In the darts money

Press, 10 May 1979, Page 17

In the darts money

A Rolls-Royce swishes up to the curb outside a London club and five big men in expensively-tail-ored red and white suits climb out to roars of greeting from the waiting crowd. They are the newest breed of sporting superstars — the world’s best darts players. In the last two years, John Lowe, Leighton Rees, Tony Brown. Eric Bristow and Rab Smith, ranked respectively, numbers one, two, three, five and seven in the international ratings, have helped to transform the humble game of darts into a multi-million pound sport. They have taken darts out of the pubs and into the glare of television lights as the twentieth century’s latest spectator sport. The top pros can now' expect to earn around $120,000 a year, about 550.000 from prizes and exhibitions, the rest from advertising and endorsements. in November, the game takes another giant step forward when the World

Cup is staged in Las Vegas. More than 20 nations will be taking part and the play will be televised around the globe. After that, the day of the first millionaire darts champion may not be too far distant, and John Lowe could well be the successful candidate. Two years ago, he was a jo’ner in the Derbyshire village of Clay Cross. 1 oday he is courted by spot sors from all over the wet la, and is a businessman in his own right who will shortly be opening his own warehouse. He is a large, humorous num who still talks about it all with wcr.der in his vc.ce.

“You know," he says, “f was 21 before I even threw a dart. Somebody' had to leave a game for a while and asked me to take his place. I started throwing and forgot about everything else. I was still playing at closing time.”

He shook his head. “That man never came back. I’ve still got his darts.”

Soon, he was playing the game seven nights a

week and. for him, the first break came in 1975 when his firm put up the $BOO stake for him to challenge Leighton Reese, darts hero of the Rhondda Valley, on his home ground.

“Leighton had never heard of me,” he says, “so all the pressure was on him. I beat him, 4-0. He was a bit of a legend even then, so I suppose it came as a shock to him.”

Now they are close friends, and major figures in the game, but in some ways, they’re poles apart. Lowe is a fitness

fanatic, working out regularly on an exercise cycle. The eighteen-stone Rees make no secret of the fact that he is also an eighte e n-pints-a-night man. When playing, he'll slip in numerous brandies between the pints. In fact, many of the top pros like their drink and it seems that the more they imbibe, the steadier their hands become, and they react under

pressure. “Every now and then,” says Jonn Lowe, “’mu n up against someone who

could perhaps beat Leighton and me in his own bar-room. But put that man under the television lights with maybe 10M people watching his every move, his every flicker of expression, and it could be a different story. “It’s those big-pressure days which sort out the men from the boys.” Golf has its Mark McCormack and cricket its Kerry Packer — entrepreneurs who have shown that modern sportsmen can become very rich indeed.

And darts has Oily Croft, a London businessman who had the vision to see the new horizons and who believes that darts will eventually become as popular as golf. “But first,” he says, “we need to educate the top men into accepting darts as a sophisticated sport for which they must dress right and act right. “They must learn to behave as important people, as celebrities, because that’s what they are now,” he says. “And darts, as a superstar sport, is only just beginning.”