Darts is a sport in which small missiles are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and rules have been used in the past, the term “darts” usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules. The dartboard may have its origins in the cross-section of a tree. An old name for a dartboard is “butt”; the word comes from the French word but, meaning “target”. That is according to Wikipedia, an encyclopaedia. According to Darthelp, a knowledge resource, the game originated in England during the medieval era in the 1300s as a military pastime. Between battles, bored soldiers would sit in the trenches and compete by throwing spearheads and other sharp objects at the bottoms of upturned wine casks. As a matter of fact, officials encouraged soldiers to partake since it was an effective way to practice their aim and throwing skills. According to Professional Darts Players Association, as far as the origins of the game are concerned, javelins, crossbow bolts and archery have all been considered. Of these, the most likely scenario is that the game has its roots in archery. Glance back to the earliest type of dartboards and you will see that these were concentric targets — miniature forms of the archery target. Moreover, darts is most commonly known as “arrows”. Some would say that these two points alone are sufficient to confirm our sports’ heritage. Darts would progressively change over hundreds of years until the turn of the nineteenth century when it began to approximate the game we all know and love. Modern darts was later invented by a carpenter from Lancashire named Brian Gamlin in 1896, according to Darthelp. Up until the early part of the 20th Century, darts existed in disparate forms across parts of England, the only matches taking place being either ‘in-house’ or friendly matches between pubs which were close to each other. (The cost of transport was prohibitive at that time). When darts was first introduced into English pubs there were no hard and fast rules of play so the ‘house rules’ applied. The line from behind which a darts player threw his or her darts was originally called the ‘hockey’ but this was changed in the 1970s to ‘oche’. Before the Second World War, all News of the World finalists played from 9ft but this was changed to 8ft when the competition restarted in 1947/48. The ‘oche’ was renamed and resized in the 1970s; the world standard now being seven feet, nine and a quarter inches. This is according to Professional Darts Players Association. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
