E is for evenin’ all

After four successful Dart Club events all within easy walking distance of the Finisher and the Bull’s glitzy West End offices, the pair thought it only fair to stage dartweek five a little farther a field. After all not everyone lives or works in London’s pretentious medialand.

However, the pair would not be sacrificing convenience just to keep uncool scratters happy, for the next pub of choice, even though, so far, the furthest away from the plucky duo’s swanky state-of-the-art Fitzrovia Noho workspace was still only 20 mins door to door.

It seems the commie scum tube drivers weren’t so bad after all, maybe they deserve a little extra cash. It can’t be easy keeping that long train on those thin rails, and do it in the dark.

BOOM, BOOM.

The next chosen venue was the Archery Tavern, a splendidly turned out boozer on Bathurst Street, which is dead easy to find, come out of Lancaster Gate tube station (on the Central Line – that’s the red one folks) turn left, follow the road round the corner, cross the six lanes of high speed London rush hour traffic, and it’s just up on the left, it’s got a picture of Robin Hood on the sign, and is opposite a curry house, which is almost certainly called the Taj Mahal.

WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: WARNING WARNING: WARNING: WARNING

Sadly, it would seem that the Archery Tavern closed some time after Dart Club attended. The two incidents are not thought to be related. Although, never discount the power of darts.

From the outside it looks very welcoming with hanging baskets and a few benches, inside you’ll find a respectable boozer with friendly staff (about 30% Australian), serving HB – which on this occasion is not a pencil, but a strong British lager. It is the weakest lager available, the only other being wife beater!! With lager like that, DC5 was bound to be a cracker or dangerous. Or both.

There are a number of real ale type drinks and the usual collection of spirits, but none were sampled. They do food too, but Dart Club was on pork scratchings all night.

The boozer features a sizeable back room, complete with fruity, sky sports, some booths, a hatch through to the main bar, the gents and, of course, a dartboard – complete with picture of the great, although rather agoraphobic, ex-pro Scotch darter Jockey Wilson.

It's probably worth noting that the oche was bloody miles away from the board, as was proved when the Finisher lay on the floor and stretched his arms out, he was nowhere near the regulation 7’9” distance.

Also, whenever one of the pub’s friendly civilians went to take a leak, play was hindered. That said, it was a lovely board and the serving hatch to the main bar more than made up for it.

Also, a point of interest for you equestrian fans out there, and more for those of us who appreciate looking at posh birds in jodhpurs (and who doesn't?), the darts room looks directly out onto some stables.

As had become something of a habit at previous Dart Clubs, the Finisher and the Bull arrived early doors, probably about 17:30ish, the room was empty and the landlord had put up a handy sign telling the locals to fuck off.

The new game to be learned in the Archery Tavern was a darts variant of the classic long tedious car journey game, battleships, the game immortalised by an advert on telly that made it look quite cool, where players had electronic bits and LEDs and stuff and then one of the annoyingly sugar-faced kids wins and dad says “you sunk my battleship”.

But before the early 1980s LED powered battleships was invented, battleships did exist, both as a game and as a big ship thing that killed the Germans – it’s true my granddad told me (on both counts).

Maybe you missed out on the advert, perhaps you weren’t born in the early 1970s, maybe you had slightly bohemian parents so didn’t have a telly, or just Nazi parents that would only let you watch BBC, but surely you must have played this game.

Here is a quick re-cap: Both players have a grid ten by ten (mark across the top of the grid letters a-j and down the side numbers 1-10), in this grid each player must place their fleet (although do not show your opponent where you are placing your ships).

Don't mention the war	I wish they'd invent the PlayStation

The fleet consists of five ships. An aircraft carrier, a battleship, a destroyer, a submarine and something else that no one can remember the name of.

Anyway, the carrier takes up five spaces, the battleship and destroyer four, the sub three and the one that no one can remember the name of two. Each player takes it in turn to call out a grid reference e.g. a1, for anyone without the simplest of maff brains out there, this would be the top leftest corner, j1 being top right, a10 bottom left and yes, yes, you’ve got it. Nice wun.

If the grid reference called out strikes a space containing any part of any of your opponent’s fleet (remember you can’t see where your opponent has put their ships) he should shout “hit”, bet you can’t guess what to shout if it’s a miss?

When a ship is sunk, i.e. all its spaces have been successfully hit, the vanquished admiral must shout out which ship has been sunk. The idea is to completely destroy your opponent’s fleet. Now, as you can probably appreciate, this would take forever on a dartboard, it’d also be very, very complicated and the best darts games, like most things in life (except puzzles) are the simplest.

In the darts version of battleships each player has only three ships, gone are the aircraft carrier and the destroyer. Like the original, the battleship takes four spaces, the sub three and the one no one can remember the name of takes two, players should mark down on a piece of paper which segments are their relevant ships.

Each player takes one dart at a time and goes for the board, if the dart lands in a bed occupied by an opponent’s ship the oppo should shout “hit”, like in the original.

In the one and only game of battleships played that night, the Bull broke with the habit of a lifetime and got closest to bull’s-eye with his marker dart, and then the Finisher failed to break the habit of a lifetime by losing the opening game in quite emphatic fashion.

His fleet, represented by 13,6 (the one no one can remember the name of), 3,16,19,7 (the battleship) and 9,11,8 (the submarine) were sunk before he could even get off the mark.

If the Bull were a famous person from history he would probably be Sir Walter Raleigh. Although, he was more a bowls man apparently.

As the pair played battleships they were joined by a new member to Dart Club, indeed he represented another first, since the Kosh also represented the long arm of the law.

This could go one of two ways. Dart Club are (so far) by and large law abiding types, although you can almost guarantee that they have all broken the law on numerous occasions, probably quite a few during the last week. And it really doesn’t matter whether a copper is off-duty. For most people the merest sight of a rozzer walking down the street brings them out in a cold sweat and makes them look as guilty as sin.

Police officers must go through life thinking everyone has just that minute been up to no good, and just seen them in time. It must be quite galling seeing all those guilty faces and having no grounds upon which to arrest them.

Thankfully, the Kosh seemed like a decent bloke and what’s more he was not wearing a uniform, so no doubt dart clubbers would treat him like a human being.

However, the Finisher had been warned that the Kosh was a copper, so when the Kosh walked in the Finisher looked for all the world as though he’d just mugged the barman and tried to pinch the telly off the wall.

The Kosh, however, was more concerned by the attire of the two darters, the Finisher was wearing a 1960s style Nottingham Forest jersey, while the Bull was decked out in a 2001 Chelsea strip, with the word Pratt across the shoulders, for some inexplicable reason.

“’Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s going on ‘ere?” said the Kosh.

The Kosh	Ello, ello, ello

Well he didn’t really, but he might have done for comedy copper purposes. The football jerseys were in honour of Lancaster Gate.

For most people Lancaster Gate means West London nowheresville, there’s a massive hotel and it’s right opposite Kensington Gardens, it’s quite nice, but nothing special. However, for some it will conjure up memories of standing around in playgrounds huddled around a tranny listening to the FA Challenge Cup draw.

They were simpler times back then. When tranny was short for transistor radio. It’s odd though because as times moved on from radio to television, as did the draw for the FA Cup, the expression TV was born, this is surely too much of a coincidence and points the finger fairly and squarely at some sort of cross-dressing media conspiracy.

But in a way, the members of Dart Club would be doing some cross dressing of their own that night, as they each donned a different football jersey for the special Dart Club FA Challenge Cup.

As with the footballing equivalent, the darts competition that night would be an unseeded straight knock-out tournament, with a fresh draw being made before each round.

Dart Club was due to receive 16 darters that night, which would have made for a first round knock-out, a quarter final, a semi- and a grand final. Eight of the usual suspects showed up: the Finisher, the Bull, Danny Boy, the Clinician, the Specialist, the Black Bomber, the Fire and the Bubble.

While six newcomers came: the Kosh, the Wire, the Wrist, Canada’s the Mountie (he always gets his man), the Sting and the Destroyer.

Dart Club mills about awaiting the FA Cup draw

The total number of darters was 14, which necessitated a couple of byes in the opening round of the cup draw, so it looked like this:

Bubble v Black Bomber
Sting v Mountie
Kosh v Wrist
Danny Boy v Specialist
Fire v Finisher
Wire v Clinician
Bye v Destroyer
Bye v Bull

If Match of the Day had choosen to feature one of the games as its main event, it would probably have gone something like this…..

CUE MUSIC (if you have a copy of the sound track of Match of the Day, put it on. If you don’t have a copy, you can get a CD with TV show soundtracks on it, the Specialist has one). Or just sing along to yourself.

Bab-bab-bab, baaab-bab-bab-bab-bab-bab, bab-baaaab-bab-bab-bab-bab etc…etc…

Gary Linekar: “Good evening all and welcome to what promises to be a very special show. With me in the studio adding their usual blend of insightful punditry for tonight’s Match of the Day are Dart Club’s very own the Bull and the Finisher. Good evening.”
The Bull and the Finisher: “Good evening.”

Gary: “Tonight’s main game features two of Dart Club’s leading lights. Danny Boy currently sits in second place according to the Dart Club Ranking System with a staggering 112 points, compared to the Specialist who, with 56 points, is in fifth place. On paper it looks quite straightforward. The Bull, how do you think things will shape up out on the oche at the Archery Tavern?”

Arsenal play in red because Forest lent them a kit once. Where did it all go wrong?

The Bull: “Yeah, the maff says Danny Boy is twice as good as the Specialist. But at this level there is no such thing as a good player. It’s a tough call, I’d expect to see Danny Boy come through in the end, but I would never discount the Specialist, he wears his heart on his sleeve a lot of the time, and sometimes you need that kind of passion.”
The Finisher: “I hear what you’re saying the Bull. But like Phil ‘the Power from the Potteries’ Taylor says, darts is 90% in your head. On the big stage I really can’t see the Specialist holding it together for long enough to check out. I’d say his best bet is to try and hold out for penalties.”

Gary: “It looks like you two are nearly agreeing on something. Just to play devil’s advocate. I quite fancy the Specialist to take this one. It’s the cup after all and you should never discount the magic of the cup. So without further ado we’ll join John Motson and Trevor Brooking who have oche-side seats at Lancaster Gate’s famous Archery Tavern.”

In the event, like most big-billed over-hyped games, neither player really asserted himself. There was clearly too much at stake. As expected Danny Boy raced into the lead and was within sight of a double top exit after 21 darts, he fluffed it scoring three and leaving himself needing 37.

The Specialist had picked up a pub score along the way, earning himself crucial Dart Club Ranking System points, but he was nowhere near finishing yet. Danny Boy scored a one and left himself requiring double 18. Now the Specialist had started to catch up, indeed while Danny Boy was pissing around scoring four points in six darts, the Specialist had notched a 90 pointer bringing himself down from 107 to 17 in one fell swoop.

However, this still wasn’t a finish. Danny Boy struck out again, hitting the 20, he now required double eight. The Specialist scored nine, leaving double four for the game and the first upset in the cup.

Danny Boy bust out on double eight and the Specialist hit the double four. The underdog had come through. This would do his Dart Club Ranking no harm at all.

The other featured tie of the round, the Bubble v the Black Bomber, was no better in terms of quality, but it lacked no less drama.

The Black Bomber showing his class and expereince raced into an early lead, but when it came down to the wire he simply could not finish. This would be no repeat of his previous high at the Lyric in dartweek three.

In the end the game went to penalties. Which is a variant on nearest to 25/bull

Penalties explained

Player one throw one dart with the intention of hitting 25/bull. If he fails player two attempts the same. If neither player hits 25/bull, the player whose dart is closest to 25/bull earns what ever points his arrow is embedded in. P1 then shoot again, once more if he fails to hit 25/bull P2 gets to throw a dart. Again, if neither hits the 25/bull a note is made of the bed that the player whose dart is closest to 25/bull lies in. A third and final penalty dart is then taken. Again if neither has hit the 25/bull to snatch the victory, then note down who went closest and into which bed their arrow landed. The winner is the person with the highest accumulated score (you only score if you are closer to 25/bull).

After explaining the concept of penalties a few times to the Dart Club masses, both players took to the oche. The Black Bomber was up first (since he had originally been closest to bull at the beginning of the match).

In the end the Black Bomber hit the 25 with his first dart so went through….

In the final few games of Match of Day, where the highlights tend to feature goals and near misses, and maybe the odd sending off, the Finisher beat the Fire, the Clinician beat the Wire, the Mountie (he always gets his man) beat the Sting, and the Wrist beat the Kosh. So The quarter finals looked like this:

Destroyer v Mountie (he always gets his man)
Bull v Finisher
Clinician v Specialist
Wrist v Black Bomber

Should Match of the Day choose to cover the quarter finals it would have to find two new studio guests, because the tie of the round saw the Bull take on the Finisher, a date with destiny that, no doubt, both players would rather have avoided until the final.

In the event this game, like so many crucial games where avoiding the loss is more important than winning, went to penalties, neither player hit a 25/bull with any of their three darts, but the Finisher was consistently more accurate so accumulated enough points to go through the semi final.

The other intriguing tie of the round featured the Clinician and the Specialist. The match was pretty tight but in the end the Specialist could not pull of a repeat performance of his earlier underdog success and it went the way of the Clinician with Phil Taylor’s favourite outshot a double 18.

The Mountie (he always gets his man) needed to take his game with the Destroyer to penalties in order to make the semis, and newcomer the Wrist beat old timer the Black Bomber in another fairly close run match. The draw for the semi-final was made, it looked like this:

Wrist v Mountie (HAGHM)
Clinician v Finisher

The cup final was guaranteed to feature a newcomer and guaranteed to feature an old hand. It’s at this stage in the competition that both matches would get equal coverage on Match of the Day, although the glamour tie was clearly the Clinician v the Finisher. The first match saw the two unknowns take to the oche, the Mountie and the Wrist.

Both new comers were slow out of the blocks, after nine darts neither player had managed to register 100 points. After a whopping 27 darts the Wrist has sealed victory with a double 12 (for the record, the Mountie required double 13, unlucky for some, unlucky for him).

Now Dart Club licked its lips in anticipation of the thought of Dart Club Ranking System’s numbers one v three. Surely the crowd in the Archery Tavern would not be disappointed.

After nine darts (the magic number, the fewest darts a player needs to check out from 501) the Clinician had scored 78, and the Finisher was only marginally better.

After six more darts the Finisher found himself requiring double eight to ensure a place in the final, while the Clinician was still on 145.

But the Finisher’s finish had deserted him, successfully busting out on the next four turns, while the Clinician had slowly but surely caught up taking the game with double four.

So it was, the grand final of the Dart Club FA Challenge Cup looked like this:

Clinician v Wrist

There was a lot at stake, not just the £10 trophy, not just the Dart Club Ranking System points, not just the £24 prize money. There was the pride of two cities at stake. The Clinician supports Notts Forest, while the Wrist supports Derby County. Two footballing backwaters from the East Midlands whose former glories are long behind them, but whose hatred and rivalry for one another is still as strong and pointless as ever.

Quick one off the Wrist

That said, the Clinician v the Wrist was a bit like Liverpool v Wimbledon in the 1982 FA Cup. Both players deserved to be there, but one had heritage and was expected to win, while the other was an unknown entity, and a sheepshagger to boot.

Surely in the Archery Tavern, a pub featuring Robin Hood on its sign, we’d see the Forest man prevail?

In the event it was a completely uninspiring match, that dragged and dragged with neither player managing finish on a double the game went to penalties.

It’s never a great way to settle things, but Dart Club needed to fit in a 501 challenge. So at the first FA Challenge Cup Dart Club virgin the Wirst, took his total to played five, won five. He might not have had the heritage (or indeed the tikka tinged fake tan) of the Clinician, but he was better at getting nearer to the 25/bull.

The Wrist is victorious

Could he win the 501 challenge? No, thank God. That honour went to the one and only Danny Boy, who clearly had a lot to prove after his humbling round one exit. He scooped the £70 and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer darter.

A tikka-tinged Clinician and Danny Boy

So had the evening’s extravagances altered the Dart Club Ranking System table? Well, yes, although not terribly dramatically…. A new dartist broke into tenth place and some of the players near the bottom shuffled about a bit. The Finisher by dint of some sexy merit point darts meanwhile managed to stay in the number one spot, despite losing the novelty game of battleships, getting knocked out of the FA Cup and failing to win the 501 challenge.

1 (1)	Finisher	241 (165)
2 (2)	Danny Boy	145 (112)
3 (3)	Clinician	93(85)
4 (4)	Bull	83(72)
5 (5)	Specialist	72(56)
6 (8)	Black Bomber	47 (29)
7 (6)	Animal	44 (44)
8 (7)	Darkness	43 (43)
9 (10)	Bubble	30 (21)
10 (-)	Wire	26 (-)

The top five are the only five dartists to have attended all the Dart Clubs thus far. While all competitors improved on their totals (the Finisher’s total improved most, largely due to the three 100s and one 120 scored in the Archery Tavern. The Black Bomber jumped two places to number six, leap-frogging the Animal and the Darkness, who sadly could not make it because he was listening to Leonard Cohen records and slitting his wrists.

The Bubble climbed one place, and the Sidewinder (the only dartette to break into the top ten – with 25 points) was ousted by newcomer the Wire, who despite not being as successful as the Wrist in the Dart Club FA Challenge Cup accrued more Ranking System points by getting to the pub earlier and playing more games. (For the record the Wrist is 12th with 20 points.) So far 31 different people have attended Dart Club.

The only attendee at the Archery Tavern who failed to throw a single dart was Bouncer from Neighbours, whose lack of opposable thumbs would probably hold back darts career.

The Fire pets Bouncer (out of Neighbours)