Eric Bristow (5 page)

Finally there was me, the madman of the team. At seventeen I began to believe I was going to get somewhere in the darts world and I began to tell people I was going to be world champion. That became my sole aim. I was probably a bit too flash for my own good, but I was the main man in our league. I was number one on the team, their best player.

Unfortunately, coming into the last game of the season I wasn’t number one in the Super League in terms of games won, and there was a prize for the player who won the most games. Although I’d played twenty-seven games of singles – which was one leg of 301, start and finish on a double – and had won all of my games, so too had another guy called Keith Duffy. We had to play his team, the Jerry House, in the last game of the season. It was nine players to each team and each opposing player is paired off at random by their names being drawn out of a hat. I knew this Duffy would beat any other player on our team apart from me, and I didn’t want to share first prize with him, so I was desperate to draw him. First out of the hat was Duffy. Second out of the hat … Bristow. The place erupted. This would be the play-off to decide the best player in the league, and I murdered him. I let everyone know I was the best and it was a fantastic feeling, but I was a small fish in a very large pond, and I wanted to conquer that larger pond. Two significant developments were to help me in this, the British Darts Organisation, otherwise known as the BDO, and television.

The BDO was founded in January 1973 by Ollie Croft and his wife Lorna, together with three others – Sam Hawkins, Jim Sweeney and Martin O’Sullivan – in the front room of Ollie’s home in Muswell Hill. It was made up of sixty-four member counties in Britain, and organised tournaments – and still does – for grassroots players
right
the way up to professional level. It set all the rules from the size of the throwing oche to the height and dimensions of the board. The whole system was built on a pyramid structure and players worked their way up. The pinnacle was the World Masters, which preceded the World Championship. Other major tournaments included the various Open events, the World Cup and many others, which soon began to attract the interest of the TV executives together with sponsors and, as a result, bigger prize money for the players.

This was where it was at, and by the age of seventeen I was going places. The BDO and television came at exactly the right moment for me. Darts was taking off. It was big business.

THREE

County Darts

AT SEVENTEEN, MONEY
and fame proved too tempting so I stopped playing local league darts and concentrated more on cash tournaments and playing Super League. Every weekend I’d be playing these tournaments, desperate to win first prize which in some cases was over £500, a lot back then, and all the while playing the big-name players for money beforehand so that I had something to fall back on if I got knocked out.

One tournament I played in was at Gatwick with another new player on the scene called Bobby George. Bobby was a confident 29-year-old floor layer, yet to achieve notoriety by coming on stage wearing a crown and cloak and holding a candelabra in his teeth to the sound of Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’. Bobby and I played in the pairs tournament. This was the first time we’d been paired together, and because he was a mate I was looking forward to it. I went up to the oche and threw my first dart, which bounced out, threw the
second
and that bounced out, then threw the third which bounced out too. I just stared at the board, I couldn’t believe it. Bobby had his head in his hands. Next it was his turn. He went bounce out, bounce out, bounce out. I couldn’t comprehend what was going on. It was incredible.

‘We’ve scored sod all with six darts,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry, son,’ Bobby replied. ‘We can only get better from here.’

I was shell-shocked. I’ll tell you now, that will not have happened anywhere else in the world. In the history of darts nobody has got six bounce outs on the trot. It’s just not going to happen. It wasn’t a bad board either, and it wasn’t as though we were throwing bad darts, we were just hitting the wires. We got over it, however, and went on to win, and since then we’ve always been close pals. I like straight-talking blokes, blokes who don’t talk about you behind your back, and Bobby would never do that. He is very honest.

We made arrangements to go to the Sussex Open shortly after that. It was £500 for the winner, and there were twelve hundred players in this place. To give us a better chance of winning good money we decided to split it if either of us won. On the day Bobby came to pick me up – I never drive, I can’t even drive now, I like a drink you see so what’s the point in driving? I’m probably the only bloke in Britain who had a fleet of cars but could never drive any of them – and I immediately
realised
he was suffering from a monumental hangover, which wasn’t a great start. I got to his van and it was filthy inside. He’d put a plastic sheet on the passenger seat for me to sit on so I didn’t get my clothes dirty. I was carrying my shirt to play in which was all clean and ironed and on a hanger, but when I got in the van there was nowhere to hang it without it getting dirty so I had to hold it up with one hand for the whole journey.

He got us there in one piece – after telling me he’d had no sleep because he’d been at a family party all night. This is typical Bobby: he didn’t need to go to the Open, but because he’d made a promise to pick me up he went. He always honoured his promises, despite being wrecked on the day. When we got there Bobby went straight to the bar and had a couple of beers to try and sort his head out.

‘You still look like shit,’ I told him, just before he was about to go on. Then he went up to the oche and got beaten first round. That was not supposed to happen. He was one of the favourites like me, but he was totally and utterly gone from the night before. As soon as his match finished he said to me: ‘I’m going for a kip.’

So off he went for a sleep and I played all day until I got down to the last eight. The last eight played on-stage, rather than off-stage where the knockout boards were lined up. Off-stage you play almost shoulder to shoulder with other competitors. There’s more room on stage, which I liked. There was a table where you could
put
your beer and fags and it was much more civilised. I breezed through to the final, playing sublime darts, and halfway through the final I heard a loud voice shout, ‘Go on, my son!’ It was Bobby, who after seven hours had woken up and was now feeling as fresh as a daisy. I won it and in those days you got paid in cash. I had £500 and of course I had to give Bobby half of this. He was rubbing his hands together and going, ‘Lovely jubbly.’

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As we drove off from the venue I said to him, ‘That has got to be the easiest £250 you have ever earned in your life. You drove me here, lost your game and drove me back.’

Bobby just started laughing and said, ‘Don’t worry about it, son. Next time I’ll pull you through,’ and that was the way he was and always has been, a favour for a favour. There is nothing crooked about Bobby.

We did a charity event shortly after that for a bloke’s widow. Her husband had been decapitated in a horrific car accident. He wasn’t insured and had left her with one or two debts, so a few darts players got together and held a charity bash to help her out. After the event Bobby said to the organiser, ‘How much did we raise?’

‘Over £500,’ this guy replied.

‘Great,’ said Bobby, and he was really chuffed.

A few weeks later he bumped into the widow and she thanked him for what he’d done. ‘Those two hundred pounds will come in really handy,’ she said.

‘Two hundred pounds,’ Bobby replied.

‘Yes, two hundred, thank you very much and thank all the players when you see them.’

With that they said goodbye – only Bobby didn’t go home, he went straight to this organiser’s house.

He knocked on the door and the organiser’s wife answered. She said he was out and didn’t know when he’d be back. ‘That’s OK,’ said Bobby, ‘I’ll wait for him inside.’ And he went in her house, parked himself on her sofa and waited for six hours until this bloke came home.

Suffice to say he got the extra £300 and went round to this woman’s house to give it to her, apologising profusely for what had happened. The poor old girl was overwhelmed.

That’s Bobby. He doesn’t like dishonesty; you have to be straight with him.

Seventeen was when it all started to happen for me. When I wasn’t playing at exhibitions and Opens I was playing Super League darts for a pub called the General Picton at King’s Cross and aiming to get enough wins, and points, to get me into the county side; that was the next step up the BDO ladder towards my dream of becoming World Champion. My life was darts, darts, darts. It was a total 100 per cent commitment. Super League was on a Monday, but you didn’t have to play Super League every week. For sixteen weeks I’d play in
a
tournament at Hersham Social Club where the weekly winner would pick up a prize. Dad and I would get the train from Waterloo to Weybridge and walk the half mile to the club. After it had finished we’d get the last train back to Waterloo and walk the remaining eight miles home, often with a prize like a bread bin or a Teasmade that I’d won. We got pulled up by the cops one night.

They said: ‘Where did you get that from, and why are you walking round with it under your arm at midnight?’

I told them, ‘I won it playing darts.’

‘Yeah, right,’ they said. But they didn’t nick us for some reason. Nine times out of ten they probably would have, though.

Although I was earning money from darts it wasn’t enough for Dad and me to get a cab home, so we used to walk, but that was the norm then. I used to walk to King’s Cross every Friday night with a guy called Andy Pascoe. He lived in Walthamstow and would get a cab to my house in Stoke Newington, get out, and we’d walk the seven miles to King’s Cross. Then we’d play in the pairs, more often than not win the prize money, have an Indian to celebrate, and walk back to my house where he’d get a cab home. I hated wasting the money I had on cabs, I’d got better things to spend it on, and all that walking kept me fit, which was an added bonus.

Playing darts as often and as well as I was doing meant
it
didn’t take me long to rack up enough points to make the county side, and I was picked for London B. This was a big step up for me. I knew all I had to do was win a couple of B games and they’d put me in the full county side, which, naturally, was London A. I’d already beaten the majority of the A squad, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d get in. My first county game with the B side was at Southall Labour Club in London where we played Devon B. We had a twelve-man team and there were twelve singles games of the best of three legs, 501 each game. I was down as last man on and thought that as I wouldn’t be playing for another three hours I’d cheer the lads on. As I sat at the side watching we went one–nil up, two–nil, three–nil, four–nil, I was shouting ‘Go on’ and getting quite excited. This was good stuff. These lads were playing sensationally.

However when it got to five–nil and then six–nil I began to think: I hope somebody loses here. It was starting to play on my mind. County sides didn’t do clean sweeps, ever! And if they were going to do one tonight, guess whose job it would be to nail it in the last game? As soon as it got to seven–nil I thought: Sod this, and went back on the practice board. I was getting worried thinking: Somebody for God’s sake lose and take the pressure off me to do the clean sweep. But on it went, nine–nil, ten–nil. I just kept thinking this was stupid. Nobody wins twelve–nil in county games, it just
doesn’t
happen. Next I hear a voice announce: ‘And now representing London B … Eric Bristow.’

It was eleven–nil! The tension as I walked up to the oche was unbelievable because everybody wanted the elusive clean sweep. Up I went and I was nervous. I never get nervous playing darts – even when I later appeared in World Championship finals I didn’t get nervous – but here I was sweating, which I never did. I knew that if I lost there was a good chance, a very good chance, I’d be dropped for the next game. It was as though my whole future was flashing before my eyes because the sods on my team had all won. Thankfully I won the opening leg and just needed one more to make it two–nil for my game and twelve–nil for London B. I had my chance on a 118 checkout. I went treble sixteen, double nineteen, double sixteen, thank you very much. The feeling I had was more of relief than jubilation. I’ve been less tense in major tournaments.

In the next London B game I won my match and was launched into the A team. They had a great set of players like Charlie Hicks, Jackie Ambler, and Dave Pithouse, and Alan Glazier who was one of the greats of the 1960s and could have been as well known as I eventually was if darts had taken off ten years earlier than it did.

The county games were brilliant because I got to see different parts of the country. You’d have the A and B sides, men’s and women’s teams, travelling to towns and
cities
all over Britain to play and go out on a Saturday night. We’d end up splitting off into different groups and then all meeting back at the hotel at the end of the evening. Some came back and had been in trouble, some hadn’t. A lot of people don’t like Londoners, and we weren’t the quietest blokes in the world so that didn’t help. However, a lot of fellas didn’t mess with us, like they don’t mess with rugby players, because we were huge – you wouldn’t want a darts player to fall on you, never mind have a fight with you.

Back then I was a lager boy. Later on I had my top-shelf nutty moments, but I never really drank spirits when I was playing county darts. I had to give up lager, though, about thirteen years ago because every morning I’d wake up and spew bile and this thick yellow muck. It was happening every time I drank the stuff. So I gave it up and swapped to Guinness.

My debut for London A was against the West of England who played at a club near Bristol. They were a great side with fantastic players like Leighton Rees, Alan Evans and Mike Butt. It was going to be a real battle and we went there to find twelve hundred people were in this place. I played Mike Butt, one of their fancied players, and won two–nil, but I played well below my game. I had an off night and finished both games on double one. London A drew that match sixall in front of the biggest crowd I had ever played in front of, but I wasn’t nervous. I loved getting up there,
especially
when some of their home supporters started booing me. I just played up to them. It gave me a rush.