Darts Marathon

Darts Marathons.

A true darts player will look for any excuse to have a game of darts down at the pub and like most people, darts enthusiasts are becoming more socially aware with regards to “Green issues” and also the plight of others. Consequently, charity events seem to be the “In” thing for many darts teams and even leagues these days. Recently a couple of such events caught my eye.

The first concerns two young sisters who held a darts marathon at St Georges Social Club in Stafford. Starting on May 30th, Jo and Danielle Tonks, played non-stop darts from 10am Friday morning through till’ 6.21 pm on Saturday night making a total of 26 hours darts. The event came about after a family relative of Danielle passed away from a heart condition in 2009 and the girls decided to do a fundraiser in aid of the British Heart Foundation. As Danielle was a keen darts player and had been playing darts for 9 years, she and her sister came up with the idea for the darts marathon that was also sponsored by Asda. During the record-breaking attempt some enthusiastic spectators even offered an extra £10 for each bull they hit after which the girls dutifully managed to hit 6 in a row! The pair actually set a new Guinness record during the marathon.

Another marathon event that didn’t quite make the 6’0 clock news concerned our very own Mick Powell who used to run the Weston Trent Valley Darts League and does currently play in the Stafford Super League. This time though, Mick was running the Marathon, not playing darts. On Sunday April the 25th he lined up with tens of thousands of others for the great London Marathon. More than 36,000 runners finished the race in its 30th year with the fastest time of 2:05:19. Admittedly Mick’s time was somewhat slower than that at 4 hours ten minutes 31 seconds and a “Dalek” beat him in a time of 4 hours 1 minute and 40 seconds, but all credit to Mick for doing it! I know I wouldn’t have got anywhere near the finish line! In fact, with my typical darts player’s physique, I wouldn’t even have had the courage to enter in the first place!

P.S. After writing this little piece I had an E-Mail from Mick who told me that he hadn't run after all. It was someone else with the same name and it seems that I got it wrong as usual!