Tuesday 5 January 2010

Becoming A Professional Darts Player-Day One

Fuck it. It's time to get serious.

After 10 classic tournaments-and still being the only man to win back-to-back FOD World Titles, not just once, but three in a row, and the only one of two men (well, one man and one half man/half dog) to win more than one title, and the only man to win more than two tournaments (becoming a four time FOD World Champion)-it is with a very heavy heart that I am officially announcing my retirement from the Future Of Darts world championships.

OBVIOUSLY, I shall still organise, compere, and attend the event (as it extremely dear to my heart, and still the best crack to be had in a room full of men) but I shall no longer be entering as a player.

No doubt this will be met with a mixture of dismay (no one gets to test themselves against the man) and delight (with one of the biggest guns in the FOD organisation gone, everyones road to the top gets that little bit easier) but I feel I should explain my reasons.

Finding myself watching the lamentably now small-time BDO World Championships (again) and getting excited about Darts (again) and thinking about Justin Irwin's 'Murder On The Darts Board' again, I've decided to commit.

For those of you that don't know, I heard about Justin Irwin a couple of years ago, before his book came out. It's his own true story, based around one simple assumption; that if you put the hours of practice in, and have a modicum of ability to play the game, you can compete in Darts at the top level. The resulting novel is a story of his journey. I don't know how it turned out (I should imagine, due to not seeing him in the Premier League, it probably led to failure) but I'm not going to let that put me off. I thought it was a great idea when I heard it, and though I hate to copy ANYONE'S ideas, I'm having a go.

I kind of started this about the same time I first heard of Mr. Irwin, but it lasted about a week, due to a time of major upheaval in my life, so it's time to make it this year's project. Last years is day's away from completion (finishing the second draft of my novel) and I'll be following that up this year with attempts to get the sodding thing onto the right desks of the right people, but taking centre stage is going to be the Darts.

Hence my departure from the FOD World Championships; the amount of practice I'm going to be putting in (four hours a day) will frankly be vastly more than that put in by the other competitors (barring, of course, the week before the tournament when every one goes nuts with the practice and pretends they haven't, leading to sudden, unexpected, dramatic upturns in skill level. Steve Revill, I'm looking at you) and therefore it would give me a major and unfair advantage. I could lie, and keep it secret, but not only do I respect the tournament too much to do so, but it would only make me a paper champion, and lord alone knows the last thing we need is another one of those...

Here's my thinking, anyway. I have all the free time in the world, all week, every week, due to being a professional musician and singer on the weekends. So there's that; I have a MAJOR advantage over anyone wanting to get into Darts. I have the time.

And if I were to get the skills necessary, what do we currently have in the world of professional darts? Fat, old, boring, unattractive men that have zero charisma (barring Taylor. In terms of charisma and boringness only, obviously.)

Then you have me, and let's be blunt here, compared to the faces we see on the TV I'm Brad Pitt. I'm young, not unattractive, slim, and though you may argue with the other bits there, there's one thing that can't be denied; put me on the microphone and I'll talk so much outrageous, arrogant, wrestling bad guy shit that people that don't even watch Darts will be tuning in to see either what I've got to say or to see me get my ass handed to me. I'd be so different, I'd be massive. I'd do for Darts what Alex Higgins did for Snooker.

Obviously, though...that's all a far way off. So here's this year's goal.

Within the next 12 months, I intend to enter-and win-an amatuer level open regional tournament.

If you're at all interested in following my progress, then sign up as a follower, then I THINK you get email notifications of anything new. Alternatively, you might just not give a fuck.

Wish me luck.

The Straight Shooter

PS While you're at it, go to YouTube and type in Future Of Darts to see some beautiful montages to music of drunken men in the throes of sporting glory.

3 comments:

  1. Hurrah! Good for you! I shall watch your progress with great interest!

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  2. Why have you called yourself The Straight Shooter? What was wrong with the S-Express - da da da da da, da da da da da, S-Express.


    Phil Taylor is the Power
    Tony O'Shea - The Silverback
    Martin Adams - The Wolfman
    Simon Whitlock - The Wizard

    Names these days don't describe what the player does, that's like a wrestler calling himself "The Pain Inflicter".

    If you're going to do this properly, and I am confident that you will, you need to sort your name out and S-Express is a gem.

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  3. Hmm. Good point. I'll have a think about it, even though I am a naturally straight shootin' guy...plus, it comes with automatically awesome entrance music.

    Good lad Roles.

    ReplyDelete