With the winter weather having arrived in a major way, maybe we should talk about indoor games. Darts for example. Darts is an extremely popular game and dart boards can be found in pubs, taverns, bars, and saloons all over Europe and North America. Darts is a throwing game in which small, specially designed missiles are thrown from a standard distance at a generally designed board, usually circular in shape. As with many games, darts were developed as a war weapon. Ancient warriors used them as miniature javelins and they could be quite deadly when thrown with a skilled hand. They were also used to hunt small game so as not to tear the creature apart as a spear or arrow would. So throwing darts became a popular military pastime. In one of the most popular American versions of the game, each player is given three darts and as many chances to throw at the board as it takes to determine a winner. In some versions of the game the first player to score a bullseye is automatically the winner. In other game settings, the first player to accrue a certain number of points (often 500) is declared the winner. In other cases the points hit are deducted from a total amount of points assigned to a player at the beginning of a game (often 701). The first player to reach zero points wins. There are an almost limitless number of different dart games one can play and a vast amount of different styled dart boards and darts one can use.
Darts in some form or another have been around since the Middle Ages. The first mention of darts is of French soldiers throwing crossbow bolts or shorter arrows at the cross section of appropriately designed trees or the bottom of empty casks of ale at a distance of eight to ten feet. By the 14th century, darts as a game was played all over Western Europe, particularly in England where every village and shire had its own version of the game and it’s own champion. Playing darts in a public house became as standard a practice as having a pint of ale. Dartboards came into being by this time but their designs were as varied as the number of people playing the game. Local woodcutters would often pay off their bar tabs by designing and constructing boards for their local pub. Likewise, fletchers would supplement their arrow making income by making darts for tavern owners. By the 19th century the game had become fairly standardized. In 1896 a Lancashire carpenter named Brian Gamlin came up with the first dartboard that used the now internationally accepted numbering plan that uses the twenty on top. In many parts of the dart-playing world women were not allowed to throw darts in public until the 20th century. The first specifically constructed darts were made with wood barrels in a single shaft with a lead point and goose feathers. The French led the way in their manufacturing and no matter where they were made they were referred to as French darts.
Today there are professional dart players, teams, and state-sponsored players and teams. The World Darts Federation (WDF) oversees and sets the rules for standard playing. The WDF recognizes over 600 different styles of play and supervises competition in most of them.
The largest unit of the WDF , not surprisingly, is the British Darts Organization or BDO. There is also the Professional Darts Organization which operates independently of the WDF.
The standard size of a regulation dartboard is 17 3/4 inches. The range from throwing line to the board is seven feet and nine-tenths inches. The board is to be hung so that the bullseye is five feet eight inches from the floor. For centuries elm wood was the most popular material for making dartboards. The best quality boards are now constructed from sisal fibers which come from the African century plant. Lesser quality boards are constructed from cork or coiled paper. Wood darts are still used but metal darts came into use during the early 20th century. In the 1970s, plastic started being used in dart construction. There are three styles of dart: cylindrical, torpedo, and ton. The dart cannot weigh more than 50 grams or be longer than 300 millimeters
Currently, England’s Phil Taylor is considered to be the world’s greatest dart player. Taylor was born in Burslem, Stroke-On-Trent, England in 1960. Nicknamed “The Power,” Taylor has been named the PDC Player of the Year six times. He has twice been named the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year. At age 54 he has won the PDC World Championship 14 times. No other player has come close to that.
Darts has not been a fixture of American pop culture but it has had its moments. One of my favorite portrayals of a dart game in a film comes from the movie Son of Frankenstein. Late in the film there is a scene in which Baron Wolf Von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) and Police Inspector Krogh are playing darts in the Baron’s library. Krogh is both interrogating and accusing the Baron on his relationship to the Monster and a series of murders in the village and is emphasizing each of his points with a throw of a dart. The game becomes more and more violent as the two players become more angry. It’s a great moment and was brilliantly satirized in “Young Frankenstein” by Gene Wilder and Kenneth Mars.
I got a dartboard for Christmas when I was ten years old. I hung it on the back of my bedroom door and started practicing my dart throwing. With my eagle eye and steady hand I actually hit the board a few times. My Mom could hear the thud of the off-target darts hitting the pressed wood of my bedroom door and creating attractive holes. The board was quickly banished where it remains to this day.
So the next time you are at your friendly neighborhood watering hole where everybody knows your name, pick up a dart and throw it, preferably at the dart board. You will become a part of an ancient and honorable tradition.
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