Our man Ando was class act with Crying Dutchman
CONFESSION time. I’m a massive darts fan.
I got hooked in the late 1970s and 80s when the best sports commentator in the business bar none – the late, great Sid Waddell – was waxing lyrical about ‘Jocky on the oche feeling cocky’.
Smokefilled pubs and clubs with pot-bellied men drinking alcohol and throwing sharp objects into a round board. What’s not to like?
Granted the game has changed a lot since Scots legend Jocky Wilson won the Embassy World Professional championship in 1982 and 1989. For a start he didn’t approve of the no bevvy rule.
But Wilson would most definitely have approved of what happened this week.
On Sunday, Dutchman Berry van Peer was facing our own Gary Anderson at the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton and what happened next was both heartbreaking and heartwarming.
Van Peer succumbed to a 5-1 defeat to the Scot but during the contest the 21-year-old was struck by a bout of dartitis.
For those not familiar with the term it basically means the player struggles to release the dart during his throwing action.
The condition has affected bigger stars than van Peer – Eric Bristow and Wayne Mardle just two of the men to have been afflicted.
Initially the crowd mocked van Peer before realising the situation was far more serious as the player was reduced to tears.
Check out the video on YouTube but, be warned, it is tough to watch.
Van Peer later explained: “You’re just trying to do the basic things in darts – to throw your dart to the board. It actually feels like the ground is growing away from you.”
One can’t even begin to imagine the guts and courage it took for him to continually walk to the oche and throw his darts under such duress.
But Anderson’s reaction after he had just thrown the winning shot was class.
There was no joyful celebration or fist-pumping – just concern for van Peer.
Anderson warmly embraced van Peer and offered encouraging words to his opponent, who by now had been reduced to a blubbering wreck.
Afterwards the Scot admitted to sobbing like a kid backstage as the match preyed on his mind.
If that wasn’t emotional enough, Monday night was an even bigger tearjerker.
Van Peer overcame his darting adversity to book a place in the last 16 with a 5-4 win over another Scot Cameron Menzies.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as both players visibly wailed as they hugged each other after a titanic struggle.
People can argue the toss – excuse the pun – all day long whether darts is a sport or not. Or if it is as Waddell famously described: “All bellies and bullseyes.”
Darts is definitely all machismo, showboating,
The actions of The Flying Scotsman made me fall in love with darts again
one-upmanship and posturing. But this week we witnessed the compassionate side and raw emotion of sport.
The actions of The Flying Scotsman made me fall in love with darts all over again. But it is the tears of The Crying Dutchman which will live long in the memory.
The most wonderful thing about the episode was the way the darting fraternity – led by Anderson – threw a protective arm around one of the sports lesser-known lights.
No doubt Waddell would have summed it all up with one eloquent phrase in his unmistakable Geordie accent.
‘Ladies and Gentleman, what you are witnessing here is ‘The Heart of Dartness’. Indeed we were.