IT S been a dull opening month to the sporting year. In all walks of life, from stock market activity to record-company release schedules, January is perennially renowned as one long slow day at the office but as far as sports are concerned, virtually nothing has happened of note apart from a typically rambunctious Old Firm derby at the beginning of the month.
The only regular sports coverage at the moment consists of the skiing events that are taking up 80% of Eurosport s schedule. It s rivetting stuff for about ten minutes, before you realise that you re looking at the 59th person to slalom down the course since you switched on the coverage.
No, the premier sporting event of 1999 so far has been the world darts championship final the BBC final, that is, as opposed to the rival event with a different set of players which takes place on Sky Sports. That s capitalism.
There are those of us who only think of darts when they recall the famous incident that befell Dexy s Midnight Runners on Top Of The Pops in 1982, when, for their performance of Jackie Wilson Said , the props department provided a cardboard life-size cut-out of Jocky Wilson. But this shit was different.
The colossal viewing figures registered by the BBC s live broadcast of the match served as a re-affirmation that darts will never relinquish its iron grip on that section of the English psyche which has also taken Blind Date, warm lager and Robbie Williams to its collective heart. All of which reminds me of that excellent old quote by Luke Neely: The most mysterious hold in pro wrestling is the one it exerts over its audience.
And so, despite himself, Foul Play casts a curious eye over the championship final with disproportionate interest the other week. The match pitted defending champion Raymond Barneveld of Holland against Ronnie Baxter of England, in the best of five sets.
Barneveld, a moon-faced Dutchman with a wispy moustache and a thinning blond pate, is known as Barney Rubble to his legions of adoring fans, all of whom resembled beer-bellied, hod-carrier versions of the orange-wigged hordes who attend Holland s World Cup games in their thousands. One individual was wearing a bright orange t-shirt which read Barney, Do That To Me One More Time . Obviously, it lost something in the translation.
Ronnie Baxter was visually uninteresting by contrast, because he merely appeared as though he should have been running a pub in Marbella, swapping low-life gossip with underworld figures at the bar, and moaning about how expensive the price of a decent fence is these days.
I suppose what I m trying to say is that the guy actually looked a little like Terry Venables without the suntan.
Given the reputation darts enjoys as the sport of choice for the very laziest members of the hoi polloi, one might have expected the composition of the crowd to look like something from An Audience With Jim Davidson. But, perhaps placated by the oceans of beer swirling around on the tables and inside their own immune systems, they were surprisingly well-behaved. Ronnie s supporters outnumbered the Dutch rabble by about three to one, but there was no hint of any cretins in the audience attempting to put the other guy off by whooping at the crucial moment.
Both players were awesomely efficient, with Barneveld, in particular, hurling his three darts board-wards in less time than it takes to unwrap a chocolate bar. Thunk thunk thunk. His reactions, both in his speed-of-throw action and his mental calculations of how many points were needed to finish off each leg, were awesome enough to make Michael Owen look like a slovenly, slothful half-wit.
It was a black ball game, so to speak, with everything coming down to the final leg of the final set, and both men s nerves visibly disintegrated the longer the match went on. Near the end, Ronnie missed the board completely with one wild effort.
Barney won it, anyway. At the close of proceedings, the BBC played his official theme song, basically a bastardised version of The Flintstones theme music. It was also crooned in Dutch, which must be the least vocal-friendly language in the history of the planet, at least the way these guys sang it.
Bobby George, a sort of George Best figure who won umpteen darts championships in the 1970s, was wheeled on to provide the post-match punditry. From a legal point of view, it would be unwise to write too much about his general demeanour and disposition as he delivered his searing analysis of the final to a clearly bewildered Ray Stubbs, so let s just say that he gave every impression as being as . . . as tired as a newt.
The final act before the credits rolled was an amiable conversation between Barney and Ronnie about their respective strengths, weaknesses, top shots and cock-ups during the final, in a strange interlude which somehow seemed perfectly in tune with the non-combative mood of the evening. Jesus, you could only get this in darts, commented one of my mates present in the room.
Unbelievably, and to his eternal credit, Ronnie even had the good grace not to look enviously sick as Barney cradled the trophy two feet away from his gaze. I m well pleased for Barney, he deserves it, were his parting words to camera.
Any chance of a few auld impressions, Ronnie, or is it just gags only? n