Once upon a time darts was played in a corner of a pub with a top whack audience of two dozen and the chuckers sometimes had to ask if the missile was in the right bed. Spectator sport? Don’t make me smile. For the past three months we have had upwards of 5000 punters riveted on ‘pomp darts’, as in ‘pomp rock’, played in massive arenas for the Premier Darts League and big audiences every Thursday night on Sky. Читать далее...
The Premier League swept into Cardiff last week and I was swept through with great memories.
I recalled, happily, for several Welsh newspapers the great days of Alan Evans and Leighton Rees, the two men who really put darts on the map in the late 1970s and early 80s. Their flamboyance, character and skill at the Indoor League and on other telly darts grabbed the public imagination. Читать далее...
It has been a few days of pure nostalgia for the Geordie Lip. I have waxed lyrical in the land of Sir Walter Scott and Country and Western in the old stomping ground of George Formby.
Last Wednesday saw me striding along Princes Street in Edinburgh thinking up Celtic witticisms and breathing in pure air from the hills round Lammermuir. Читать далее...
What a complete gas! What a raving crowd! What sensational darts fare! Yes, I am on about the Sheffield Arena Premier Darts League with 5200 fans going berserk. It was the biggest audience live at a darts event since the News of the World Grand Finals left the Ally Pally in 1977. It was an experience I will never forget, being perched in the gods looking down on a swirling sea of fans. And when Dennis Priestley, the local hero, beat Colin Lloyd the plywood of the commentary box almost fractured under a tornado of sound. Читать далее...
I must admit that I am trembling with anticipation at the prospect of ‘playing’ the Metro Arena in Newcastle with the Holsten Premier Darts League. I last commentated in the Toon in the summer of 1994 at the Samson Classic and the fan mania – all waving bottle and banners – was led by my 80 year old mum Martha! What will 4000-plus darts-daft Geordies do this Thursday? There’ll be Grog on the Tyne all right. Читать далее...