Eric Bristow (32 page)

I said, ‘Behave yourself, John,’ but I must confess he is getting on a bit.

He changed when he met his new wife Karen. She likes a good time and they’re an ideal couple who should’ve met years ago. You never know, I might meet someone like that – but don’t bet on it.

Big Cliff is still the same, apart from he has a heart murmur now and has had to curb his drinking so he can lose weight to have an operation. He’d not be alive
today
were it not for his wife Carol. She has kept an eye on him and makes sure he doesn’t drink too much most of the time. He still has his benders, though not as many these days.

Dave Whitcombe is still the same, very deep and very hard to get to. He’s got a good sense of humour but he’s a loner. And he still doesn’t practise.

Bob Anderson went into retirement to come into the Tour. It made more sense financially because he’d just dropped out of the top thirty-two in the world. Peter Evison came in because he had a lot of niggles with his arm and leg which meant he couldn’t play on a pro-circuit to a consistent enough level to earn a living. People might laugh at darts players getting injured, but if you’ve got something wrong with your leg you’ve got a big problem because playing in a tournament could see you walk the equivalent of ten to twelve miles a day backwards and forwards from the oche. Evison is still a class player who has beaten Phil Taylor eight–one when Taylor was at the top of his game.

Then there’s Keith who is clumsy, stupid, but brilliant on the telephone. He gets superb deals and also comes across well on television, but in the real world he is the Peter Pan of darts – he is still nine years old. There’s no harm in him, though. He’s more harm to himself because of all the accidents he has. I’m glad I’ve met him and I’m glad I lost to him in that world final, because
if
I hadn’t I wouldn’t have had all the laughs I’ve had with him over the years.

When Bet Fred got involved and offered to sponsor the tournament, things got a bit more serious. It began to be seen among some of the players as something to be won, something more than just a bit of fun, and that’s when the nagging started. They were earning eighteen grand for eight days’ work, which is not a bad pay day and it had been years since they had earned anything like that, so why they had to suddenly start bickering is beyond me. It made no sense.

The opening round was at the Circus Tavern where the press wanted a picture of all eight of us lined up before the games started in the players’ lounge, but nobody could find Bobby George. Keith began to get impatient and shouted, ‘Fucking hell, we shouldn’t have to wait for Bobby George.’

I could see the whole BDO/PDC thing raising its ugly head again so I snapped and said, ‘Look, he didn’t know about this photo shoot because they only told us about five minutes ago.’

Then Big Cliff started nagging and saying, ‘Why do we have to wait for him anyway?’ The only reason he was getting wound up was because he wanted to be on the practice board, having a few throws.

The tournament finally got underway and Keith beat Cliff seven legs to five in the first match. Next up was Whitcombe against Lowey and Whitcombe won seven
legs
to three. Then Anderson and Evison drew six legs each to leave me and Bobby George to play the final match in what was effectively a repeat of the 1980 World Championship Final. It was as though life had gone full circle. I had begun my tournament career with Bobby and I was ending it with him, and he hasn’t changed one bit. He’s still a lovely fella and he still calls Keith Deller ‘boy’ which tickles me.

I remember my first tour of America when I was a penniless teenager and him coming up to me and slipping me ten dollars and saying, ‘Go and get yourself a drink, son, but don’t tell anyone I bought you one.’ He never bought anyone a drink. That probably accounts for why he has done so well out of life. He built his own mansion when he made some money out of darts. It’s worth about four million pounds now and has about eighteen bedrooms as well as a fully stocked bar. It’s also got two fishing lakes which he hires out. He’s a shrewd businessman, Bobby; he’s done well.

Bet Fred made me a rank outsider to win the Legends Tour and didn’t hold out much hope of me beating Bobby, but I wanted to play well because there were nine hundred people there and it was a great atmosphere. I played OK, but, like that final in 1980, Bobby bottled it. He was hot, sweaty and nervous. I was hitting my doubles, he was missing his, and I ran out the winner by seven legs to five. He had chances to beat me but missed at the vital point, whereas I had eighteen darts
at
the double and hit seven of them, which wasn’t a bad ratio. I only hit a single one-eighty, but I did notice, watching it on telly afterwards, that I twisted my arm as I threw which may be one of the reasons I get the yips.

It was a good feeling to win again. The adrenaline rush came back and I enjoyed that night. It was like going back in time and money can’t buy that, especially when you’re faced with the last double to win and your heart is going bump, bump, bump, bump. Bobby was gutted afterwards because he’d brought about eighty people down to watch him.

I was five to one against winning with the bookies that night. One geezer had two grand on me and won ten thousand pounds. My bookmaker even rang me up and asked if it was worth him having a punt on me. I told him not to bother. He sent me a text afterwards that simply said ‘You wanker’. A lot of people in that place were having twenty and forty pounds on me, so I paid for a lot of people’s drinks that night. Bobby went two–nil up initially, and most people must have been ready to tear their betting slips up, but I came back and that was it, I was always in front after that. In the last leg he had no chance. I needed double sixteen to win and he had over two hundred still left on the board. When I got it and everybody cheered I remember thinking to myself: I remember this feeling from thirty years ago.

It didn’t last. That match against Bobby was effectively my final hurrah. I didn’t play well after that and didn’t really enjoy it. There was a lot of moaning about the board not being right, or the TV monitors being too close to the oche, or the lights being too bright, or it being too hot on stage. It’s the same for the other bloke, so why complain? I have never been one for excuses and I don’t like moaners, and playing on the Legends Tour felt like being in a classroom full of sulky schoolkids at times.

My second game was against Big Cliff who beat me seven legs to three. I remember halfway through the match feeling sorry for him and wanting him to win because it would’ve meant more to him than it did to me. That is just not like me at all. I’m a mercenary at heart. Against Whitcombe in the third round, at the Hilton Hotel in Birmingham, I was six legs to one down and got annoyed with myself because I was playing so poorly, but I managed to claw two legs back. Even so, it was a case of too little too late and I lost that one seven legs to three. When Keith beat me seven legs to one at Batley, I was effectively out of the competition because my chances of reaching the top four and hence the finals were virtually non-existent.

I have signed a contract to do it again next year, but after that I’ll probably retire. I don’t get a buzz out of it and don’t want to keep making a prat out of myself on stage. Somebody else will take my place when I go,
and
in that respect I think the format will work year after year after year as players drop out and other players come in. Steve Beaton is on the fringes of retiring. He’d be good to have and could take my place no problem. I’m not carrying on if I keep losing seven–one, seven–two and seven–three. It’s no good having dead wood in there. It has to be competitive to work.

I can’t help but play darts, it’s all I’ve known since the age of eleven, but even so I’m going to plan a lot more non-darting holidays. My work load with spotting, exhibitions and Sky is getting ridiculous. I love it, but I want holidays now as well. I’ve earned them.

It doesn’t always happen like that. I went away for fifteen days at Easter recently to Agia Napa hoping for a non-darting holiday, and ended up playing exhibitions at four army camps over there. But who knows where I’ll be in a few years. I might not even be alive. I smoke and I drink, and it’s not a healthy mix. I’ll keep an eye on my brother Kevin. I know that when he goes I’ve got about two years left.

I can’t even see myself being in this country in four or five years’ time. I’ll be sitting in the sun somewhere like Tenerife having a drink and that will be me sorted. You can buy a nice two-bedroom apartment over there for about £120,000 complete with balcony. I’ll do a few months over there plus the odd spotting job for Sky. That will be my life.

Britain has regressed in my opinion. It’s more like
Stoke
Newington back when I was a lad, in that everybody is carrying a tool. They all used to carry one back in the sixties and they’re all carrying one now, and the MPs who run the country didn’t and don’t have a clue what life is like on the streets. They’ve probably never visited Guinness Trust flats with four thousand families crammed into these high rises – families of every creed, colour and religion – with high walls round them so they resemble an H-Block rather than somewhere to live. If some young lad decides to carry a knife in these places, then everyone will carry one as well, for protection.

I’ve been in gangs, but they were not like the gangs of today. London is becoming like America where the only way somebody can join a gang is if they stab a rival member of another firm.

The politicians who run our country just don’t understand this. Parachute them into a Guinness Trust housing estate in Hackney and they’d sit in a corner and cry. They’d be on their mobile phones pleading with the police to get them out of the place, and yet people have to live there. There are a lot more stabbings now. I had a claw hammer. Other members of my gang had knuckle dusters and coshes, things like that. Hit someone with them and you wouldn’t kill them. Now they’ve been replaced by knives, which can kill people, and Britain has become a bit more frightening because of it.

If someone came at me with a tool I’d put him down
and
make sure he never got up again. Take the knives off the streets, though, and the gangs will go back to guns and start popping people like they did in the early nineties in places like Manchester. If someone attacked me with a knife or gun, though, he’d be dead, or I would be if he got to me first. I’d have to take him out because if I didn’t and he got up it’d be me that would be six feet under.

The kids today who live on run-down council estates have no future, and because they have no future they’ve got no fear. That is why there should be a drive to get them into sport. The ones with no fear are the sportsmen of the future. If you’ve got no fear of dying you’ve no fear of anything. That, I believe, is why I succeeded and if I had my life again I wouldn’t change a thing, apart from one or two women I went out with – although Maureen did keep me on the straight and narrow when I was winning all those World Championships, and Jane gave me two lovely kids. That divorce is my one big regret in life because I could see us growing old together and enjoying ourselves when the kids grew up and left home. But she was bored. I should’ve seen that.

Now I’m left with the spotting and watching a new generation step up to the oche. Phil Taylor has a few years left in him, but I don’t think there will be another eighteen-year-old coming through to win a big one like I did with the World Masters. Then, you had to come through and beat maybe a dozen really good players.
Now
any eighteen-year-old coming through is going to have four or five hundred good players to beat. Back then a lot of players played the game for a bit of fun, then TV came in and created a buzz and now with the prize money about to go through the roof it’ll be a sport for mercenaries in the not too distant future – though I doubt anybody will dominate the game the way Phil has done. I love it when he wins, I want him to win everything, but he is under pressure not only from James Wade but others like my tip for the top Jelle Klaasen from Holland. He is slowly creeping up the rankings and when he gets into the top-thirty, which won’t be long, he’ll start winning things.

The game has changed so much since I started out, and most of the people I played with when I was fourteen or fifteen will be dead now. That’s the trouble with having been a darts baby: I look back and all my friends of yesteryear who I played with are gone. The Arundel Arms league team have all died and pretty soon friends I made as a professional player will start disappearing. I’m still here, and that just doesn’t make sense. The way I’ve lived my life I should’ve been gone long ago, but I’ll continue plodding on, drinking, smoking, eating curries and probably getting in trouble with the law once or twice. I might even throw the odd dart or two.

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Published in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books in 2010

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Copyright © Eric Bristow 2008

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