Long story short, we were lucky enough to befriend the manager of 2 pro dart players, and they came to our Heerveen game where we had a line brawl and won 7-2, and now the dart players love us. So we got free tickets and VIP access to a dart tournament over the weekend.
BUT the biggest part of this story is mostly about three guys in the dart world that are just all around good guys. I've never seen it before, but it's awesome. The first guy is At, who is the manager of Gary Robson (#8 in the BDO) and Gary Anderson (#1 in the BDO). At does everything for them, organizes their travel, gets them sponsors (Petrikonov alcohol), trains them, and asks for nothing... "because you can't charge money to friends" he says. Great guy, gave me my darts for half price when I bought them at his store. The other two, Gary Robson and Gary Anderson, are best friends, play together, travel together, and split the money of whoever wins. So when Anderson made $40,000 in his last tournament, he gave $20,000 to Robson. That is absolutely crazy to me, but it was decided when they were first coming into darts, and for a long time Robson supported Anderson when Anderson wasn't playing well.
Gary Robson is just an all around good guy. He had a huge come from behind game to make it through to the quarterfinals. He had to win 5-2 and was down 1-0 after the first set. He threw unconscious for the rest of the game, and had to go out on 88 to win. He missed his first dart at triple 20, and hit triple 1 instead. And then nailed triple 19, then double 14 to win. The place went crazy. And you wouldn't think so cause it's darts, but the tension, coupled with the ridiculous amount of alcohol, means craziness.
I have Ted Hankey on here because of the hard-coreness of this guy. First of all he's worked long and hard to get the perfect body for a dart player. Second, he's used the same darts for 25 years. They're so worn that they all weigh differently. One dart weighs 28 grams, one 21 grams, one is 12 grams. The 12 gram one the shaft of his dart is actually skinnier than the point. And the coolest thing is that it doesn't phaze him at all. He throws the darts in any order, no worries, but he won't throw if the ground under the board is cement, because if his 12 gram dart falls on cement it'll probably break.
Gary Anderson could care less if he wins or loses. Which is probably the reason why he does so well. He has no game plan going into a game, so it's hard for him to get thrown off no matter what happens. It's just always... "Oh, good game" and then get back to drinking. He was one of the 4 players invited to the other league's, the PDC's big tournament, and lost in the semi-finals to Phil Taylor, probably the best player as it goes right now. But, from the way At (yes At) tells it, the crowd was hostile to Anderson and would hiss and boo when he was throwing, and yell when he was going for his doubles. Anderson's good at overcoming it and actually using it to play better, but it has to affect you a little bit. I was most impressed by Anderson because his temperment is never to get rattled, try his absolute hardest, and if he loses, just forget about it and move on. Every other dart player I watched missed at least 4 or 5 throws because they were rattled for whatever reason.
No comments:
Post a Comment