This was also the period when darts became a popular pub game. In , Ted Leggatt started developing the dartboard by creating one from Nodor modeling clay. A year later, he started producing elm dartboards that had additional brass elements in their structure. In , the first Nodor bristle dartboard was built , a material that remains today the predilect choice for the traditional darts game. This was also the time when the clock format became a standard in designing dartboards. The same company, Nodor, was also responsible for the first staple-free bull's eye dartboard they manufactured in Lots of darts equals lots of good ale!
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Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. Close menu. This resulted in the introduction of key, high profile competitions including the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and the World Championship.
The PDC's plans for to spread darts worldwide have continued ever since, with the introduction of the Las Vegas Desert Classic securing an annual, high-profile tournament in America. The development of a 'world circuit' of professional darts tournaments has continued apace, with events now held in countries around the globe. History of Darts written by Patrick Chaplin. For further information on the sport's history, visit Patrick's Website.
History of Darts. It is said that in , during a game of Puff and Dart at a London pub, a player made the unfortunate mistake of sucking rather than blowing. The dart disappeared into his digestive system whereupon the poor chap died a few days later. On this basis, it may not be too surprising that the game did not make it to modern times In Patrick's Chaplin's excellent book 'Darts in England - ', he concludes with good evidence that the English game of Darts originated at the Fairground. Darts is not unique in this as other pub sports such as Aunt Sally and Skittles also have a firm historical link with Olde English Fayres.
It seems that, in typical fairground style, the fairground dartboard was divided up into numbered segments in such a way as to make it appear much more easy than it actually was to win a prize. So it is likely that the initial idea for segmentation of the board appeared when Fairground darts appeared - mid 19th century.
However, the really horrifying conclusion of Chaplin's studies are that the origin of the thoroughly English game of Darts is French! Yes, the darts used at the newfangled fairground attraction of Dart throwing were all imported from the Jura region of France where the game had been made and played in a somewhat different form for some time.
French darts are wooden and rather larger than a modern dart. For nigh on 60 years, the darts industry in the Northern part of France grew as the sport blossomed in England until, according to Chaplin, by , 10 million darts per year were being produced for the English market Arthur Taylor, the venerable writer on Pub Games has discovered that French Darts is still being played in France in at least two forms.
And 'Flechettes' meaning 'small arrow' in which rather smaller darts are thrown at a target with concentric rings. In the same way that the pub game of 'Puff and Dart' was adapted as a parlour game in the late 19th century, the highly competitive parlour games industry also adapted a throwing version of the game which was initially known as 'Dart and Target'; one proprietary version by John Jaques was called "Dartelle".
Best guess for date of appearance of this is late s. A book of the time gives instructions for making this game at home - "The dart is a straight piece of stick, about six inches long, with a pin stuck in at one end, and a paper guide at the other". The relevance of this to the history of the game of darts may be no more than a red herring. Although Dart and Target is mentioned in 'Lawful Games on Licensed Premises', , the target board was the concentric-circle type whereas Darts as we know it today seems to have evolved from the segmented Fairground dartboard.
Together with Puff and Dart in the pub and in the home , Dart and Target seems not to have lasted through the twentieth century. The pseudo-random arrangement of numbers was presumably invented in the 19th century by Fairground people along with the very idea of a segmented board. There aren't any pictures of a Fairground board prior to so one can only conjecture but there are two ways to look at the result.
It is clear is that some effort has been taken to ensure that consecutive numbers are mostly placed well away from each other and that higher numbers aren't next to each other. Modern players playing in a pub would correctly feel that such a board requires less luck and more skill in order to hit the high numbers. And it would seem likely that a Fairground owner would view things similarly - by not grouping the high numbers together it is much harder for a random unskilled punter to hit 3 high numbers in one turn and therefore a Fairground stall owner could easily judge the winning threshold to make it tempting while making sure that not many prizes were won!
The oldest known picture of a dartboard is the pre 'Grimsby board' that features 28 semi-randomly situated numbers on a segmented board with doubles. This appears to relate to a game of skill rather than a Fairground pastime. The segmented numbering scheme that features on the London or Standard Board is inherited from the old Yorkshire, Burton, Irish and Lincoln boards which have a similar arrangement.
Many people have written in to ask how this came about and, although there is no definite answer, here are some facts concerning 2 competing theories so that you can draw your own conclusions. The most commonly espoused theory is that it was invented by a Brian Gamlin, a 44 year old carpenter from Bury, Lancashire in However, there is only one source for this story and Patrick Chaplin, who knows more about Darts than anyone else, has hunted high and low for any evidence that Brian Gamlin ever existed and could find none.
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