How I got into darts - Chapter 1 Getting Interested

Hi Guys

Before i injured myself and decided to take a sabatical i was writing an e-book. A kind of 'year in the life of a pubs darts player' thing.

Well seeing as this blog has got such popular feedback i thought i would post the first chapter here:

Chapter 1

I had been a peripheral fan of darts for a few years, thanks mainly to my father-in-law and brother-in-law, both of whom were fans. I do recall watching bits of darts occasionally over the years when I was a young man but since I didn’t have sky then my main memory of darts were of Martin ‘Wolfie’ Adams versus Taylor, Andy Fordham versus someone, Bobby George doing some coverage on BBC one and talking to an ex bodybuilding darts player called Robert Wagner (not the famous actor), and then at some point in the 2000’s a large’ish man in shades entering to a madness tune (Darryl Fitton). It was something where I’d catch a few legs on BBC One, or maybe a few legs on Sky if a girlfriend had Sky. but not something I’d actively seek out.

 I had got bought a rubbish darts board when I was 11 or 12 at home but didn’t play it much. My parents hadn’t done the measurements and so it remained hung on my door for a few years, occasionally beckoning me to throw the horrendous mental and plastic darts that came with it at it before it disappeared in the trash.  Looking back now it was abit of a random purchase for my parents then. Very house proud they weren’t exactly keen on room damaging toys, I can’t recall them watching it very much and I don’t recall being into darts then at all so I have no idea why they bought it. I do remember that we always watched Bullseye so maybe I had asked for it one day?? My two resounding memories of this are that it was yellow and black and made of wood and that my now deceased Mum god rest her soul, hit a bulls-eye on her first throw. After that it’s sad to say that further memories of it have got lost in the haze of time. Looking back it’s a shame that I didn’t make more of it then as it could have led me on a different path.

Anyway I had caught the 2013 world championships and watched the majority of it, culminating with Phil Taylor winning his 16^th world title and it interested me. I was still working in Boxing at the time and a venue where one of shows was going to be held had flyers of a darts exhibition that was going to be held there (in may) so I looked it up online and saw that the company was called Modus Darts and were the major name in UK dart exhibitions.

I wasn’t really familiar with a lot of the names however the tickets were only £15 each so I booked them and a few months later we went down .

The exhibition had:

Paul Nicholson

Michael van Gerwen

Les Wallace

Vincent van Der Voort

Any Jenkins

Simon Whitlock

Robert Thornton

All I can say is that a darts event is like no other. The atmosphere, the music , the crowd interaction, it all comes together to create a unique experience. As soon as veteran MC and commentator John Gwynne came out and did his bit (a mix of dry stand-up, crowd bating and wit) it got the crowd at fever pitch. I didn’t know it at the time but Gwynne is a true legend of the game. I was instantly hooked on the atmosphere at least from a spectator point of view. Van Gerwen was a class above this night and won it.