My Other Passion

Hi Comedy fans. this is going to be a more unusual post for this blog as I am not going to be reviewing anything or I am not going to be talking about anything to do with Comedy. However I am going to be talking about my other passion which is Darts. Me and my family have watched darts on the telly for as long as i can remember and I can certainly say that it is my favourite sport. and over the last couple of years I have watched any televised tournament that has been on either ITV4, BBC or Sky Sports and before the World Darts Championship which happened in December this year I used to pride myself in knowing the PDC top 10 ranked players off by heart.

Yes I do have a Dartboard in my house and I do play occasionally but I am definitely not as any of the players in the BDO and PDC (more about that later) I first started loving darts because of the characters and the atmosphere that it used to bring to the viewers so today I am going to give you a guide to the darts.

1. What is Darts? - Darts is a game where you throw 3 small arrows called Darts at a dartboard whittling your score down from 501 or sometimes 301 if you want a shorter game to 0 either finishing on a double or a bullseye.

2. What can you score on a Dartboard? - Here you will have to refer to the image of a Dartboard that I have placed below. The highest score which you can score with three darts is 180 points to do this you need to score 3 triple 20's the trebles are located in the smaller ring of red/green beds. A bullseye is located at the red dot at the centre of the board, This is worth 50 points and you can finish a game by hitting one of these if you have 50 points remaining or your combination requires you to do so for example to finish with 64 points you can hit 14 and then Bull = 50. The green slightly larger ring outside of it is called the outer bull and that is worth 25 points you cannot finish a game by hitting this. The most common way to finish a game is to hit a double. The doubles are the slightly larger red and green beds located around the edge of the board near to where the numbers are.

- What are Darts? - Darts are the implements which you throw at the Dartboard to enable you to score points they come with a barrel at the bottom which is a weighted end where you grip the dart and then you have a stem this part is screwed into the barrel and this enables the flight to be placed on the end of stem. The flight allows the dart to flow aerodynamically through the air until it hits the dartboard. They look like this.

4 - Where can I watch darts? - as I live in the UK you can watch darts more regularly on either Sky Sports or on ITV4 but this is more likely for the PDC darts however one tournament this year was broadcast on BBC one and the BDO tournament which is broadcast on Channel 4 in the afternoons and is on BT Sport in the evenings (This tournament has just finished).

5. - What is the PDC and BDO - The PDC and The BDO are the two companies which rules darts PDC standing for Professional Darts Cooperation and BDO standing for British Darts Organisation. The BDO was established first in 1973 and the PDC was established in the late 80's firstly as the WDC (World Darts Council) then later PDC then leading them both to split after the 1993 World Embassy Championship. (This is an interesting subject if you are interested please do your research)

6 - Who are the most notable players in Darts?

Here are a few of the big names in Darts in my opinion I will put put whether they are from PDC or BDO next to there name.

Michael Van Gerwen (PDC) - Known as "Mighty Mike" or "The Green Machine" (#1 in the PDC and the current world champion)

Gary Anderson (PDC) - Known as "The Flying Scotsman" (2015 and 2016 World Champion)

Peter Wright (PDC) - Known as "Snakebite"

Phil Taylor (PDC) - Known as "The Power" (16 x World Champion)

Adrian Lewis (PDC) - Known as "Jackpot" (2 x World Champion)

Raymond Van Barneveld (PDC) - Known as "Barney" (5 x World Champion)

Glen Durrant (BDO) - Known as "Duzza" (#1 of BDO and Current World Champion)

Scott Mitchell (BDO) - Known as "Scotty Dog" (2015 World champion)

Scott Waites (BDO) - Known as Scotty 2 Hotty (2016 World Champion)

Lisa Ashton (BDO) - Known as "The Lancashire Rose" (Current Women's World champion)

Anastacia Dobromyslova (BDO) - Known as "From Russia With love" (3 x World Women's Champion

Deta Hedman - (BDO) - Known as "The Dark Destroyer" (Current BDO Women #1)

7 - What is the atmosphere like? - Well as I haven't been to one of these tournaments live I can't give you a full answer on this but when I am watching it on the telly it seems like a party atmosphere and it seems that if you didn't go in fancy dress that you would look more daft of course Fancy dress is not mandatory but it is definitely encouraged and all the music is loud especially the players walk on music and it seems just like one huge party.

So that is what Darts is and why I Love it and I hope you all enjoyed this too/