Eric Bristow by Eric Bristow

Author:Eric Bristow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409063162
Publisher: Random House

NINE

The Milky Bar Kid

IN THE RUN up to the 1983 World Championship I was making good money, not only from darts but from all the TV appearances and exhibitions I was doing. The next big question was what to do with all this cash? I was living in Stoke with Maureen and we got together with Dick Allix and decided the best investment was in property. That’s when I discovered that a local working men’s club just down the road from where we lived was up for sale. To me it was a no-brainer: we had to buy it and turn it into a pub with darts as the main pulling point. I knew it’d succeed and it’d give Maureen and me somewhere to practise. The place was brilliant. It held 350 people and had a big snooker room as well.

The Coal Board sold it to me, but not without a few hiccups. Neighbours were opposed to me buying it on the grounds that the car park wasn’t big enough. We had to go to court to do battle. On the one side was Maureen and me and on the other the objectors. When the judge asked if anyone was opposed to the car park all these objectors stood up. ‘It’s not the national anthem,’ I shouted and then got bollocked from the judge for disrupting proceedings which was typical: I’ve never been one for getting on the right side of authority.

I was determined I was not going to be beaten by these nimbys, so to get round the problem I bought half the allotments that were bordering the club and made my car park out of them. When this was revealed to the court I won because the car park would now be big enough. I remember saying to one objector as I left the court with a big beaming smile on my face, ‘Revenge is sweet.’ They tried to stop me having my dream pub so I took their allotments off them. It’s nice to win.

The place was a shell when I got it but by the time I’d finished it looked beautiful. It cost £21,000 just to carpet the place. I called it the Crafty Cockney, and as well as the snooker room it had all the trophies that I’d won on display and forty members had their own room. The pièce de résistance was the bar where I had over a dozen dart boards with pop-up oches. It was a massive success. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays were hammered, and as people left I had security on the door letting other people in for fifty pence. It was the most popular place in Stoke. If you couldn’t pull a woman in there you were gay, it was as simple as that.

All the local rogues came in, and the gangs, but there was never any trouble because I made sure I had it nipped in the bud before it even started. There was one gang I didn’t recognise

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