Sid
Waddell
World
famous darts commentator Sid Waddell came from a working class background as he
was born the son of a miner in Northumberland, but it may surprise many to be
told that he was in fact very well educated and after attending a Grammar School
he won a Scholarship and went on to St Johns College Cambridge where he read
Modern History.
Although he loved Rugby and Athletics an injury put paid to physical sports so instead he turned his attention to darts and organised his first Darts Championship.
Upon leaving University he worked with Michael Parkinson at Granada Television before moving to Yorkshire Television where he worked on the first Televised darts event in 1972. Later, after transferring to the BBC and then to Sky, he made darts commentaries his Forté and dominated the sport for the rest of his life. His gruff voice epitomised the rough image that darts had in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
Sid’s career had another side and that was writing. He produced two successful children’s comedy series in the 1970’s, followed, over the years, by about a dozen books that were mostly about sports and famous sports personalities.
As
a Geordie he wrote “Taak Of The Toon; ‘How To Speak Geordie’” in 2008
priced at £6.99 for a paperback, but perhaps of more interest to the darting
community he also wrote, “Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of
Darts,” which is available in Hardback at £17.99.
Over his many years on television Sid has spoken some incredible phrases about darts, matches and players for which he has become World famous. A few of these quotes can be found on the following link;- Quotations.
As with all personalities there is a web-site dedicated to Sid Waddell that can be found on the following link;-
http://www.sidwaddell.compsyswebdesign.com/index.html