I was watching the darts last night on BBC 2. Oh what a come down from the PDC World Championships that was shown on Sky Sports! Sunday night saw the final that most people wanted, Phil Taylor vs Raymond van Barneveld. Unfortunately it was all over a little quicker than I would have liked, Taylor racing to the 7 sets required for victory. In the process Phil Taylor set a new PDC record averaging over 110 with 3 darts for the final.

So back to last night. I watched a couple of games, 1 featuring Martin “Wolfe” Adams and the other some Dutch kid called Ten Burgers (or something like that). Martin was playing some English kid who to give him his dues was playing OK. It got right down to the final legs of the final set. The whole game barely saw either player averaging above 90. Checkout percentages were below 30%. How many times can a leg finish on double 1 after they’ve missed every other double on the way down?! I’m no good at darts, but then again I’m not at the world championships. It was like pulling teeth! For everything that the PDC has done to raise the profile of darts the BDO seems determined to drag it back with the sort of action that makes you want to pull out your eyes and scream at the TV in frustration. Anyway, eventually Adams won, Tony Green telling us all that it was a great game, hmmm, he’d make a great used car salesman.

To give the BDO a fair chance (I have fond memories of watching the worlds best at the Lakeside) I decided against my better judgement to watch the highlights of a second game. It was Ten Berge against some English bloke whose name I’ve completely forgot. Again it was memorable in just how bad it was although to be fair I think at one point somebody managed to average 93 for 3 darts. Again though how many legs have to end with somebody throwing dart after dart at double 1! It’s not so much entertainment as excruciating to watch. I’m not even going into the introductions, Sky have the glitz to do it well (over the top lazers with boxing style music) at the Alexander Palace, the half arsed effort at the Lakeside was just embarrassing.

I’ll not be bothering to watch any more of the BDO championships, my 180 signs (lovingly coloured in with felt tip) can be put away for another year until the real world championships, featuring the best players in the world, start again!