Did I ever mention the highlight of my sporting life? I once played Bob Anderson, the Limestone Cowboy, in the Civil Service south west area darts championships? It was in 1983, or 1984 (I am not sure which: I’d had a few beers around then), at the Plymouth Civil Service Club.
“Would the competitors from Bristol South and Swindon please go to the stage for the first game of the singles?”
“Who’s the bloke from Swindon?”
“Bob Anderson”.
“Is he any good?
“Well, he’s won this for the last six years, he’s national champion and he’s just made his England debut”.
“Oh”.
“Do you play much?”
“No. I’ve never played a competitive game in my life”.
“Good luck!”
I needed more than luck when I got on stage with around 100 people watching. Suddenly, my relaxed air turned to near terror as I contemplated the next few minutes. The national Civil Service champion – Anderson worked at the then DHSS office in Swindon – against me, who occasionally threw a few darts in my local but didn’t even own a set. The warm up didn’t help much, either. Anderson effortlessly threw a series of doubles, then triple twenties, my darts either went in random places on the board or didn’t make it at all. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole.
“Game on. Bob Anderson to throw”.
I cannot remember exactly how the scoring went, but I know he started well, with something like 140. I followed up with something like a 1, 13 and a bounce out. Within three or four trips to the board, Anderson was on a double, I was still in the mid 400s. Bang, bang, bang – “Game shot, Bob Anderson”. I fared a little better in the second leg, throwing a flukey 90-odd with a collection of wildly scattered darts with one effort, but I was still in the mid 300s as Anderson checked out effortlessly, but not before practicing with trebles around the board. He worked out quite quickly that I was unlike to derail his path towards the final. “Game shot, Bob Anderson, who wins 2-0”, said the announcer to a trickle of applause from an audience I didn’t dare look at. I couldn’t have felt more embarrassed if my trousers had suddenly fallen to my ankles and I never again played another competitive game of darts, not that you could have called my performance competitive in any sense of the word. Obviously, he went on to win the tournament, but he had to get past me first!
Anderson couldn’t have been nicer and it was no surprise that in the years to follow, as darts became more popular, he became a big star and in 1988 he became world champion. I have to say that I may well have played a small part in his success because he may well have derived such confidence from his victory that day, possibly thinking if he could defeat the best player in Bristol, the rest of the world would surely be easy! Well, I can dream, can’t I?
