TheOche.com

Daily Mail by Glenys Roberts:

Darts has never enjoyed the most glamorous of reputations. Populated by overweight, bearded men with silly nicknames, whose sole purpose is to sink as many pints as score bullseyes, the sport’s appeal isn’t immediately obvious.

Yet, earlier this month, more than 10 million viewers tuned in to the world championship at Lakeside in Essex – the Wembley of darts – to watch larger-than-life characters such as Bobby “Dazzler” George and Martin “Wolfie” Adams aim a four-inch missile at an 18-inch circle of stuffed boar bristles.

Aside from the legions of fans, the prize money isn’t bad either: this year’s cheque for the winner of the men’s world championship was a generous ?85,000.

Generous enough to persuade one middleclass professional to give up his desk job and, rather than jet off around the world on an exotic sabbatical, spend a year on the beer-drenched pro-darts circuit.

Justin Irwin was about as far from the stereotypical darts player as you could imagine. Solidly middle-class, he grew up in the leafy suburbs of Surrey and gained a BA at university before going on to become a director of the charity Childline.

His pub activities extended to drinking a glass of Merlot while reading the Sunday papers.

But one day, as he sat at his office desk working into the early hours for the fourth night running, he felt he’d reached the end of his tether. He’d had his fill of the worthy, liberal world and it was time to get back to male basics.

Since Justin was old enough to be Wayne Rooney’s dad, football was out of the question. In fact, there weren’t many sports a rather outof-condition 35-year-old could pursue.

But there was darts.

Justin started thinking about what made a darts champion. He asked himself how much of it came down to natural talent and how much was merely a matter of practice.

How good could he get if he played every day a year? Could he, indeed, qualify for the Lakeside world championship?

Find out by reading the entire article HERE on the Daily Mail.