In Prague someone said: ‘I didn’t know they taught monkeys to throw darts’

ALLY PALLY QUALIFIER HEDMAN, 61, REVEALS RACISM BATTLE

Hedman goes in search of glory as she does battle with Andy Boulton

TRAILBLAZER Deta Hedman will make her PDC Dar ts Wo r l d Championship debut at the age of 61, warning: “Racism will never go away.” Hedman, the first black woman to qualify for the Alexandra Palace showpiece, was once so sickened by bigo ted abuse she quit the oche for five years “just to clear my head”.

The Royal Mail sorting office worker, who mixes darts with 13- hour night shifts, faces world No. 58 Andy Boulton in the first round. A three- times runner- up in the nowdefunct BDO women’s world championship, she pipped Fallon Sherrock to qualify for the PDC event for the first time.

While Sherrock became the first female player to win a match at the PDC tournament, Hedman was the first woman to have a televised win over male opposition when she beat Aaron Turner and Norman Fletcher at the 2005 UK Open.

But for Hedman, who wa s born in Jamaica, the journey to Ally Pally has been punctuated by discrimination, notably at one tournament in the Czech Republic.

She told Sky Sports: “I’ve grown up from the age of 14 in England, so I don’t really look at it being a black woman and fighting for this and that. I just see myself as a person playing darts as it is and enjoying it.

“I’ll probably always be involved in the game until I drop or when my memory fails me but I’m still loving it.”

Her career has been scarred by her experience of racism, and she said: “It’s still there even now, believe you me. It hasn’t gone away.

“I don’t think it will ever go away because that’s how some people are. That one (in Prague) was pretty dire. They said, ‘I didn’t know they taught monkeys to throw darts’. You can’t dress that up at all – it’s just racist.”

Hedman also received sickening abuse on social media following her defeat at the 2019 Lakeside world championship. And in 1997, she pretended work commitments prevented her from playing for England.

She said: “There was just one incident too many and I’d lost enjoyment. I sent Olly Croft (the BDO founder) a letter to say I wouldn’t go to Australia to represent England with the way I was feeling. I dropped out of the sport for a few years and took a back seat, just to clear my head. I think I returned a stronger person.”