We arrived at our hotel at roughly about midnight last night and after a 5.30am alarm call I was live to the nation this morning on BBC Breakfast, not once but twice! Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty described my 180 as “very festive”! It’s been called a few things in its time but never “festive” so I will take that every day of the week! A meeting with my sponsors at Winmau followed and after an appearance on Sky Sports News live (they lost the feed – that’s what happens when you put me in front of the camera!) I’m now writing this through eye bags so deep you could take your shopping home in them. Oh I forgot to mention I’ve been vlogging all day (I’m in my insta influencer era!) for Winmau, it’s a “Day In The Life” style vlog so keep your eyes peeled for that over the next couple of days. Episode One of Series Three of my podcast dropped at 6am this morning on YouTube/Spotify/Apple/Amazon/anywhere you get your podcasts from…….I’m sure there’s supposed to be some refereeing in here somewhere!!
Honestly, over the last six months there’s been nothing to report on the darts refereeing front. A lot of the time it gets to the stage where all the matches roll into one anyway, and even if there are incidents in the crowd or between the players, it’s all still part and parcel of the job of being a referee so there really hasn’t been anything “interesting” to report on, so I want to talk to you about some really interesting things, like visiting the Falkland Islands in August.
It’s difficult to put into words what that experience was like. Life-changing would definitely be one phrase. Even though I wasn’t around during the Falklands War in 1982, it’s fair to say I grew up with the after-effects of it. My father is a veteran of the Falklands War, and was on board HMS Antelope when it was blown up and sunk by Argentinian forces. I grew up thinking of the Falklands as this terrible place where terrible things happened. It almost didn’t seem like a real place if that makes sense, but when we descended through the clouds after sixteen hours in the air and saw the land of the Falklands, all of a sudden it hit home, this was real. If that’s what I thought, then God knows what my father must have been thinking – he was sat in the seat behind me! The trip came about after Corporal Scott Worthing got in touch with me via this very website to ask if I would be interested in visiting to help launch the brand new darts society on the Mount Pleasant Military Complex. This came off the back of the darts exhibition we did on board the HMS Queen Elizabeth down in Portsmouth. I told them the story of my father and they were kind enough to invite him down too, and asked him if he would mind giving a talk to the troops about his experiences during the war.
We spent five nights on the base and we did so much. Not only did we launch the brand new society, but we attended a police dog show, went into Port Stanley and attended one of their biggest darts tournaments of the year that just happened to be on (what are the odds?!). I saw some penguins (had to be done!), trained with the Port 460 troops and Supply & Movement Squadron with a darts-themed circuits. Yes, I did tactically chunder halfway through, but I wasn’t the only one and when we finished, Frankie my trainer said I did very well so I will take that! My father and I were given a personal tour of the HMS Forth where I presented a Winmau dartboard to the first lieutenant on the bridge of the Forth for the troops to have in their mess. We also had a tour of an A400 military jet where I lowered the ramp at the back like they do in the movies!
But the most emotional moments were going into Port Stanley and firstly visiting a place called Liberty Lodge, which a veteran called Sharky runs. It’s a place where Falklands veterans can stay for free for up to six months at a time. It was great for Dad especially to meet fellow veterans I think. Sharky explained to us that everything in Port Stanley is free for Falklands veterans. Shopping, museum visits, even taxis are just a fiver to wherever you want to go. Of course, when we went to the shops we did pay for the things we bought, but when we visited the Falklands museum, Dad was going to pay and at that point I felt the need to pipe up and explain my Dad is a veteran, at which the lady was very kind and apologetic and said that he could go straight in. We sat down in their cinema room and the footage of the War that was played was very heavy. I saw pictures of the Antelope being sunk that I had never seen before. Stories of soldiers waiting to be treated, whilst holding half their brain in their hand. Not complaining, not crying in pain, just waiting for their turn whilst someone else was being treated. Heroes, plain and simple.
Whenever our generation think of the Falklands War, I think we tend to think “oh what a lovely war we won hooray!”, but not enough is said about just how horrific it was for our soldiers. So terrible of course, that nobody who was there likes to talk about it, understandably, so of course our generations don’t appreciate enough, in my view, the sacrifice that took place. My father lost his friend, Steward Mark Stephens. He was the only member of the HMS Antelope crew to be killed, along with bomb diffuser Staff Sergeant James Prescott. After the bomb detonated, my father was one of a small handful of crew who went to fight the flames as pieces of burning metal rained around them like wet paper. The blast had badly damaged their water supply so the call was made to abandon ship.
Dad and I found the HMS Antelope. It’s still there on San Carlos Bay. After an hours drive from the base along a god-forsaken “road”, which could be quite dangerous if you lost control, we eventually drove up a hill and saw the Bay itself. “Ah I’d recognise that view any day” said Dad. When we couldn’t drive any further, we walked down the grassy bank where a beautiful stone cemetery had been erected. Walking around it, what got me was the gravestone of a young 19 year-old lad who was killed in the Falklands, but his mother and father, who had died in 2010, had been buried there too, with their son. A memorial with every name of the lives lost, and which regiment they belonged to, adorned the top of the cemetery. “It’s a lot quieter than I remember” said Dad, because of course, the only sounds that he remembers were the sounds of the Argentinian fighter jets and the sounds of explosions and guns as the battle took place. Forty-three years on it was still in the air, as if the sounds and echoes of the past were still bouncing around in the space between the valleys. Forty-three years on, it may as well have been last week. You could drop down onto a small beach area from the grassy bank and walking right to the sea’s edge, you could see it. The buoy that marks where the Antelope is underneath the water. Just looking out and staring at it was a very cathartic, very emotional moment which certainly offered some personal closure to me, and I hope to my Dad. We talked, and as we turned to leave, my Dad saluted the ship and said “see you mate.”
When Dad gave his talk to the troops about his experiences, a presentation was made to him at the end. He’s never had a Falklands Veterans scarf, and now he does. A wonderful green and white scarf, knitted by the niece of the Chief Warrant Officer who were both in the crowd, and presented to him by Sharky who had driven up from Port Stanley especially for the event. I have a video of it on my phone, and I’m not crying my eyes out, honest. Neither of us can thank enough Corporals Scott Worthing, Terry Kynaston, Frankie Lyall, Andrew Holder and Seargeant Rob enough for their hospitality, the way they treated us, looked after us, and for the opportunity that neither of us ever thought we’d have in life. To the people of Port Stanley who treated Dad like the hero that he is to them, thank you so much. One lady went up to Dad and explained that she was ten years old when she saw the HMS Galahad blow up outside her living room window, and she thanked him for making her life better than it otherwise would have been.
The other mention I want to make is a big, big thank you to everybody who donated to my MacMillan Cancer Darts Marathon. I’m proud to be an ambassador for these marathons and honestly when you finish them it’s one of the most worthwhile feelings you can have. We raised £1,669 and over 22,000 people joined our live stream across the twelve hours. Thank you to Neil Patterson of Family Darts and Out Out Bar & Grill for hosting us and for helping to organise the event and live stream, and thank you to everybody who came down and took part and helped to keep me going. The twelve hours honestly flew by and that’s thanks to all of you for the great company. Check out the MacMillan section of my website to find out more how you can get involved next year, it’s honestly such a worthwhile thing to do for a great cause.
I hope everybody enjoys the World Darts Championship! I’ll be back blogging during the tournament so until then, take care!
