Colour Prejudice And Darts.

After playing darts for well over 30 years I have been to quite a number of pubs and seen a few different systems for recording the score in matches. Of course much of the world uses soft tip darts with their own system of electronic scoring, but I have never actually seen one used in a local pub. Obviously many pubs have manually operated electronic scoreboards that show the players scores in different ways. Some show only the last scores and others will list the last 5 scores for each player. One pub, in a local league, used a lap top computer with large screen display to record and show the scores. This was an idea that my own team adopted for a while. (Playing With A Lap Top)

Traditionally, here in the UK we have always used chalk and blackboard for scoring although with health and safety those are rapidly being replaced with white boards and ink pens. (Links to Death Of Chalk and Electronic Scorboards,  ) However, last Wednesday, I arrived at an old darting haunt and squared up on the oche, facing the board, only to see a brown wooden surround to the board and no place for scoring. My mate asked if they were going to put up their electronic scoreboard that they had used for years. The reply came back, “No we use chalk now because it got too much hassle putting it up and it down all the time with the wires going everywhere.”

The only bit of blackboard was long and wide, but underneath the board with pub adverts written on it. My mate asked, “What do you do, get on your knees to mark?”
“No we mark on the brown wood round the board with chalk.”
There were no smirks on the opposition’s faces, but my mate and I looked at each other and I said, “I think they’re having us on. I definitely think someone is telling porkies.”
At this the opposition chuckled and assured us that they really were going to mark on the brown wooden surface.

Even when the match was about to start I wasn’t convinced until I saw the marker chalk up the names, etc and start scoring.

Later on, I said to our Captain, (who is a policeman and likes to enforce the rules)
“I think we should complain to the to the league, because it is not a regulation Black chalkboard. The rules definitely used to say that scoring should be done using the chalk and BLACKBOARD method!”
He said something like, “We have to allow whiteboards nowadays, with the “Health and Safety” and chalk dust.”
My reply was, “Yes OK, I know that, but it’s just not right looking at a brown scoreboard.”
John then clinched it by saying, “That’s colour prejudice saying you can only have a black, or white board and not a brown one!”