Fear and Loathing on the Oche by King Adz

Author:King Adz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

CHAPTER SIX

THE WOMEN

‘I can hold my own against any good player and to actually beat the male professionals was wonderful, just wonderful. I love to beat any man.’

Maureen Flowers, number-one female darts player of the 1970s and ’80s, and ex-wife to Eric Bristow

After spending a fair bit of time in and around the BDO, the most interesting side of it, when examined through my wonky gonzo lens, was most definitely the women. The youth system seemed as chaotic as the day-to-day BDO, where the men’s seemed plain irrelevant, especially compared to the skill and level of competition in the PDC. The fact that most of the up-and-coming PDC youth players could probably win any of the major BDO tournaments said it all. I would obviously like to put that to the test and I know Barry would be up for lending me a player or two, but I’m still waiting to hear back from Sue Williams at the BDO about a number of things.

I had a hard time getting my head around why anyone cared about second-division players, so I was drawn to the women right from the start. Okay, so in the PDC the women’s role is exclusively played out on screen by Daniella and Charlotte – the walk-on girls – or Laura Woods as an interviewer for Sky Sports, and apart from the nice lady who made me a cup of tea when I got to the PDC HQ, it was totally a blokey geezer-freezer affair.

The real diehard fans that I met, at the BDO and the PDC, were all women. On both sides of the game, the men were more interested in the peripheral aspects of the game and didn’t actually give that much of a toss about the actual sport. They were there for the other reason. The stag-do without the wedding. The crack without the pipe. No one I spoke to seemed that bothered about individual players, and this was compounded when I was watching the Women’s World Championship finals and noticed that Martin Adams was paying more attention to his phone than the game in hand. Which might seem like I’m just building them up to knock them down, but I was there watching and that was what happened.

The more time I spent in the Lakeside players’ bar (which handily doubled as the practice area) the more I realised that the most interesting and progressive side to all of this is the women’s game. Who, I may add, play for a tenth of the prize money as the BDO men and a thousandth of the PDC men. They’re just as good at darts and they play a totally different game, which seems to rely a lot more on exploiting your opponent’s mistakes than focusing on your own successes. I stood right in front of the Lakeside stage and watched Lisa Ashton win the World Championship and she did this because she constantly hit her target and whenever her opponent made a mistake Lisa punished her for it.

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