World Darts

The bus, worth £15,000, was handed over to the Variety Club in a special ceremony at the Alexandra Palace. It’s the second successive year the PDPA have made the gesture at the World Championship.

The darting journey’s of some of the players here at the Alexandra Palace sometimes take some believing but Indian Ashfaque Sayed is certainly out to make a name for himself, despite his Preliminary Round defeat by China’s Shi Yongsheng.

Sayed is India’s No.1 and has won the national championships for the last four years but he only picked up a set of darts for the first time, four-and-a-half-years ago!

He is already well known in India, where an audience measured in millions, will watch the semi-finals and final of the World Championship ‘live’ on TV.

And his wife and 13-year-old daughter are also darts champions in India. They are the subject of a documentary back home called “India’s Darts Family”

Alex Roy is certainly not backwards in coming forwards…..he is known as ‘The Mouth of the South’ and is never short of a word or an opinion!

Well on Thursday, ahead of his 1st Round match against New Zealand’s Warren Parry, he arrived at the Alexandra Palace in style…..driven to the venue with his family in a black stretch limousine!

“I thought I’d treat myself,” he joked. It was actually the first time Roy’s wife Lisa had seen him play ‘live’ for six years, because she has been at home looking after the children."

Poor Andy Hamilton thought he had dealt himself a ‘Hammer’ blow on Wednesday night. He came to the venue to get himself used to the new surroundings at the Ally Pally but tripped and fell down a flight of stairs – hurting his left knee and foot.

He was in some pain during his 1st Round victory over Dutchman Keroy Kwadijk but it certainly didn’t damage his performance! He is heading home to Stoke for x-rays before Christmas.

Finally for now, a great tale about 62-year-old John Robertson…..who you may say! Well, John is one of the security guards here at the World Championship but the grand old place brings back some great memories.

Back in 1975, John played in the News of the World Championships at the Ally Pally in front of 12,000 people in the Grand Hall. He lost to eventual winner – the legendary Billy Lennard – and John is now standing in the Great Hall again, outside the press marquee, making sure everything is in order.

Memories are made of this!