You’re joining me on Friday 8th November 2024 at approximately half past ten in the morning, somewhere within Cardiff Bay. I’m heading for the Grand Slam in Wolverhampton later on in the evening but before that I have to pack, have meetings about launching my website, my podcast, this blog……oh, and just launch the first ever LGBGT+ group for the sport of darts. Nothing major! Note to self that eating and drinking are important too.
Well this is going well! Facebook is co-operating with my complete lack of knowledge about how to set up a group on this page (does that even make sense?!). Okay….. it’s asking “Which category best describes the group Out On The Oche?” There’s a search bar so let’s type in the word ‘Gay’ and see what comes up…..’Gay Bar’? No we’re not launching a gay bar. ‘The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints’…….what?! What the hell (excuse the blasphemy, latter day saints) has that got to do with launching an LGBT+ group, Facebook? How have you got all that from the word gay? Is ‘latter day’ supposed to be rhyming slang?! I message my friend Jamie, we laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. I can’t move off of this question without picking one of these two options. Do you all see now this is the REAL struggle we put up with?? Not to sound dramatic but call this the Mount Everest of our problems, if you will.
Two hours later it’s up and running! Out On The Oche is live! Oh lord. What if it gets trolled? What if everyone laughs at it? We’re bound to come in for stick, we always do whenever the Rainbow Laces campaign comes around. What if nobody wants to join it? Well it’s always there, the PDC will always support it and if it helps one person it will have been a success. Now it’s time to meet my wonderful friend, colleague and personal chauffeur Andrew Davies who’s going to drive me and my other wonderful friend the Players Marshal Dean Williams to the hotel in Wolverhampton ready for a long but exciting nine days!
Next morning, the Rainbow Laces are in my shoes. They are far too big for them, mind. I mean I’m all for LGBT equality but if I trip over my laces, fall off the stage and die I’m not going to be best pleased. Also spent the morning in the venue putting together fifty Rainbow Laces Packs we’re leaving behind reception for fans to pick up throughout the tournament. Again, no idea how that’s going to go down but the PDC have very kindly offered to advertise that they’re available for collection on the big screens in the hall for the rest of the week. God I’m lucky having these guys above me. Next is to co-ordinate the press releases supporting the Laces campaign and the announcement of Out On The Oche, and now that’s done it’s onto doing my actual job refereeing darts matches! Kirk, Charlie & I decide to do ‘two-on, two-off’ for these sessions of eight matches, it’s only best of nine legs a match so we might as well. As we discussed in Dortmund, I’m doing the final in nine days time, because Charlie did the Grand Prix final, Kirk did the European Championship final so it’s only fair I do the Grand Slam final. I’m always a little bit nervous for the start of a tournament but settle into it and everything goes well……
On the Wednesday I’m off to Molineux to film for Premier League Productions with Stephen Bunting and Gian van Veen, and a couple of Wolves players, Tommy Doyle and Pablo Sarabia! On arrival, Premier League Productions tell me they don’t have a presenter so would I do the presenting?……well let’s just say everyone did a great job making everyone believe this was their first time hearing what the rules of the game were, when in actual fact it was the fifty-eighth take. Des Lynam eat your heart out! It all goes well and Premier League Productions were very happy and it was a great day at a lovely stadium.
I’m over the moon. Out On The Oche has got forty members already! People have been introducing themselves on the page, describing their experiences in darts, a lot of them negative but some positive and all have been saying how good it is a group like this now exists. Whenever somebody goes through homophobic abuse, and this can be the same for whenever a personal characteristic of somebody’s is ‘attacked’, the first feeling you feel is that of loneliness. When something so personal to you is attacked it can feel like you’re the only one in the room with this particular characteristic so therefore you’re alone and nobody else could understand the struggle you go through. However reading everyone’s posts in the group and just seeing how many people have joined already, it has shown me and shown everyone in the group that they are not alone and that is so important.
All fifty Rainbow Laces Packs we put together have gone as well! Sky Sports did some filming with me earlier in the day, I’m told it will be going out on Sky Sports News to all and sundry throughout next week (welp!). I’m shown some previews, my eyebags are so deep you can take your shopping home in them so I’m hoping once people get over the shock of seeing those they can listen to what I’m saying!
On the darts front, I had the privilege of being second ref for Luke Littler v Gary Anderson in the semi-finals, one of the best games you will ever see, and in the final I referee Luke’s first ever Grand Slam victory, beating Martin Lukeman who can be very proud of his efforts throughout the week. Ten minutes after calling ‘Game Shot And The Match’ we are on the road home. I’m pretty sure Luke was still on stage as we pulled out of the Aldersley Leisure Village. I take a deep breath, think it’s all over…..but then a glance at my diary tells me this year is FAR from over……
