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The Need For Fresh Blood.

When I first joined a darts team in the early seventies nearly every pub had a darts team whether it was in a town or a country village. Nowadays the village pubs are changing into restaurants and the town pubs are putting in large screen TVs for Sky Sports such as football. Consequently a lot of leagues seem to be struggling to recruit new teams. Indeed some leagues have lost so many teams that they have completely folded altogether.

We have lost many teams over the years from pubs such as the Gayton Hotel and the Wheatsheaf which have closed. In more recent times teams such as the Albion, the Prince Of Wales (Stafford), St Leonards Club (Back In Now), the Woolpack (Back in now) and the Plough have left the league. Others like the Bird In Hand, the Roebuck and the Balmoral left the league long ago back in the mists of time. Disputes with the league have caused teams such as the Farmers Arms and the Chetwynd Arms to leave and the new management personnel of certain pubs has lead to a change in attitude to darts teams making them not so welcome such as has happened in the Hollybush, the Seven Stars, the Dog and Doublet, the Green Man at Hixon (back in now, almost!) and the Greyhound at Burston.

To combat this problem, every season I go out a couple of times following up comments made about interest in our league expressed by other pubs and sometimes just cold calling on pubs in our area telling them about our league.

Another problem facing darts teams is the average age of the players in their teams. When I first joined the league if you saw a 50 years old player he was considered an old man but now it is the norm. My team at the Greyhound in Colton has an average age of over 55 and at 46 I am currently the youngest member. This is not particularly uncommon although I know that one or two younger teams are now starting to join the league.

Many people have commented on this saying that there don’t seem to be many young players coming on. Perhaps darts has lost its image with the game often being thought of as an old mans game and also not very sexy for the young studs with the players having the familiar beer belly. Although of course darts are “Phallic Symbols”. Perhaps this is what attracts the ladies because the ladies league seems to be going from strength to strength with a slow acquisition of new teams every year. Also the ladies seem to be getting their daughters to join them, so, for them at least it is not all doom and gloom. Perhaps we should be taking a leaf out of their book and encourage more of the young lads in our families to join our teams.

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