Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
180* reasons to love darts
AS the PDC World Darts Championship continues, writer Ned Boulting concludes in a new book that darts is an anti-sport sport, a twofingered salute to the establishment, a p***-up in a brewery, the ultimate escape… and the best night out.
Darts isn’t like anything else in the world. It’s impossibly difficult, hugely pressurised, massively raucous and, at the same time, one of the daftest activities on planet earth.
I have watched at close quarters as Dave “Chizzy” Chisnall managed to stab himself in the crotch with a dart, seen how Andrew “Goldfinger” Gilding ripped his trousers in the crotch, simply patched them up with gaffer tape and carried on.
I’ve marvelled at “Mighty Mike” van Gerwen’s capacity for singlehandedly emptying KFC Bargain Buckets. I have heard stories of Cliff Lazarenko’s ability at the bar.
I have heard the tale of the late Jocky Wilson sucking the coating off dry-roast peanuts then passing them around as plain-salted nuts, shortly before he threw a dart at Rod Harrington, which pierced his midriff. Just for a laugh.
The recent spat between two-time world champ Gary Anderson and Dutch pretender Wesley Harms about farting was one of the funniest things ever in world sport: two elite sportsmen bickering about who blew off. It was the most “darts” thing I have heard of.
In which other sport would you find a specimen like “Snakebite”
Peter Wright, a middleaged man who earns a substantial living jigging ineptly on a stage, wearing clown trousers and a ridiculous shirt, topped by a multi-coloured Mohican, and then throwing darts with God-given brilliance?
Peter is a naturally shy 48-yearold who flaunts a lovingly painted snake on his scalp, an artwork that takes wife Joanne so long she does it the night before and he can only sleep one side on the pillow.
But for all that glorious silliness, from time to time the game takes over and becomes heart-stoppingly dramatic. As German paper Die Zeit noted on a visit to the World Championships last year, darts “is an eternal penalty shootout, which makes it remarkable that the English are so good at it”.
So how come it took root on these shores? No one really knows how or where darts began, basically because no one really cares.
There are a few well-worn, semifictional anecdotes about Anne Boleyn gifting Henry VIII a set of arrows. Others mumble something about soldiers practising on the oche before Agincourt. But no one gives a damn.
Mostly, the history of darts is slapdash nonsense because the truth is rather unpalatable, treasonous even. Whisper it quietly but darts was probably a French invention. Yes, the little feathered friends were imported in the latter part of the 19th century.
It was during the interwar years that darts saw a surge in popularity. But it wasn’t until TV got hold of it in the 70s that it started to soar. The revolution started with the rarely sober Fred Trueman’s Indoor League programme.
Then came the Embassy World Championships and the legendary Bullseye, presented by the gloriously inept Jim Bowen.
In my research into the Heart of Dart-ness, I listened to Jim reminisce, not long before he sadly died. He rocked with laughter as he remembered how, in his own words, “crap” he was at presenting. “I was hopeless,” he chuckled.
But the show planted darts into the centre of the nation’s hearts. This was the era of brown nylon, Mini Metros and The Crafty Cockney, Eric Bristow; a rascal of such dashing brilliance people forgave his stellar arrogance.
The game somehow survived the ribbing it took from Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones in Not the Nine O’clock News, which depicted darts players as beerswilling, fag-puffing wrecks.
Even though darts was considered deeply unfashionable by the early 90s, it never disappeared.
At the turn of the century, Phil “The Power” Taylor, riding the wave of the newly formed Professional Darts Corporation, redefined what it is possible to do with a nylon shirt, three little arrows and a cork board.
His 16 (16!) world titles set a benchmark of brilliance that will never be matched. With him, the game went stratospheric again.
Yet scratch the surface and you swiftly conclude the game has never moved far from the barstool. s the first chronicler of the sport, posh Rupert Croftcooke, observed in 1936, darts is a game best played with the “golden glow of beer in one’s brain, to the sound of tinkling glasses”.
We live in fraught times. That is why, when it’s time to throw for bull in Ally Pally, darts reminds us of an uncomplicated time in our collective lives. It is an escape into the past, clothed in the fancy dress of the present.
As Barry Hearn, the man who controls the modern game, is fond of saying, it is “beautifully ordinary”. He’s not wrong. It is still a humble pastime, free at the point of use, unabashed and unpretentious. Every one of us has, at some point, thrown a dart. It’s a part of us.
Heart of Dart-ness: Bullseyes, Boozers and Modern Britain by Ned Boulting, is published by Blink, £16.99.