Darts? What a Laugh!

Darts?

What a

Laugh

By

Ivan L.Brackin

SMASHWORDS EDITION

######

PUBLISHED BY:

Ivan L.Brackin on Smashwords

Darts? What a Laugh

Copyright©2011 by Ivan L.Brackin

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Chapter 1

Kerry and his grandpa walked briskly down the lane. The old man's briskness was remarkable considering his legs were eighty years old and one of them still had a piece of Korean War shrapnel embedded somewhere behind the upper femur.

The urgency in their strides was motivated by the time of day - the pub had already been open for fifteen minutes. There was little time to waste.

As they walked, they talked. Grandpa had been doing most of the talking, as usual, about the one subject, that was on both their minds. Not women, not money, not football. For grandpa, the subject of their conversation was as deeply ingrained in him as the work lines on his old hands.

For young Kerry, it was as if a bright, shining star had suddenly illuminated his path across life's desert, pointing the way to a future of fun, fame and fortune. That week, Kerry had discovered the real world of darts.

Now, the thrill and challenge of once more taking up the arrows, and against adult opponents, gave him shivers of anticipation. It was an adventure he had never foreseen in his casual play at home.

All thoughts were targeted on his newfound love, and his eagerness to learn everything about the game knew no bounds.

Grandpa was delighted that his first grandson, recently turned eighteen, had become so enthused with darts and able to join him at the pub where they could throw together. He'd waited a long time for this. Home darts could be lots of fun, but nothing like competing in the traditional atmosphere of the pub amid the banter of old mates and with a nicely pulled pint ready to hand.

Old Tom had a history steeped in the sport. He'd thrown against the champions of a bygone era and, in the days when England was the one and only hub of world darts, had almost penetrated their top ranks, once winning the north of England championships and twice appearing at Alexandra Palace, the traditional Mecca of world darts.

Nowadays, a touch of arthritis in the joint between his thumb and index finger, and a creaky elbow, limited him to just a couple of games a week, but his accuracy was still a joy to behold. A local social club had tried to persuade him to play for their OAP's team on Wednesdays but he had stubbornly refused.

I ain't playin' agin a lot of old gits, he'd growled.

The old man wondered if this enthusiastic lad walking by his side would have the same opportunities to touch the pinnacles of the dart's world now that the game had reached such wide international proportions. Or should he even be encouraged to try? The boy had loads of potential, but the top rungs of darts was a rocky realm, inhabited by professionals battling for huge purses.

There'd been no money in the sport in his younger days, but the competition had been no less fierce and public enthusiasm even greater.

When I was thirteen my pa took me to the Royal Agricultural Hall in London to watch the famous Jim Pike. He was playing a fella called Marmaduke Becon. That was well before the telly. Never seen such a crowd. Over seventeen thousand people, they said. We were so far away from the board I couldn't see a ruddy thing. I remember the noise though, it was sumpin else. One moment a breathless hush, the next a deafening roar. I had to ask my pa what was happening. I reckon that's when I wanted to be up there, on that stage.

But what kind of world was it today, he thought. Perhaps it might be better for the lad not to aim for the blinding spotlights of the champions' stage and simply enjoy his darts. He'd have to leave those decisions up to the lad. Enjoying the game was the main thing. Anyway, young Kerry still had a long way to go.

As if reading his grandpa's thoughts, Kerry asked.

Think I'll ever be a champ, gramps?

The old man turned to stare hard at the young man. He saw only sincerity and ambition in his eyes.

Maybe, just maybe. Though there's still a heck of a lot you have to learn. There was a pause for a few paces while Kerry absorbed this, then he said. Who thought darts up, anyway? It's nowt like any other sport. His words were wrapped in a colourful Yorkshire accent.

That it ain't, responded Tom, in a dialect even more colourful than Kerry's. For starters, unlike most sports, it don't need a ball,

Old Tom, who had been learning new things about the game for the bulk of his eighty years, was proud of his knowledge. "I've heard it were the Romans what come 'ere some two thousand years ago who started it, but more likely we had the game before those Eyeties.

"Ah do know that our lads in t'middle ages used to cut slices of trees and chuck short spears at them, practicing like, for the next war against the Frenchies.

Expect they made some kind of chucking contest out of it. Log end looks a lot like a dart board, don't it?"

Aye, Kerry agreed doubtfully, But not much like a Frenchie.

His grandpa tried to absorb this, failed, and continued. Some folks say the Frogs* invented the game using the bottoms of wine barrels as targets, but I have my doubts, wouldn’t do the barrels much good, eh?

Or the wine, added Kerry.

Tom thought this over for a while. "Although, I remember we used to call those fat wooden jobbies, 'French' darts. Expect that's why some folks think they started it. But as far as I know, the French have never been much good at it. Probably because wine and darts just don't go together. Darts has always been a beer drinker's game.

* Parisian term for a courtesan in the middle ages.

For a moment, Kerry savoured the profundity of his grandpa's knowledge, then said.

Somebody told me the Red Indians over in America were throwing their arrows before they thought of using bows. Maybe that's how the game started

Poppycock! guffawed the old man. The game went to America with the Pilgrims, that's recorded in history books. Who told you that yarn?

HOLD IT! Looks like they've already been pacified."

That big fella from the US air base we met the other night. said Kerry. He also told me that in Texas they hang the board eight feet high and throw from ten foot away.

Daft booger, chuckled Tom. 'E were pulling yer leg. There's plenty of short Texans, I'll bet. They wouldn't be able to get their darts out of double top unless they had a ladder. 'E was giving you a load of manure, me lad. Boards all o'er the world are at the standard height of five-feet-eight and so, in most places, is the oche* distance of seven feet nine and a quarter inches.

* Oche. Throwing line. Origins debatable. Pronounced ockey. Same as the game where high-class ladies hit at each other with sticks.

Grandpa shook his head and snorted. "Gawd knows where that measurement came from, it used to be a clean nine feet when I was a lad. Then they changed it to eight-six and then to eight feet. Keeps getting closer. You'll be rapping yer knuckles on the board by the time you're my age.

He grumbled on. But seven feet nine and a quarter. Daft distance, I call it. They must have had their heads up their a##es *. What was wrong with eight feet, I wonder? It don't even make sense in metric - 236.85 centimeters! Who the heck figured that out? Some ruddy committee, I don't doubt.

On recent darts history, Kerry had swatted up. His bedside table carried a stack of back issues of Darts World, begged from a friend, and every night before sleep he pored over the contents like a man studying racing forms.

I read that it was decided by the World Darts Federation in 1975. It was a compromise between the seven-foot six line and the eight-foot line. Now the seven-foot nine and a quarter distance is standard worldwide.

*The posterior opening of the alimentary canal

"'Hang on! You're supposed to throw from seven feet

nine-and-a-quarter."

Bah, compromise me foot. Grandpa chaffed. 'Alf way between seven feet six and eight feet is seven feet nine inches by my reckoning. What's with the quarter inch? I'm glad they're not carpenters, ruddy house would be lopsided. Anyhow, we used to call the seven-six line the 'ladies line'. Must be all part of this unisex business. He paused while nimbly sidestepping something left on the pavement by an Alsatian.

I thought people were supposed to pick that stuff up! he growled. Then continued, And another thing, it says in the rule book that the board height has to be 5-8 above the level of the throwing line, not from the base of the wall, though I've never been in a pub where you've had to throw uphill, or downhill, for that matter. I can't imagine who dreams up these rules."

Ah, I've read about that, too, said Kerry. "It was because in some old pubs the ceiling was too low to put the dart board at five-eight. If the pub wanted to be part of an official league they had to have the board at the regulation height. Some pubs lowered a section of the floor and in one pub players even have to stand in a hole.

Gawd 'elp us, said grandpa, In an 'ole?

"It may have its drawbacks,

but at least we qualify for the league."

His grumbling about bureaucratic influences on darts came to an end as the warm lights of the Pig'n'Whistle pub winked at them from the end of the lane, and his brisk pace instinctively accelerated to a fast hobble.

Chapter 2.

The pub was as old as the village, which had been built by a local duke in the 18th century to accommodate his serfs and their families. It was said that the duke himself had sometimes come down to the village pub for a game with the locals and there were still some old black tankards kept behind the bar that had, so the stories went, been his lordship's private drinking mugs. One of them had a hole in the soft pewter that looked suspiciously like it had been made by a dart point. Nobody had been able to date the hole and it provided a continual source of bar-front conjecture.

"The Duke’s team hates being whitewashed."

The dartboard was already occupied when they entered