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Lady Players Making Their Presence Felt.

See Other Articles; - (Superior Lady Players) (Sexual Equality For Darts Players) (Ladies Team Win £1 million) (More Interest In Ladies Games)

Men are not allowed to play in Ladies darts leagues, (Except in mixed Doubles) but for most Men’s Darts Leagues ladies are free to join in as well if they feel that they can compete. Perhaps that may seem a little chauvinistic and even arrogant, because some of the ladies that do play in one league that I play for are proving that they are more than a match for some of our better male darts players. 

Indeed one year, one Lady Captain needed a seemingly impossible win against a local professional male player, to level up the score. On that night what nobody saw coming was a brilliant performance from her by taking the first leg from him. The second leg was even better with the Lady just missing her double for a nine darter that would have beaten the Pro’ two nil. Unfortunately for her he was right on her heels after hitting a 180 and he managed to steal the leg. Another 180 from him helped him to take the third leg to steal the game, but even then she was with him. The Pro’ was certainly taking no prisoners in his game as it is very rare, even for him, to hit two 180’s in one match of 3 legs of 301. During the game it was said that all the players were cheering the Lady Captain on, even the Pro’s own team mates!

Another Lady for the same team, also puts in some brilliant darts sometimes and once took a leg off the same local Pro’ and from one particular nights performance that I heard of, it is obvious why. In a hard fought game against a male player that I knew her scores included 94, 97 and a break of 120. Not surprisingly she managed to beat him 2-1 even though he played well with the exception of one throw when he scored three individual big ones! 

The previously mentioned Lady Captain, one of the leagues very best Lady players, had heard people talking about the leagues web-site a few years ago, but had not seen it until she was visiting her sister, or so I am told. She was delighted to look at the Players Ranking list and see that she was no 15 out of some 160 odd players. She was even more pleased to see that she was actually above a male Committee member who was one of our best players (Or so he told everyone!)

Sometimes Lady players however, have artificially inflated “Rankings” in men’s leagues simply by turning up to support their husbands and getting their names entered to fill in a space when teams are short of players. A Few years ago, this happened with one lady player in particular who had only played one singles game that she lost two nil, but when a two nil win from a BYE was added to the tables she was listed 104 in the player rankings out of over 150 players registered. In other words, without winning a single leg, she was two thirds of the way down, or one third of the way up the singles rankings table with 50 players beneath her! It is a point that both pleased her and surprised me.

However, it is probably true to say that the Ladies in the one men’s league that I am involved with, often don’t get the acknowledgement that they deserve for their performances. Many is the time that I have been sent me an E-mail, or been told by word of mouth, that such and such a player was in fact a Lady and her achievements should have been listed in the Ladies listing. There may not be many Ladies playing in our league, and out of just under 200 players there are usually under 10 ladies, but every season they nearly all get a mention, for their starts, finishes and scores etc. Admittedly, high finishes of 140 and above are very rarely hit in a season by the Ladies, but the Ladies do get no end over a ton, which is still very impressive and it must always be remembered how few of them there are compared to the men. Again the big starts of over 120 are rare compared to the men, but they do hit them and just once in a while the Ladies get finishes in under 12 darts and even 9 darters are not unheard of.

Without being unkind to the Ladies, they do not hit very many 180’s, often only one a year from any of them if we are lucky and they can get quite excited about it when they do. In fact one Lady player, who had not taken any matches, at the time and only won a few individual legs, had 3 darts practice before her match one night and with her first 3 darts of the night, hit a 180. After 40 years of playing darts, that was the first “180” that she had ever hit. Unfortunately the score went to her head and she then received 2 brushes in her game!

To be honest though, I remember when I first started playing darts nearly 40 years ago, it was a rare event for a “180” to be hit in an ordinary league by any male player. So, perhaps in years to come Lady player’s average standards will have raised to a level where they are hitting as many good scores as men do in leagues now, but then again what will men be hitting? 

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