Slinging Arrows: How (Not) to Be a Professional Darts Player by Wayne Mardle

Author:Wayne Mardle [Mardle, Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Sports, Sports & Recreation, Cultural & Social Aspects, General
ISBN: 9781473586857
Google: w1oAEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-05-20T23:52:59.282747+00:00

I opened this book with a story about accidentally throwing a dart through the hand of a fan (in Rhyl, of all places) and being rewarded with a smile and a thank you. I always think of that story when I’m asked what fame is like, and if the tale of that Rhyl debacle tells you one thing it’s this: fame is strange. Under normal Saturday-night pub circumstances, the act of chucking a dart through someone’s hand would likely result in the involvement of the local constabulary. But because I was famous, I got a smile and a thank-you.

Darts would be nothing without its fans. When I was still competing at a professional level I’d find that during the breaks, while the other player might go off and get a drink or sandwich, or for a rub down to alleviate the pressure I’d put on them, I couldn’t help staying on stage, interacting with the crowd and, perhaps, doing my best to get them on my side. ‘Come on!’ I’d yell into the crowd. ‘Cheer for me!’

As we learned during the lockdown livestreams, darts can be competitive and meaningful in an empty room, but we need a crowd alongside us to make the sport truly exciting. Without them the sport simply does not exist. I had some terrible games of darts over the years, but I never felt those times were truly worthless because I had paying punters all around me, and almost without exception they could lift even the darkest of moods. They create the atmosphere. They are the atmosphere.

The fans absolutely do not get the recognition they deserve, but going all the way back to the seventies they’ve been a fundamental part of what’s made darts so big. I’ve had nights where I couldn’t have hit a cow’s arse with a banjo, but still fans come up to me afterwards: they want a chat, they want you to meet their mates, they still consider you part of their world, even if you’ve played a stinker of a game. They tell me how much I give them through my work in and around darts, but the truth is darts fans give me more than they’ll ever know.

The scene’s changing, though. Darts has evolved in the last twenty years, and with the explosion in darts’ popularity there’s also been a shift in who’s coming to big events. Bob Anderson once said that the darts fans back in the day were simply players themselves from local pubs and clubs; nowadays you’ll just as often find a World Championship audience filled with people who want to come out for a party and have never even held a dart, let alone thrown one.

I’m hardly innocent when it comes to whipping crowds into a frenzy, but one thing you won’t hear much of at a modern darts event is the sound of … well, nothing. Looking back a few years, the silence that would descend on a room when you were about to take an important throw made things feel so important.

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