Eric Bristow was the high emperor of darts’ first golden age: brilliant and arrogant, admired and despised, a world champion and a pantomime villain rolled into one. During his 80s pomp he was a familiar sight on TV, with his red Crafty Cockney shirt and that magnificent Roman nose which would look down with disdain at his rivals and any hecklers in the crowd.
Eight million watched Bristow win his first world title against Bobby George in 1980. Another 10 million saw his shock defeat by Keith Deller three years later. Darts was part of the sporting and cultural landscape – and Bristow was at the heart of it as he won five Embassy world titles in seven years.
Perhaps that is why Bristow’s death, at the age of 60 after a heart attack on Thursday, has resonated so deeply. His name alone reminds us of those times: the smoke hugging the ceiling like a permanent mushroom cloud; the players settling their nerves with a sip or two of a pint before each leg; and Sid Waddell, the miner’s son who had won a scholarship to Cambridge, lighting up the TV commentary with his one-liners.
As Waddell put it: “It was a magnificent subculture. Big guys with tattoos, who liked a pint and a bet. Leighton Rees from the Valleys, who lived with his mam; Alan Evans, whose dad had a pub and used to stand him on a box to play at the age of eight. Later there was Deller, whose mum used to fry chips with one hand and throw darts with the other; and Jocky Wilson, who would bring his own optic to tournaments, and a bottle of vodka with his name on it. He’d win darts matches when other people would have been in intensive care.”
Once Waddell described the atmosphere of a Bristow match as being like “a cross between the Munich beer festival and the coliseum when the Christians were on the menu”. Needless to say, it was Bristow’s blood that the crowd were baying for.
Most players would thud their darts in the board, as if trying to split an apple. Bristow, though, would caress his into the treble 20 bed with a strangely dainty action, little finger raised during his throw, like a waiter pouring a cup of tea from a great height.
But at the peak of his powers he was struck down with dart-itis, a psychological condition that left him feeling that his darts were stuck in his hand. He tried seeing psychologists and even taking up fly-fishing to see if it would help. However, the answer, it turned out, lay closer to home.
It was his partner, Maureen, who hit on a solution – suggesting he sponsor a local lad to practice with him for hours every day at their pub, the Crafty Cockney, in Stoke. Fortuitously Phil Taylor, then an engineer in his late 20s, volunteered and soon became his pal and protégé.
Bristow saw Taylor’s potential and loaned him £10,000 so he could travel the darting world. One time a delighted Taylor phoned him after finishing runner-up in a minor event. “Phone me back when you win something,” Bristow replied, putting the phone down. Taylor repaid his mentor by qualifying for his first World Championship in 1990 – and then thrashing him in the final.
Bristow was soon a fading force – and so was darts. First Greg Dyke, the controller of ITV, took it off his schedules. And by the early 1990s the BBC’s coverage had been reduced to the World Championships. Bristow was one of the 16 protagonists who in 1992 left to form a rival championship. For years the sport was in the doldrums but it is now enjoying its second golden age, thanks to Taylor’s brilliance on the board.
Meanwhile Bristow, after he retired, became a ‘spotter’ and commentator for Sky Sports but was sacked in 2016 after he tweeted offensive comments about sexual abuse in football.
He apologised the next day, adding that he “appreciated my wording was wrong and offended many people”. However, when his death was announced at a darts event in Liverpool on Thursday, the crowd starting singing “There’s only one Eric Bristow”. And judging by the outpouring of love and affection from those in and outside the sport, he is likely to be remembered for the good times most of all.
