible curse is a lot of nonsense, the reality is it’s really difficult for somebody to win it more than once.
“It’s absolutely fantastic that the championship will be staying in Sheffield. Sheffield and snooker go hand in hand. There’s so much history and you cannot replicate that anywhere else.
“If you ever go to The Crucible to see a snooker match, anything can happen on that table, it’s about the uncertainty of each shot and the tension in there.
“There’s bigger venues in the UK, but they don’t have that atmosphere.”
When Zhao won last April, he was draped in the flag of China for photographs with 49-year-old Victoria and his girlfriend, Yi Yi.
That flag was a £3 Amazon purchase Andrew made when he supported international students at Sheffield Hallam University in a previous role. It will shortly be framed and go on display at The Crucible, as a piece of Sheffield snooker history.
Andrew said 29-year-old Zhao, also known as 'The Cyclone', was a master at hiding his emotions while playing. Outside of the sport, he is a huge fan of his adopted home city.
The player was mobbed when he arrived back in Shenzhen after beating Mark Williams to the title. Videos of him practicing at the academy go viral on Chinese social media platforms.
“He can be anonymous here in Sheffield,” said Andrew.
"In China, if he goes out of the house everybody stops him and asks for an autograph. In Sheffield he can have a meal, go shopping and live a fairly normal life.”
Crookes couple Victoria and Andrew expanded their academy in 2019 when they moved to the Metis building on Scotland Street.
The academy has also just become part of Sheffield BID, through a third term expansion of the boundary.
And it is working with BID leaders to create a new snooker-themed mural on the outside of the building. This will signify its role in putting the city on the map.
Andrew said, in a typically understated Sheffield fashion: “We’re quite happy to keep trucking along, doing what we are doing. We’ve got the world champion - we are doing OK.”
Victoria’s Snooker Academy is open to the public but bookings must be made in advance.
Find out all about the Academy on the Victoria Snooker Academy website.