Disco Darts
Most players like to have a bit of
“Order” during their games with cheering and shouting frowned upon while the
players are actually throwing. It is customary to ask for the juke box to be
turned down when the match is about to start and to enable the music to continue
in the rest of the pub some pubs have installed on off switches on the speakers
so that those nearest to the players can be turned off leaving the others on.
Some pubs are more like discos with
loudspeaker that are often turned up to deafening levels and I remember in one
pub that I played in some years ago there were numerous loud speakers dotted
round the place with one being right over the Oche. In this pub however there
were no switches installed, but when I looked at the offending speaker more
closely I saw that the wires were only held in with a little spring clip. My
mates were all complaining about the awful racket being played, so I pointed out
that a wire could easily be removed without any difficulty. With a bit of arm
twisting I deftly reached up and unclipped one of the wires. Peace, or at least
it was a lot quieter where we were playing with the other speakers being much
further away in other parts of the bar. Then a couple of young tearaways that
had obviously been listening to the music suddenly realised the sound had gone
off near to them. After a little grunting and head scratching the brighter one
went up to the bar and asked for the music to be turned back on as he had filled
up the jukebox with money. The barmaid fiddled about with the controls for the
music system behind the bar and told him that she could not get it to work. He
protested, but she was adamant that nothing could be done until the landlord
could get someone out to fix it next Monday at the earliest. A couple of my
friends and myself were doing our best to stifle our laughter because obviously
no one had seen me disconnect the speaker. Eventually the tearaways decided to
move to a different part of the bar where the music was still playing. This was
an added bonus for us! After the match was over I quietly reconnected the
speaker and we left the pub. Nothing was said by the youths, who were in again
the next week, about the sound mysteriously going on and off!
Players have been known to get so upset
about the offending noise in some pubs that speakers have had darts put through
the cones, but this is not to be recommended as the damage will have to be paid
for. These days it is not just jukeboxes that cause a lot of noise. Mobile
phones are a more recently introduced distraction for players with their noisy
and incessant ringing. In fact one local Ladies League has got so fed up with
the problem that they have introduced a £5 fine for any player who’s phone
goes off during a game! That certainly encourages players to turn off their phones
during a match.
A local team that I have just rejoined has
a large television mounted on brackets on the wall at the side of the Oche. If
you are standing on the Oche no one can see the screen because your face is
inches in front of it. Fortunately it is usually turned off when matches are
taking place and on the rare occasions when it is on, because of football, the
sound is turned off.
At the moment there seems to be an attempt to revive the national interest in darts as played in pubs as more and more Landlords are re-installing dart boards. Perhaps it is partly because so many places do meals now that they are realising that they need other attractions to get regulars back in the pubs. What some Landlords need to understand is that for the players to really enjoy the matches the pub needs the right atmosphere and playing in a disco is not conducive to good darts.