World champion a master of his craft
Eric Bristow Darts champion BORN APRIL 25, 1957 - DIED APRIL 5, 2018 AGED 60
ERIC Bristow was world darts champion five times between 1980 and 1986. When he won his third in 1984 pundit Sid Waddell said: “When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer. Bristow’s only 27.”
Bristow earned the nickname the Crafty Cockney when he visited a pub in Santa Monica, California, of the same name and won his first world title soon afterwards. A strong personality he visited the Falkland Islands to entertain troops and in 1989 received an MBE.
During the ceremony he unintentionally breached protocol by turning his back on the Queen. When he realised what he’d done he said, “Sorry, darling.” The Queen burst out laughing in return.
Bristow was born in Hackney, the only child of George, a plasterer, and Pamela, a telephonist and grew up in nearby Stoke Newington.
He attended Hackney Downs School but was never a model pupil and left at 14, later admitting to joyriding and burglary.
But he had started playing darts at 11 and began playing for his local team and was soon earning £120 every weekend. On the strength of these earnings he gave up his day job as a proof-reader in the City and turned professional.
Bristow first threw for England just before he turned 18 and had a hugely successful decade but by the end of the 1980s began to suffer from dartitis which meant he could not release the dart.
He recovered and returned to the sport after eight years, briefly becoming No 1 again but ended up coaching Phil “The Power” Taylor, who went on to beat him in the world championship final in 1990.
Bristow finally retired in 2007 and published his autobiography The Crafty Cockney the following year.
In 2012 he came fourth in I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here and he also broadcast as a pundit for Sky until he was forced to step down after some unwise tweets on the sex-abuse scandal in football.
He went out with Maureen Flowers, then the UK’s top women’s darts player before marrying Jane, with whom he had two children, Louise and James, in 1989.
After their divorce in 2005 he met Becky Gadd at a Bullseye roadshow. She survives him along with his children. He died of a heart attack.