Marking A White Board.

In the good old days of darts the scoring always used to be carried out with chalk, but in more recent years there has been a definite move to employ other scoring methods including white boards. There are quite a few alternative methods of keeping the score and several reasons for using one of them instead of chalk. (See other articles: - Death Of Chalk, Chalking Up Another Good Christmas, Electronic Scoreboards, Playing Darts With A Laptop, Colour Prejudice And Darts.)

As you will see from other articles Pub darts matches should never be taken too seriously and players are nearly always ready for a laugh, especially after a pint or two of beer that usually helps to make the evening more jovial. Many aspects of darts can give rise to humour and chalk, along with its counter scoring method, whiteboards, is no exception. I usually carry a small box of chalks with me to most matches, specially to K.O.’s as it is very often in short supply. Often, I also have some of the biggest sticks of chalk that you have ever seen in my pocket that are really “Pavement chalks,” for large drawings, rather than “Blackboard,” chalks that are used for writing, although they will do at a push if the maker is desperate. More often than not I don’t use them for marking the board, but simply present one of them to a lady player in the opposing team for a laugh. You can imagine the comments that are freely given by the men surrounding her, such as: - “ You will need a battery for it,” to which the unfortunate lady sometimes responds with, “Hope my husbands doesn’t look that colour,” or “It’s bigger than my husbands.” Occasionally, actions from her fellow players accompany the donated chalk and sometimes the offer of chalk back-fires altogether on me as the opposing team use a whiteboard.

The other night at a K.O. I was asked if I had taken darts box with lots of flights, stems, etc in it and I said, no I had forgotten to bring it and I had also forgotten the chalk as well before I looked up at the board and saw a white board next to it. Then I recalled a match a couple of years ago, in the same pub on the same board, when it wasn’t me who got it wrong.

It was a memorial challenge match with the best players in the league against the league winning, top team. The first game had been a cracker with some brilliant darts thrown and the Captain of the top team had volunteered to mark it. As usual, before the game could start, there had been a problem finding a pen that would actually work on the “White Board.” Eventually, after trying several pens of various colours a black one had worked, but when the marker wiped the board with a cloth at the end of the first leg, nothing happened. He wiped it again and still nothing happened. The scores stayed nice and black and clear! His face was a picture as a cheer went up round the room as everyone realised he was having problems. He had used a permanent marker that had certainly “Marked,” the board! A call went up from the audience to use some nail varnish remover, but none of the male players admitted to having any! Fortunately there was some “Cillit Bang,” or something found in a nearby cleaning cupboard that did the trick and the board was cleaned without any obvious lasting damage to the surface. After much searching the right type of pen was found and the game eventually continued, but the event had made it another one of those memorable nights that seem really funny after a few pints!