the darts

Recently Aberdeen played Ross County and played host to a sports match which, despite significant and long-standing emotional attachment across the region to one or other of the participants, a dishearteningly low percentage of the local population will turn out to watch. Its carriage on live television will be cited by many as a reason to stay home, nonetheless keeping a close eye on proceedings for instant action updates.

Yet two weeks ago, the city staged a sporting event which could have sold out multiple times, even though the majority would not profess any strong preference one way or the other for any of the individual participants. It, too, was live on the box, and yet not only did that fail to dissuade people from attending in person, it seemed to actively encourage them in the hope they might get their mugs on the telly. And while the arena was full from start to finish, there will have been more than a few who left it in complete ignorance of at least some of the evening’s results, and many more who will have quickly forgotten what they ever knew.

So what has darts got that football hasn’t?

It should of course be noted that, despite the aforementioned similarities, it is not exactly a like for like comparison. Attendees at SPL matches know full well that they are unlikely to see the sport played at its peak, whereas there’s nowhere on earth you could go to find finer arrows artisans than those toeing the oche at the AECC. As something that rolls into town only once a year, the Premier League Darts is much more about the occasion than the actual minutiae of the games themselves, and could perhaps therefore be better compared to something like a cup semi-final: events for which the city of Aberdeen still rouses a large and noisy support. But since the majority of Scottish darts patrons are also keen followers of football clubs who are on their uppers yet cannot drag sufficient numbers of their fans through the gates to keep their operations solvent, it would be remiss not to consider how Barry Hearn is convincing them to open wallets which remain resolutely closed come 3pm on Saturday.

It’s hard to make any assessment of the commercial success of the PDC without returning ultimately to alcohol. The easy and virtually unlimited availability of gallons of the stuff is clearly a major contributory factor to its attractiveness as a night-out package, with which the SPL cannot currently legally compete. While the teetotal puritan in me daydreams of a Scotland where football and booze are not intrinsically intertwined, it would be nicer still to think it could be a place where consenting adults could be trusted to enjoy both pursuits simultaneously without the presumption that it will cause them to commit public order offences, thus allowing clubs to sell themselves to customers as a more all-round entertainment experience.

The boorishness and disrespect of a Premier League Darts crowd is not to everyone’s taste but it is clear that the congregation of thousands of aled-up mannies does not cause a spike in crime figures. Scottish football has already overcome the authorities’ ideological opposition to Friday night matches, and many ‘low risk’ games – including Scotland v Estonia at this ground – are now going ahead with zero police presence, so we may be entering an age where the assumption of the football spectator’s criminal intent is a thing of the horrid Thatcherite past. The fact is, in Scottish club football, the absolutely vast majority of matches are of ‘low risk’ to public safety, and if both the clubs (for financial reasons) and the fans (cos they’re affa drooths) would benefit from the serving of alcohol at SPL grounds it must be considered. If a rail company, of all things, is capable of organising a non-booze-up in its vehicles on the days of particularly sensitive sports matches, it should not be beyond the wit of soccer to let its viewers drink when, and only when, it is appropriate.

The Winning Numbers For Friday 1st March