It’s Monday, the day after the Grand Slam of Darts final. I’m already contemplating whether this blog is a blog, a diary, or therapy? I will leave this very important question to you, faithful reader, to decide. Anyway, I’m back home and doing a VERY quick washing turnaround so I can repack and head to London tomorrow. I never get recognised away from darts but walking out of my flat a group of binmen in their lorry stop in the middle of the road and call out my name and say they’ve seen me in a video of the Bullhitters! So never mind the thirteen-year refereeing career, one video on YouTube and you’re stopping Britain’s rubbish from being cleared.
Tuesday and it’s up to London and a few drinks with my mate Michael Bridge before the Tube to Heathrow Airport to check into a hotel before a VERY early flight in the morning to Helsinki. Flying through the clouds upon landing I’ve never seen so much snow on the ground in all my life. We land and the plane is battered by gale force snow, so cold my nipples become football studs as we trudge through the freezing wind and snow, trying not to slip over or collapse through the ground that we didn’t realise was actually a massive block of ice that was actually the ceiling of a supermarket (for those under fifteen, google The Day After Tomorrow) for all of five minutes to our hotel. The lovely lady and gentleman who organised the tournament explain to us that this level of snow is nothing in Finland. I explain that if this was in the UK we’d all be under quarantine by now. Nathan Aspinall is delayed on his flight out from Manchester so myself, Joe Cullen, Adrian Lewis and Fallon Sherrock make our way to the venue. There’s 400 Fins there, including VIPs who play legs against the pros with myself and MC Paul Starr refereeing, and a Q and A session with us all, including Nathan, who’s managed to make it! The show itself goes really well. The crowd were quiet but enthusiastic, and it meant that the banter between the guys on stage could be heard by everybody which really enhanced the night. It was really refreshing to be a part of an intimate show like that.
Early the next morning I’m shattered, so much so I didn’t go down to the bar the night before. I just needed my sleep before another early start and a drive to Minehead, but Nathan breaks my heart in the airport when he tells me he was looking forward to a drink with me last night. Some friend you are, Huw! We land and Joe very kindly gives me a lift to Minehead. A meeting about my podcast is followed by a two hour nap before a meeting about my website, and then its back to bed before a full-on three days at the Players Championship Finals.
A mixture of Stage Two and Main Stage this weekend, including refereeing Luke Littler on Saturday afternoon in a performance where I’ve never come closer to applauding after putting the mic down. Imagine thinking before a leg starts, I’m going to go for the nine-darter now. And then you hit five perfect darts in one leg and then EIGHT perfect darts in another. That shows you have an ability unlike many that have played this sport….oh and throwing a bull-bull finish into the mix doesn’t hurt either! “It’s coming” Luke says as he shakes my hand. I just laugh. I played darts when I was his age….he makes me sick! A true worldwide sporting phenomenon. I am lucky to be doing this job when this player is in the sport.
It’s Luke Humphries who takes the title against Luke Littler in the final which sets the World Championship up very nicely, and while everyone goes home, I’m staying another night to travel to London on Monday morning to work at a small, relatively unimportant venue in this country called the Houses of Parliament. It’s also the Media Day in London for the World Championship so I jump in a taxi at 7am with the PDC lads to get to Taunton station. Cancelled…..cancelled…..cancelled…..all trains are cancelled and so are our chances of making it to London in time! Cancelled like my career will be if I don’t make it to Westminster Palace! A journey to Temple Meads, and then to Parkway, and then a change at Reading and finally we make it. I meet my boss Graham Fairhurst, and Adam and Sam from the PDC marketing team, and we walk to the Palace of Westminster, as you do.
We meet up with Michael Smith and Fallon Sherrock, tell the scary security team we’re here to work at a darts event and we put our stuff through security. “It’s like being at Heathrow airport” I say a bit too loudly and once we’re through we walk into Westminster Hall, where the Queen lay in state for five days. It’s also where Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby jumped the queue, and walking through the hall you could feel the weight of British history swirling around our footsteps. If those quiet walls could talk in this vast space. We walk past the House of Commons, where they were voting, the House of Lords, statues of people who shaped British politics four hundred years ago (I’m not talking about the House of Lords!) and at the end of the corridor we are taken through a door on our left, down some green-carpeted steps, take a right turn, down some more green-carpeted steps, turn right again and we’re ushered into the first of a series of small function rooms on our left where Paddy Power had set up their darts set.
The event is in aid of Prostate Cancer UK in association with Paddy Power. Organised by James Frith MP who spoke very well about the need to raise more awareness of prostate cancer, the game was that MPs, parliamentarians, staff members, would throw throw six darts, while either Fallon or Michael would throw three, and the highest score won the inaugural Westminster Darts Trophy. A lovely member of staff comes up to me to thank me for Out On The Oche, which means a lot. I’m simply calling the scores, no one is paying attention to a word I say but that’s okay, because that’s usually what happens when I open my mouth anyway. I give side-eyes to the glasses of prosecco and birthday cake for one MP who’s birthday it is as the servers offer these delights to everybody in the room except me as my stomach pleads to be fed. The last thing I ate was eight/nine hours before, and that was a ham and cheese wrap from Reading train station that was drier than the Sahara Desert. £6.95 too thank you very much! My boss Graham has come out of marking retirement to help mark the challenge. At the end of one MPs go I’m ready to say “and the final score is….” and Graham turns the marking pad towards me to reveal the number 119. That was the wrong score. He was ten out…..”129!” I shout. Graham turns the pad back to himself, looks at the score, looks up at me and goes….”oh yeah.” We both laugh. It’s the small things that get you by!
Overall it’s a very successful night, however I’m so hungry I could eat a scabby horse between two bread vans. Downing two glasses of prosecco when we were finished was probably ill-advised too, as alcohol always is, but we manage to find a pub which I clock was offering food although it was now 10.30pm, there was no chance…….they’re still doing food and turkey dinner is on the menu? Take my money, my glasses AND my shoes because at this point I’ll take the lot! Adam finds this hilarious, I explain to him it was either a turkey dinner at 11pm on a Monday night, or the table and chairs we were sat on were looking very tasty all of a sudden.
