I love sport. Just love it. Participating (am somewhat competitive but we'll leave that for now) when my wrecked body allows it and watching. I have sports that I love to watch but frankly I'm of the mindset that I'll watch anything once. I may not watch it more than once but at least I can say I've watched it.
Which does make this challenge quite a challenge! As I've watched so many sports! So trying to claim one I haven't seen before isn't as easy as you'd think.
But darts was one. Darts is one of those sports which traditionally had the idea of big men, drinking lots of beer and smoking and chucking little metal things around. Ok, there's probably still some larger men, but not all of them are like that, and they're not allowed to sup booze at the oche. But it's something that always appears as a real place of entertainment and one that would be good to get on the list.
So roping in my younger sister we travelled to the Lakeside on Monday to take in the Darts World Champs. Hang on I hear you cry, hasn't that happened already? Er yes. And no. Long and short of it - big split, two bodies - PDC and BDO. And they both have a world champs. You can't be in both. If you move from one to the other there's a stand down period. One is on Sky and one on the Beeb. We were at the Beeb one. Which makes it the poor man's darts I guess.
Anyway, with our banners at the ready we settled down to our darts. Admittedly both driving wasn't the best plan as about 90% of people there were drinking. And heavily. Particularly the lads at our table who were on their annual massive drinkathon! The early games involved a first round for the womens title which was a bit heavy going (and Rachel thinking she could probably do alright) and a qualifier. Our 180 boards weren't massively troubled.
As the games went on though there was more action and more drinking from those around us! The darts was good but there were other things that make the Lakeside so unique. Darts still has that feeling of the stars are still one of us. The WAGs table is in amongst the paying public - close to the players entrance so can see them or head back stage. No glitz or glamour, just there. As a result, players come out to meet family and meet their supporters, and they're happy to have pics taken or have a bit of a chat. So many sports now have stars isolated and that isn't something you can accuse the BDO of.
Curiously someone also went round with raffle tickets. I thought I was back at county netball. This is a world champs and there are raffle tickets? I'm not sure what the prize was I just thought it was a tad random. Many people dress up, costumes galore, we saw lederhosen, crayons, lions, fifties gear... actually that might not have been a costume.
And we got to meet a legend of the game - Martin 'Wolfie' Adams. He's a 3 time BDO World Champ and former captain of England as well as making his 21st consecutive Lakeside appearance. If you know your arrows, you know who Wolfie is. I think he was quite surprised we did but happy to oblige with a photo!
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| Wolfie meets the Mann sisters - presumably inspiring his win the next day! |
It was random but we thought it might be, but it was a really entertaining night out and one I would absolutely recommend. Will certainly book again but next time I'm on the beers too!
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