Eric Bristow, the Del Boy of darts, who was a trailblazer

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Dan Jones6 April 2018

Off to the big oche in the sky, then, for Eric Bristow MBE. That the five-times world champion died of a heart attack following a night at the darts, while sad,is still somehow fitting. Sixty is young to go. But he checked out doing the thing he loved.

The fact that darts thrives as a spectator sport and not merely a pub activity such as eating crisps and arguing owes everything to the skill and the outsize personalities of the men who have played it.

Bristow was a trailblazer. His persona - ‘the Crafty Cockney’ - spoke baldly to his hinterland before he found the darts board: salt-of-the-earth, working-class everyman and small-time Hackney crook. The nickname was borrowed from an English-themed bar in California, and that was fitting. Bristow gave off Del Boy vibes and suggested the aroma of a well-trodden pub carpet. In few other sports would these ever have added up to a virtue.

And, of course, he was bloody good at darts: red hot in his Twenties, when the game went professional and (in name at least) worldwide, and still handy in his Thirties.

He beat Bobby George in 1980 for his first championship title and all-comers thereafter. His finest streak came between 1984 and 1986 with three world titles back to back: the last achieved with a 6-0 thrashing of Dave Whitcombe; two others taken from his biggest rival, John Lowe. The latter, known as ‘Old Stoneface’, was Bristow’s opposite: consistent, faintly colourless, possessed of great longevity and bags of talent but little instinct for the pantomime.

Not so Bristow. And if anything, the Londoner, unmistakable with his pinkie finger sticking out from his throwing hand, should have won more. Certainly his defeat by Keith Deller in the 1983 world final was a surprise and a missed opportunity. He finished runner-up in as many world championships finals as he won.

Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

But after owning the early 1980s, part of Bristow’s popular appeal became his fragility. ‘Dartitis’ is not a recognized medical complaint — but the psychological panic and kneejerk self-doubt suggested by darts’ version of the yips afflicted Bristow badly. It was another expression of his popular appeal: faintly comical but entirely sympathetic.

The idea of standing on stage, being suddenly and inexplicably unable to perform the simple action of throwing something at something is the stuff of nightmares. The scale of mental disintegration set against the futility of the task is the stuff of tragedy.

The British sporting public loves both winners and strugglers, and during the course of his career Bristow managed to be both. Though he failed to win as many titles as he should have, he also helped create the greatest darts player of them all: Bristow mentored Phil Taylor during the 1980s, lost to him in the 1990 world final (Taylor’s first world championship) and watched him own darts for two decades thereafter.

Of course, as Taylor was winding down his own career last year, Bristow was talking himself into trouble. He lost his job as a Sky Sports pundit when he suggested victims of sexual abuse in football ought to have grown up, manned up and beaten up their abusers.

Insensitive, unhelpful and wrong, but it is a shame that this was, in a way, his final public act. To judge by the outpouring of affection from darts stars and darts fans alike, he will be remembered for the good times.

‘There’s only one Eric Bristow,’ they chanted in Liverpool, when news of his death broke. The Crafty Cockney will not quickly be forgotten.

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