Respect the Fearless
Posted on June 27th, 2011
Here I sit, watching an old episode of Bullseye. I feel that my youth was wasted. I could have been playing darts and getting the practice in early. One year of darts just doesn’t seem to be enough at my age! The highlight of my week could have been watching the Lakeside and looking forward to a bit of Bully on prime time TV.
By no means do I claim to know all there is about darts. But I do crave the knowledge. My Dad was never particularly into the sport, and I can only wish my Granddad was around to tell me stories of Bobby George winning the News of the World Championship or John Lowe’s incredible T17, T18, D18 finish earning him over £100,000 in 1984, first hand.
I am a late generation of darts fan, however, certainly not the latest. There’s a whole new crop after me, with talent that threatens to surpass our heroes of the past and present – the likes of Arron Monk, Michael van Gerwen and the youngster Josh Richardson who I was stunned by just a couple of weeks ago.
Tags: Arron Monk, Bobby George, bullseye, Eric Bristow, John Lowe, Michael Van Gerwen
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Book Review: Scoring for Show, Doubles for Dough
Posted on June 16th, 2011
Written by the King of Bling, Bobby George and Dr Darts, Patrick Chaplin. Foreword by Ray Stubbs.
2011 Apex Publishing Limited, Essex | 149 Pages Hardback | RRP £9.99 | Available 25th June 2011
Darts has come a long way. From the early 1900s when brass was chucked at the old Fives board on a ‘hockey’ in East End boozers darts progressed from casual pastime to a worldwide phenomenon before graduating to the professional sport we have today, throwing from an ‘oche’.
It is an inexpensive game that anybody can play and as such has always attracted the working class, spawning a sub-culture with its own language. It is this darting lexicon that ‘Scoring for Show, Doubles for Dough’ explores, providing the first dedicated darts glossary.
Watch televised darts these days and you will hear the commentator talking about “peppering the lipstick” and being “in the madhouse”, wind back 100 years and the call of “cat’s on the counter” will have gone up following a winning dart. If these expressions mean nothing to you look no further.
Tags: Bobby George, Doubles for Dough, Patrick Chaplin, Review, Scoring for Show
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Both poker and darts are highly popular pursuits. The games are available online, in fact, that there are organizations dedicated to making sure the rules of video poker and online darts are conformed. Similar to darts having the World Darts Federation, among others, and poker has the Tournament Directors Association. These rules are put into place in highly competitive tournaments, in which as many as hundreds or even thousands of people compete for cash prizes as well as prestige.
