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Lost Darts

There are many hazards facing darts players from raised oches (Article Haywood Club's Oche) to light fittings and low beams (Article Good Home Throw) that get in the way of flying darts, but the other Monday an unusual incident was reported on the leagues guest-book. The tale goes that the player threw his darts and one fell out of the board onto the floor, or at least INTO the floor, as it fell down a small hole between the floorboards. The story goes on, that a coat-hanger was obtained from the cloakroom and used to retrieve the said dart after a long struggle. The tale was no doubt exaggerated in its telling, but there are several ways that darts can be lost during an actual game.

A very common and serious hazard that used to face darters in the good old days, before all the pubs were modernized, was that many pubs had the boards fixed on the wall over the fireplace. This was the case in one of the first pubs that I ever played for, called, The Plum Pudding, and the number of times that we smiled as our opponents dart flights fluttered into the fire to be engulfed by the flames, was no end. However, it was no laughing matter when, very occasionally, a dart would bounce out, then somehow bounce around the hearth and end up in the fire!

As open coal fires have been done away with they have often been replaced by radiators, which although they are a lesser problem, because they do not destroy an unfortunate dart, can still be a nuisance trapping the odd dart, or more often flight, in a small gap, out of reach. Bandits and old-fashioned jukeboxes often do the same.

Again in the good old days, before “Health And Safety” went mad, darts and flights frequently ended up in the chalk box that was usually placed below the board on a little shelf. (See Article Death Of Chalk!) When the player retrieved his dart/flight he would often clumsily knock off the chalk box sending dust and bits of chalk everywhere interrupting play for a few minutes while the mess was cleared up.

Less troublesome to retrieve are flights that land on top of the wooden framework that surrounds many boards. Occasionally this does raise a smile though, if a slightly shorter person is the unfortunate player!

Sometimes you would come across a pub where the Landlord had a dog that took a fancy to the darts. Perhaps this is not such a common occurrence now with most pubs serving food and dogs being more or less banned, but many types of dog are tempted to try and catch things like darts in mid flight and others will happily retrieve fallen darts. I am sure that I remember at least one such incident in a pub called (appropriately enough the Greyhound, although the dog concerned was a little terrier) where a dart bounced out and the dog grabbed it and ran off before being fetched back by one of the other players. I think that even further back in the mists of my youth, another pub where I played, called again, rather appropriately, the Fox & Hounds, the landlord had a dog that was keen on darts, but he tried to catch them in flight!

Perhaps the most bizarre loss of a dart that I can remember was when a player lost his dart from a bounce out that then flew through an open window! None of us had seen his dart go out of the window and all watched in amazement as the player suddenly climbed out of the open pub window and disappeared in the middle of a game to retrieve his lost dart!

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