Having all your dreams, hopes and ambitions brutally ripped from your bosom just as they are beginning to resemble reality is a harrowing enough experience. But revisiting the theatre of such cruelty to operate on the fringes can elevate the suffering to almost unbearable levels.

It takes a person of particular fortitude to surmount the mental barrier constructed by bricks of pain and the cement of tears, yet torment could be Chris Small's next of kin.

Held in high regard as a snooker player, the Scot was tantalisingly close to achieving his ambition of reaching the sport's top 16 in 2001 when he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative spinal disease, and instructed to step away from the green baize.

That it took him a further four years to do so - a time in which he earned that coveted place in the world's elite and secured his only ranking tournament victory while playing in ever-increasing discomfort - is testament to his resilience.

In 2005, the pain reached its nadir in Sheffield during the world championship, the Scot discovering that the Crucible Theatre was indeed a severe trial as he withdrew after only one frame of his first-round match against compatriot Alan McManus. Almost immediately, he announced his retirement from a game he had invested his hopes in since the age of eight and was soon back in Edinburgh with his family, virtually house-bound.

It was, Small confesses, a hollow existence buoyed only by the support of his family and friends. Yet that, coupled with his determination, has gradually allowed his rehabilitation to progress to a point where he is both physically and mentally equipped to reprise his relationship with snooker.

Over the past 18 months, he has been coaching a coterie of youngsters at a local club on a voluntary basis, an arrangement that seems to provide an outlet for the 33-year-old to channel his attentions. His immersion in their development has reached such levels, in fact, that he confides his concerns about the work ethic of his pupils, claiming that those in his tutelage appear unwilling to apply themselves in the ferocious manner once so familiar to him.

Being back in that environment but unable to lift a cue himself can be frustrating. "Some days I could do without it, to be honest," Small admits. "But when you see the lads improving and building higher and higher breaks, it does help and makes you think it's worthwhile.

"Still, its tough - sometimes I need to just have a wee shot, but once I've hit a couple of balls I'm fine and can sit down again. I suppose it's just like a drug and I miss it, big-time. I've stopped watching snooker on television, too. It depresses me in a way."

His resolve will be tested further next week when he returns to the Crucible with Michael Leslie, one of his proteges, for the Junior Pot Black competition. Staged concurrently with the early rounds of the world championship, the competition is for the best eight under-16s on these shores, with the 14-year-old one of the favourites to triumph.

On a personal level, Small is looking forward to the journey, despite struggling initially when he attended last year's tournament. The difficulty was compounded by having to watch Paul Hunter bravely fulfil his first-round match while battling cancer.

Although able to associate with the frustration of illness hampering his performance, Small points to Hunter's untimely death last October as an indication of just how insignificant his problems are in comparison. "I think about Paul a lot and it just shows me how lucky I am," he said quietly. "Sure, we both played through pain, but I'm still here. I'm not fit to work, so I can't put my mind on that, but I'm now just enjoying spending time with my family, going out now and again and helping the boys. I'm still only 33 and while I sometimes feel about 73, I can't look at it like that and just have to get on with my life."

His improved physical state will also aid the enjoyment. The past six months have welcomed an upturn in health, with two injections a week of a new drug into his stomach affording Small a more positive outlook.

Stepping back from the pressured atmosphere of professional sport has, he admits, also had a beneficial effect of his life with more time for his family and the burden of no longer enjoying snooker lifted.

"It's getting easier now with time passing," he said. "I still have good days and bad days - if I'm really sore that can put me on a downer, but other times I wake up and it's a sunny day and I'm in a decent mood.

"I've noticed now there is more outside the game, so there are positives. When I played I had this tunnel vision that meant I didn't really take other people's feelings into account. I sit back now and think how could I have been like that?' but you just don't realise.

"I suppose I probably should have stopped earlier because the last 18 months was agony. I wasn't enjoying it and a lot of the time it was hellish being out, punishing myself in a sense by playing, and eventually I just had to let it go."

Next week, Small will yet again present a stoical front in the face of pain in an attempt to help make dreams come true.