Pub Darts

“Hey look, it’s the former world champion. Bob Croucher. Give us a game mate, show us what you can do.”

 

This was a man speaking, obviously, 30s, probably only borish when drunk, but probably drunk most nights. 

 

“I’m having a night off,” I said. I was having a night off, I’d bloody earned it, four gruesome nights in Milton Keynes for the Players Championship, knocked out first round, first round, second round, quarter finals. Barely earned enough to pay for my drinks. I had an entire three nights off before driving up to Barnsley for the next round of the not-very-important cup. The next circle of hell.

 

“Just having a quiet drink with Nige here,” I continued. That’s usually enough to silence the gobby ones, Nige is a quarterback for the local American football team, built like a wall, the sort of wall Donald Trump would approve of, but this guy was oblivious, his mouth on auto-pilot.

 

“He’s fucking chicken. He’s a fucking washed-up chicken-shit darts player of yesteryear. I saw you against Barney Rubble last week. He stuffed you.”

 

“Barny’s a good player, five times world champion.”

 

“He’s a bloody pensioner. Can’t see the board any more, let alone hit it, his glasses are two inches thick. You should never have lost to him. You were rubbish. You were fucking Spandau Ballet.”

 

“Spandau Ballet?” Even Sid Waddell never compared me to a New Romantic pop band, and he once described my stance as 'Like a meercat at the O.K. Corral’.

 

“Early 80s,” he explained.

 

I had to smile. My average against Barney had been 83.2, garbage, BDO-level stuff. Spandau Ballet! Maybe he wasn’t such a cunt after all.  I have a strict rule never to accept challenges from strangers, I can charge several thousand for an exhibition match thank you very much, but I was both pissed off and amused, so I made him an offer.

 

“Okay then, I’ll give you a game, but here’s the bet. If you win I buy you all free beer for the rest of the night,”  The bloke and his mates all cheered this promise.

 

“Sounds fair,” the bloke said. “And if you win?”

 

“Then you all fuck off.”

 

“Game on,” he said.

 

“Game on,” I repeated.

 

Game is always on. Never forget that.

 

He sounded tanked up, but was probably three pints in, no more. You know the sort, pissed on testosterone at the mere thought of a lads night out. He could be drinking ffizzy water with a slice and he’d still be picking fights and hastling darts players.

 

“Challenger starts,” I said, setting down the rules. “501, best of one leg, straight in, double out. No punching, no kicking, no biting, no disrupting your opponent.”

 

The guy and his mates laughed at this, but you never know. Pub darts is a tough sport if you don’t police it properly.

 

The board was a typical pub board, with a slight bulge around the sixty, spreading into the trebble 1 and the trebble 5. The board was next to a window, not double-glazed, which resulted in a faint draft, not enough to disturb my arrows, but someone like Ted Hankey, with his 12 gram set of pointed feathers, would have struggled to hit the board (or at least that would be his excuse). Luckily I throw hard and heavy.

 

The bloke, I never bothered to ask his name, lurched towards the board as if he was about to land the first punch, but, when he reached the oche, straightened up and stood tall and steady, looking like he meant it. His throw was all muscle though, no action to speak of, and his darts sprayed around like disco lights, or cats piss, depending on your choice of similie. Twenty-six scored.

 

I’d had no practice, but this is what I do, I live, drink, eat and sleep darts. Some nights it’s hot as soon as you step up, and this was one of those nights. “One hundred and eighty,” said Nige, who’d taken on the role of scorer.

 

The disco lights / cat’s piss continued, 32 scored. I followed with 140 and it was all over in ten darts, bull to finish.

 

“Fucking amazing,” he said.

 

“Yeah, well, it’s what I do for a living,” I said. “Now fuck off.”

 

To his credit, he fucked off. I could hear him talking to his mates as they left. “Did you see that: Ton 80, ton 40, ton 31 and bull. Best darts player in the world, didn’t I tell you?”

 

“Pint?” said Nige.

 

“Yeah, why not.” Pity to leave the darts when I’d started so well, but this was my night off. ‘Save it for Barnsley’, I said to myself.

 

“Save it for Barnsley,” said Nige. It’s like he can read my mind sometimes.