Darts Trivia

To see videos of some famous "9 darters" click on the following links;-
   "John Lowe 9 Darter"     "Barneveld 9 Darter"   "Phil Taylor 9 Darter"

1. The first man to sell matched sets of brass darts was a Hungarian salesman of boiler linings named Frank Lowy. He went on to found Unicorn darts, still the largest darts manufacturers in the world.
   
2. In November of 1989, Tony Jones recorded 28 perfect 180 scores in just one hour and 25 minutes for a charity event in Manchester, England.
   
3. An impressive 7-man superstar line up consisting of Bob Anderson, Eric Bristow, John Lowe, Chris Johns, Martin Phillips, Alan Warriner, and Ritchie Gardner established a 15-minute fast-scoring mark of 8,806 points in a charity throw at the 1988 British Professional Championships.
   
4. Big Cliff Lazarenko fired his first 9-dart perfect 501 game at an exhibition at the Aberlynon Leisure Centre. Using 25-gram titanium tungsten darts, he threw two 180s and a T20, T19, D12 for the 141 out in the last match of the night.
   
5. Paul Lim of San Bernadino, Calif. threw a perfect 9-dart 501 leg at the 1990 Embassy World Championships. Because he did it before the TV cameras he received £52,000 ($88,000 US) for his remarkable achievement.
   
6. Some dart players in England think throwing darts can get boring, so they take some six inch nails and use them instead. Joe Hitchcock used to love to beat "the champs" in this fashion. One of his favorite tricks was to "nail" a button from between someone's outstretched fingers.
   
7. The late Jim Pike, a darts legend in England before most of you even threw one, was such a marksman that he could shoot a cigarette from someone's mouth with a dart - AND STICK IT IN ANY DOUBLE.
   
8. The average speed of a dart hitting a board is around 64kph (40mph).
   
9. London, 1937. The late and great Jim Pike went around the board on doubles, retrieving his own darts, in the time of 3 minutes 30 seconds. He did this shooting from the old distance of 9 feet.
   
10. Can you score more than 180 with 3 darts? - Turn 16 to the top of the board and it becomes 91. Three triples give you 819.
    
11. At an exhibition match at the Gipsy Stadium, in England, in July 1977, Muhammed Ali faced former Welsh champ Alan Evans. With Evans scoring only on triples, Ali won hitting a bullseye on the way out and immediately proclaimed himself darts champion of the world.
    
12. On February 21st., 1989, at Buckingham Palace, London, Eric Bristow became the first dart player to receive the coveted Member of the British Empire award (M.B.E.). Mr. Bristow admitted he was nervous meeting the queen, saying, "It was more nerve-racking than any TV final." This gives him the right to have the letters M.B.E. present after his name.
    
13. In June of 1978, All-World John Lowe captured a 1001 leg in 22 darts: 140-180-140-100-140-140-125-D18. John averaged 137 per throw or a grand 45.6 per dart en-route to this memorable game.
    
14. Pat Irwin of the Mitre hotel, playing in a double start/double finish 501 match, hit a 170 in (Dbull-60-60) and a 170 out (60-60-Dbull) in the same leg, in April of 1987.
    
15. Probably the most notable individual effort occurred on October 13, 1984 in the quarter-finals of the MFI World Matchplay Championships. The match featured British stars John Lowe and Keith Deller with Lowe hitting the first televised nine-dart perfect 501 game in the history of the sport. For the record he went: 180-180-141 and collected (eventually) a cheque for 102,000 pounds for his efforts. (Ironically, due to complex tax laws, Lowe could not pocket a penny from the jackpot until two years later, as the currency sat in a British bank waiting for final approval.)
    
16. Dartboards are made from compressed biscuits of African sisal.
    
17. The maximum allowable weight and length for a dart is 12 inches and 50 grams.
    
18. In the British Dart Organization (BDO), Indian Sikhs are exempt from the rule forbidding headgear.
    
19. In 1896, Brian Gamlin, a British carpenter, arranged the numbers on the dartboard as we see them still today.
    
20. Eric Bristow got his nickname "The Crafty Cockney" not from his accent, as some may think, but from a T-shirt he picked up in a California darts pub.