Darters, like a lot of top athletes, can be a superstitious bunch. If Stevie Wonder was a professional darter he’d be very superstitious, and, let’s face it, luck would have to be on his side.
All players will have lucky darts, some players will have lucky darts’ shirts that remain unwashed as a tournament progresses, one can only assume that the smell has a damaging effect on the opponent’s concentration. Some players might have favourite jewellery or maybe a lucky sequence of events prior to a big match, perhaps half a dozen pints of lager and 10 Benson’s – that sort of thing. So when the next scheduled meet for Dart Club fell in a week that contained a Friday the 13th, there was no alternative. Dart Club would have to tempt fate.
It was always going to be risky. But the chairmen didn’t form Dart Club to play it safe, they formed it to play darts. Irrespective of ridiculous calendarical superstitions.
Last week at the Champion Dart Club had swelled to the majestic total of 10 members. When it was announced that the next meet would be Friday 13th half of the new members pulled out!
Could it be the terror of arrows on such a doom-forsaken date that was putting them off? Could it be that they were young men really and wanted to go out chasing tail on a Friday night like everyone else? Well a couple opted for a night in with their wives and another couple went to Alton Towers. It was looking like the magic was gone. Friday the 13th was doing its stuff.
Fate, as we all know, is a fickle mistress. So it came as no surprise to discover the Red Lion on Kingly Street, the proposed site of the next Dart Club meet, had only recently been refurbished. And part of that so called refurbishment involved the removal of the dartboard. DO NOT EVER DRINK IN THE RED LION.
Upon entering the boozer to book the board an ashen-faced Finisher asked the witless Aussie barman where the board has gone.
“It’s not there,” said the witless Aussie barman.
“I can see that.”
“There aren’t really any round here” said a voice from the side.”
“You’d be surprised,” said the Finisher, exiting stage left, down the stairs and back out into London’s seedy Soho, nose to the air and darts on his mind.
Well if that Red Lion didn’t have one, maybe the Red Lion near Shaftsbury Avenue on Great Windmill Street would. The Darkness had sent the Finisher an email earlier saying he was sure he’d chucked there before, so it was worth a try.
But no. It looked nice in the Great Windmill Street-based Red Lion, much nicer than the one on Kingly Street for example, which is a dump. However, nice doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to darts.
The Bull and the Finisher left the nicer Red Lion and figured that they’d have to head back to the drawing board rather than the darting board, when the Bull said: “Oh well, why don’t we check out that pub?” Pointing to a small unassuming Irish boozer called the Lyric. And so they did.
On entering the pub, there is no immediate dartboard on display. Friday the 13th, oh how you taunt. However, by simply asking the jovial landlord Richard he’ll point you in the direction of the ladies toilet upstairs and there in a pokey yet comfortable back room, featuring a pool table and money gobbling juke box, is a knackered old dartboard. But by gum there it is, all round and lovely, doubles and trebles ahoy, out of the window happy darters can also ‘check out’ the Windmill Club, which is London’s seedy Soho’s seedier equivalent, presumably, of Paris’s notorious Moulin Rouge.
Every major city has a red-light district and London is no exception. Indeed as far as London is one of the first modern centres of civilisations, it goes without saying that it probably leads the way in many seedy areas, although how that can be proven is unclear unless, like an adult-movie equivalent of Dart Club, there’s an International Porn Club out there.
But London’s seedy Soho seems to exist solely for the purpose of watching embarrassed business men going hurriedly in and out of dirty video shops or indeed going hurriedly in and out of busty models that are new in town and live upstairs. Whereas other sex centres may be gloriously liberated in this age of tolerance, the repressive English sexual attitudes will mean that porn houses will always remain seedy, downstairs places full of people embarrassed to be there and hoping they can fit enough gay porn videos in their overstretched briefcases without being spotted on the way out. Let’s hope it never changes.
Incidentally, the Lyric is an Irish pub, but not like O’bloody Neil’s which has Australian barstaff, oh no, the Lyric has Irish bar staff 100 per cent. Imagine a London boozer with no Antipodeans, sounds like heaven. Then when you combine that with the fact that it serves Kronenburg, you’re laughing. The nearest tube is Piccadilly Circus, come out of station walk up Shaftesbury Avenue and Great Windmill Street is on your left, you can’t miss it there’s a massive picture of the bottom half of a scantily clad lap dancer directly opposite.
Dart Club had the room booked all night, at no cost, just as long as it could guarantee at least a dozen thirsty punters. Despite the fact that Dart Club was happening on Friday 13th and half of what were assumed to be keen and avid new darters would not be in attendance, Dart Club would go ahead, throwing caution to the wind, like a small piece of tungsten at the sisal board of life.
Not too many new darters had been in touch in the run up to Dart Week Three. Not to worry, it was 17:45 and the Bull and Finisher had left work in the company of two Dart Club firsts. The records do not show who was officially the first, so the pair will have to share the honour of being the first lady darters at Dart Club - dartettes. And what a lovely pair they were.
 |
| The Power and the Sidewinder |
The Power and the Sidewinder had already added significantly to the glamour factor of Dart Club, if nothing else at least the papers might now be interested, after all, sex sells. In fact some sex is also for sale on Great Windmill Street, where certain ‘models’ are available for hire, indeed three bewildered oriental gentlemen were asked within earshot of the Lyric, whether they would like sex for a staggering 75knicker. She was no oil painting either.
Before the Finisher and Bull could road-test the new game, American football, they had to ascertain where the oche should be, since there are no obvious oche markings on the floor in the Lyric. Now, by some strange quirk of nature the Finisher and the Bull make almost ideal human oche markers. The bull’s-eye should be 5’8” (1.73m) from the floor and the darter should stand 7’9”1/4 (or 2.37m) away from the board.
 |
| The Bull taller than the bull?! |
So with the Bull standing at 5’8” at the board and the Finisher at 6’1”, with his arms up, lying on his back, it describes a rough approximation of the required measurements of the dartboard and oche positions. The chairmen placed two bar stools with a pool cue between as a makeshift oche, covered and moved the pool table and were ready to start.
American football, or gridiron as it is often called for some inexplicable reason, is nothing whatsoever like rugby – but your dad probably says it is. He is very wrong, and not for the first time. The real thing involves getting dressed up in fancy outfits, there are three teams per side, one is offensive, one defensive and the other special. Each team takes it in-turn to move the rugby ball-shaped ball forward at least 10 yards in four goes called ‘downs’, with the ultimate aim of carrying the ball into the end-zone, thereby scoring a touchdown, although curiously the player doesn’t need to touch the ball down.
This game is probably best played with a clear head. Americans love it because of the fancy outfits and high scoring. It goes on all afternoon usually enabling plenty of time for booze, which is why it is really a good game. Oh, and there are often cheerleaders.
The darts version, which is an Ivy League favourite, is not quite as complicated as the real thing, and while it involves less fancy outfits and cheerleaders it does hold plenty of potential for drinking beer all afternoon.
Be warned! This game should only really be attempted by two people with time on their hands. And maybe a Dart Club meet was not the kind of place for American football. Still, rules is rules and for the third Dart Club in a row the Finisher was closest to the bull’s-eye with his opening shot, which meant he was in the diving seat.
The Bull was the defence and so kicked off by throwing three darts into the board, thus determining the line of scrimmage (or the running total). The defence then throws another three darts – this is the ‘down’ total. The offence then tries to beat the down total with three darts. If the offence is successful the difference in scores is taken away from the running total. If the offence is not successful, move onto the next down. In other words the defence sets a new down total with three darts. And the offence tries to beat this new down total, with the aim of reducing the running total to zero or beyond in four downs. If the offence gets the running total to zero or below in four turns (12 darts), he scores a touchdown, worth six points. After which, he may go for the point after touchdown by throwing just one dart and getting it into the pub score zone (five, 20 and one) worth one point.
If the offence is not confident that he will beat the defence by enough to secure a touchdown, before the beginning of the fourth down, he must announce that he is going to go for a field-goal. In the real thing, a field-goal is an attempted place kick through the goal posts worth three points. In darts, it is an attempted throw with one dart at a given target as follows: If the running total is 25 or below, the target area is that described by the circle of trebles (not including the trebles), if the running total is between 26 and 50 the target area is the 25/bull. If the running total is 51+ the offence may not elect to go for a field-goal.
It is important that the offence declares his intention to attempt a field-goal prior to the defence’s fourth down setting throws. Defence always sets the down score to beat, in order that the offence gets the adrenal rush of scoring the touchdown. The player who just scored becomes the defence for the next game, i.e. he sets the new running total.
If all this is a bit much, to help simplify matters, here are scores of the very first game of American Football that the Bull and the Finisher played at Dart Club. Now remember the Finisher was closest bull so was in the driving seat setting the running total (scoring 63).
| The Finisher | The Bull | Running Total |
| - | 63 | 63 |
| 13 | 68 | 63 |
| 50 | 45 | 58 |
| 71 | 16 | 3 |
| 80 (TOUCHDOWN) +1 | 60 | -17 (TOUCHDOWN) |
| 26 | - | 26 |
| 26 | 55 (TOUCHDOWN) | -3 (TOUCHDOWN) |
| - | 45 | 45 |
| 37 | 18 | 28 |
| 81 (TOUCHDOWN) +1 | 40 | -13 (TOUCHDOWN) |
| 19 | - | 19 |
| 41 | 21 | 19 |
| 55 | 26 | 19 |
| 50 | 30 | 19 |
| - | Field-goal | - |
| - | 61 | 61 |
| 26 | 47 | 61 |
| 30 | 15 | 46 |
| 36 | 66 | 46 |
| Failed FG | - | - |
| 23 | - | 23 |
| 1 | 63 (TOUCHDOWN) +1 | -62 (TOUCHDOWN) |
In summary, the Finisher scored two touchdowns, as did the Bull, but the Bull also converted a field goal so won the match by three points.
As the pair were road-testing the new game a number of twitchy Dart Clubbers arrived, including the Clinician, the Darkness, Danny Boy and the Specialist – all of whom were sporting new darts.
The Clincian’s were not exactly new, more repaired, the Darkness had invested £6.99 in some Crafty Cockneys, while Danny Boy and the Specialist had bought some for an undisclosed sum that had gimicky spinning flights.
The Specialist tried to hide his gimickry by attaching Notts Forest flights. A technique that would probably win him a number of friends, at that time Notts Forest was the most widely supported football club within the ranks of Dart Club with four followers.
Over the previous two chapters statistical analysis has proved a problem. It’s all well and good listing endless reams of numbers about drunken darts games and for those that were involved it no doubt proves an interesting insight into the very fabric of their dartology. But for the average punter it represents nothing more than some meaningless numbers. And, what’s more, the authors are both mathematical fuck-wits.
The Finisher is the greater of the fuck-wits on the maths side and particularly struggles with subtraction when it involves going between groups of hundreds. Amusingly, he can be easily irritated by being told the answer to his mental arithmetic tasks while he slowly calculates the same problem in his head.
“I was just getting there,” he normally responds. He never is though.
 |
| Crap at the maff |
Given the co-chairmen’s fuckwittedness, there is every likelihood that most of the stats from the previous two weeks are inaccurate. However, it has to be accepted that darts is a numbers game, the numbers are not meaningless, they are everything. What’s more, certain numbers are more everything than other numbers, and that’s the beauty of the game. The quest for the holy numbers is everything.
It is no coincident that darters resemble the knights of King Arthur’s reign. For round table read round dartboard, for lances and arrows read ..er..darts, for Camelot read Circus Tavern in Purfleet, for King Arthur read Phil Taylor. For darts read chivalry, courage and defence of the realm. Obviously there is Excalibur and it could be contended that everyone has their own three individual Excaliburs (except for those of you yet to draw them out of a stone that is your local sports shop). As for the Holy Grail, it could only be the hallowed 180 (it could be the 501 nine dart finish or even 170 exit, but..well…let’s be slightly realistic).
The third incarnation of Dart Club featured only one more game of American football which, for the record, was won by the Clinician and four more games of American cricket, the only point of interest being that the tightest finish so far occurred when Danny Boy overcame the Darkness by a mere eight points.
Nine more games of 301 were played, with points of major interest including a 10 dart finish by the Finisher, scoring a 120 and 98 with consecutive throws – leaving the Bull on 124 at check out. At this level, that’s good darts! The Darkness broke his Dart Club duck and finally won a game of 301, avenging his earlier American cricket defeat at the hands of Danny Boy with a 31 dart finish.
By the third week, Dart Club’s glamour quotient had shot through the roof, as no less than six ladies participated in one of the most gruelling games of 301 to date.
 |
| The Enigma is not best pleased |
Split into pairs, it took the best part of three quarters of an hour to play a game, ONE GAME of 301, 45 minutes… which was eventually won by the Sidewinder and the Enigma. Much to the annoyance of the Clinician, whose misogynistic character came to the fore, relentlessly pacing the length of the room cursing under his breath every time the ladies failed to check out.
Danny Boy, however, was more than sympathetic and it did not go unnoticed by certain sections of Dart Club that the Irish crooner had an altogether different kind of check out in mind. Sitting in full view of the Windmill Club was always going to be dangerous for Danny Boy, darts is a passionate game.
All that remained was to play the 501 challenge, which due to the staggering numbers that Dart Club had attracted started at about 22:00doors. As last orders passed by the barmaid started to get a little bit narky, then closing time rang out, Dart Club was given 10 minutes to get out. It looked like Friday 13th would have the last laugh after all. Without completion, the £5 that everyone had staked would have to be given back the night would have been ruined. The Clinician was scoring and reduced everyone’s total by 100 and was keen to eliminate all those players not yet below 200 – namely the ladies.
However, Dart Club is not in the business of restricting ladies’ darts. With the clock at 23:15 and the bar maid now threatening violence, the pressure intensified. With the time at 23:25 she gave us one last throw, one last hurl of the arrow. And one man rose to the challenge, one man alone was equal to mistress fate – the Black Bomber, scooped the 75bigones on the table, then he scooped up his good lady the Bite and presumably scooped up a large burger with fries before retiring for a night of love.
 |  |
| The Black Bomber is quite happy | Dart Club celebrates last orders |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment