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Eric Bristow

Eric’s parents were married for 20 years and married quite young. They were ordinary working class folk who lived in London. On the 25th of April at 7-50am Eric was born in Hackney hospital. He was not a particularly big baby and gave no signs that he would grow to be 6ft 3 and 15 stone.  Eric was an only child and is remembered by his teachers and school friends as being a cheeky boy. In his early school days he was good at arithmetic but it was sports that he liked. He never shone at any sport until he grew older and his father encouraged him to play golf. Indeed if his father had been wealthier Eric might have gone on to become a professional golfer instead of a world famous darts player. At the age of 9 he first started to play darts, but it was not for a few years before the game really caught his imagination and he became dedicated to the game.

His father was quite old fashioned in as much as he did not want him going to a school where there was the distraction of girls, so Eric was persuaded to go to Hackney Grammar School. As a teenager he started smoking and developed other anti social pastimes which sometimes got him into trouble with the police. He experimented with drugs until one of his friends died from an overdose. He also took to petty crime which on one occasion ended in a fine from the courts, but mostly he escaped severe punishment. On several instances he shop lifted and a couple of times he took a car without the owners consent and drove it away.  Nowadays this is of course called joy riding.  

In 1971 he started to go to darts matches with his father at the Arundel Arms. His father encouraged him and out of some gambling winnings, bought him a set of tungsten darts, which were starting to become popular. By this time he was becoming a useful player and even then had the trademark of the little finger cocked in the air.

Although he had attended a grammar school he was not destined to gain a good education and left without taking any exams. But when he left school he had little trouble finding a job for which he earned £12 a week. He had several jobs but did not settle in any of them and it was not long before he decided he wanted to be the best darts player there had ever been.  

By the age of 17 he was winning small local competitions and playing for London County. In 1975 he threw for England and then there was no holding him back. From an early age Bristow gave up work to concentrate on his darts and become a professional, however it was a few years before he started to make any serious money at the sport. The game was becoming more popular and more money was available in it making it possible for him to earn a very good living at an early age, more than a professional football player of the day. 

In 1976 one of his friends brought a memento back from America in the shape of a T-shirt with the pubs name and logo on it called the “Crafty Cockney.” Eric was impressed by the shirt and started wearing it to matches. After he had been seen on the television the slogan on the back became his nickname and has stuck ever since.  

In 1979 Bristow became a regular partner of Maureen Flowers in doubles games and as they spent more time in each other’s company romance blossomed. She was several years older than himself, but as most of his previous girlfriends had been older as well this did not prove to be a problem.

Early in the 1980s Maureen wanted him to invest some of his rapidly accumulating wealth and in 1984 he bought a disused club in Burslem, Stoke on Trent. After enlarging the car park he obtained a new license for it and reopened it as "The Crafty Cockney." 

Eric Bristow went on to become the best player in the world for a number of years and has won just about every title going but he did go through a bad patch where he could not release his darts properly. This problem became known as Dartitus and gained recognition as a genuine condition.

(Extract From The Book “Darts For Everyone – By Alan J. Hartley - Published 24/6/2004)

In 1985 Bristow penned a dart book called “Darts - A complete guide to the game.” It is still available in Paperback and runs to 96 pages. December of 2008 saw Eric Bristow publish his new book called. “The Autobiography: The Crafty Cockney,” priced at £18.99 for the Hardback version containing some 352 Pages and widely available, although it is heavily discounted at some outlets.

Eric’s new book is said to be a fantastic read and gives an insight to the crazy world of darts with many anecdotes that are peppered with wit and hilarity. One of the best is when he turned around in breach of protocol having received his MBE he quickly corrected himself with the words, "Sorry Darling'" to the Queen. Similarly when he said to an attractive woman, "Excuse me, darling, will you ask Mohammad Ali for his autograph for me? Cheers love" he put her curt response down to attitude until he discovered she was Princess Caroline of Monaco. Other fantastic stories told involve many of the legends of darts such as Jocky Wilson, Cliff Lazarenko and Keith Deller.

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