[Other Sport] How can people watch DARTS ?

[Easy 10]

I used to play darts blindfolded.

If you've never tried it, you don't know what you're missing.

I'm having that

 

[Boys 9d]

It's long overdue for shove ha'penny to be a TV sport.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Don’t mind TV darts, but can’t imagine how awful watching it at a venue would be, pissed-up coachloads from places like Stoke-on-Trent and Digbeth barrelling through the Lakeside doors like a chavalanche. More unfathomable are the Dutch fans who travel over here to watch it at Lakeside, just bizarre, especially the ones with mullets.

 

[AmexRuislip]

I genuinely don't get it.

I can watch most sports on TV and get something from it, but darts ? f*** me. I'd rather watch Emmerdale repeats on a loop, and believe me, thats saying something. I cannot think of a DULLER sport to sit down in front of, except perhaps horseracing without having a bet on. Yet every year, people are falling over themselves to watch this drek. OK, if you go to watch it live I do get that its basically an all-day pub piss up with something going on to watch. But I guarantee, if the Ally Pally was as dry as Qatar, they'd be playing to an empty hall.

Tell me I'm wrong. Go on.

Well you can count yourself lucky, that you've had a near miss.
Try listening to darts on the radio
This was what was on offer on the local benny radio, when I was down the Falklands

 

[KZNSeagull]

It's long overdue for shove ha'penny to be a TV sport.

Ooh Indoor League(?) with Fred Trueman. Top telly

Darts, Bar Billiards (that's a good game), Skittles, Arm Wrestling and Shove Ha'penny

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

It's long overdue for shove ha'penny to be a TV sport.

In the deepest part of East Sussex it's shove penny.

 

[WATFORD zero]

It's long overdue for shove ha'penny to be a TV sport.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Ooh Indoor League(?) with Fred Trueman. Top telly

Darts, Bar Billiards (that's a good game), Skittles, Arm Wrestling and Shove Ha'penny

Yeah, just about to post that. Ran for four years on ITV. Created by? Sid Waddell.

It's long overdue for shove ha'penny to be a TV sport.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Yeah, just about to post that. Ran for four years on ITV. Created by? Sid Waddell.

Oh was it? He liked a Pub did Sid!

 

[KZNSeagull]

"2 cousins from Barnsley and Dennis Jones who owns a fish shop". Marvellous

 

[Guinness Boy]

Oh was it? He liked a Pub did Sid!

Yup.

The Indoor League - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I could turn this very easily into the Sid appreciation thread. He also commentated on nine ball pool, another "niche" (pub) sport I like to watch as well as play. He put just as much effort into his phrases and jokes for that as he did for the darts.

We met him in Frimley because my mate I went with is a Geordie and had a Newcastle top on and he talked to us like grown men instead of the half drunk 20 year olds we were.

Talking of nine ball, years later I saw Efren Reyes in Taipei after a pool tournament I'd watched. He was buying beers for, chatting with and smoking with the ex pat Filipinos who'd been supporting him.

Clearly not everyone who comes from humble beginnings and succeeds forgets their upbringing.

 

[WATFORD zero]

"2 cousins from Barnsley and Dennis Jones who owns a fish shop". Marvellous

No matter how deep the tint on those rose coloured glasses, a simple clip like this reminds me how completely and utterly shit the 70's really were

 

[Da Man Clay]

I think it’s great - but again wouldn’t go to watch it live. It’s just another sport to watch on TV around Xmas, isn’t it?

 

[BN9 BHA]

Don’t mind TV darts, but can’t imagine how awful watching it at a venue would be, pissed-up coachloads from places like Stoke-on-Trent and Digbeth barrelling through the Lakeside doors like a chavalanche. More unfathomable are the Dutch fans who travel over here to watch it at Lakeside, just bizarre, especially the ones with mullets.

Chavalanche

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

I’m a total oddball I’m afraid. I really like watching it on telly and sat through all three games this afternoon. However, I’d never go to Ally Pally for exactly the reasons @Pevenseagull states.

Went to the proper darts in Frimley twice back before Sky and the Cocaine Male Voice Choir took over. Used to play for a pub team too. Met Sid Waddell. Now he was a proper geezer. Highly intelligent working class Geordie

Same for the boxing as well, wouldn’t go to a live event again

 

[MattBackHome]

Darts is f***ing brilliant.

Pure theatre.

 

[Springal]

I do love the world championship but the crowd thing is tedious now. It hasn’t changed in 15 years at least now. Barry Hearn was on Jake Humphrey’s podcast recently and apparently it’s the most watched sport on Sky over everything apart from football

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Darts is f***ing brilliant.

Pure theatre.

It is when there's f*** all else on TV, I've enjoyed it in the last few days.

 

[Weststander]

I feel the same about wrestling as a spectacle … it’s tripe.

 

[Stato]

Met Sid Waddell. Now he was a proper geezer. Highly intelligent working class Geordie

Loved Sid. Cambridge English graduate who I once saw interviewed about his favourite novel: Stephen King' s 'The Stand'. Absolutely no pretensions about the bloke. He loved darts and understood the theatre of the whole business. I grew up playing darts. My dad taught me maths sat on the sofa with a board at our feet, so I'm biased, but have been absolutely thrilled by some matches on the telly.

Each to their own and everything is subjective. With TV sport there is only one unarguable fact: Nobody really enjoys F1. They must all be pretending. They just must be. It's awful.