The
Need For Fresh Blood.
When
I first joined a darts team in the early seventies nearly every pub had a darts
team whether it was in a town or a country village. Nowadays the village pubs
are changing into restaurants and the town pubs are putting in large screen TVs
for Sky Sports such as football. Consequently a lot of leagues seem to be
struggling to recruit new teams. Indeed some leagues have lost so many teams
that they have completely folded altogether.
We have lost
many teams over the years from pubs such as the Gayton Hotel and the Wheatsheaf which have
closed. In more recent times teams such as the Albion, the Prince Of Wales
(Stafford), St
Leonards Club (Back In Now), the Woolpack (Back in now) and the Plough have left the league. Others like the
Bird In Hand, the Roebuck and the Balmoral left the league long ago back in the
mists of time. Disputes with the league have caused teams such as the Farmers
Arms and the Chetwynd Arms to leave and the new 
management
personnel of certain pubs has lead to a change in attitude to darts teams making
them not so welcome such as has happened in the Hollybush, the Seven Stars, the
Dog and Doublet, the Green Man at Hixon (back in now, almost!) and the Greyhound at Burston.
To combat this problem, every season I go out a couple of times following up comments made about interest in our league expressed by other pubs and sometimes just cold calling on pubs in our area telling them about our league.
Another
problem facing darts teams is the average age of the players in their teams.
When I first joined the league if you saw a 50 years old player he was
considered an old man but now it is the norm. My team at the Greyhound in Colton
has an average age of over 55 and at 46 I am currently the youngest member. This
is not particularly uncommon although I know that one or two younger teams are
now starting to join the league.
Many
people have commented on this saying that there don’t seem to be many young
players coming on. Perhaps darts has lost its image with the game often being
thought of as an old mans game and also not very sexy for the young studs with
the players having the familiar beer belly. Although of course darts are
“Phallic Symbols”. Perhaps this is what attracts the ladies because the
ladies league seems to be going from strength to strength with a slow
acquisition of new teams every year. Also the ladies seem to be getting their
daughters to join them, so, for them at least it is not all doom and gloom.
Perhaps we should be taking a leaf out of their book and encourage more of the
young lads in our families to join our teams.