World Championship Darts at Ally Pally - A Bullseye Experience of a Lifetime - Part II
- Ken Smoller
- 24 hours ago
- 18 min read
As discussed in Part I, my 13-year-old son, Charlie, made a miraculous recovery from an emergency appendectomy just in time for our family’s most-anticipated event of our London holiday – the evening session of the 3rd Round of the 2024/25 Paddy Power World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally) in North London. Most Americans would read that last wordy sentence and experience complete befuddlement. Admittedly, this baseball-bred kid from Chicagoland also would have been clueless before learning about the modern professional darts world, birthed by legendary sports promoter, Barry Hearn OBE. After experiencing this unique spectacle, my whole family was transformed.
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The author’s Chicagoland baseball-loving roots did little to prepare our family for the professional darts world. SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: Read about those baseball roots in my book, “Last Comiskey”, published by Eckhartz Press. Get your copy of this highly acclaimed book, featuring hundreds of photographs of the Chicago White Sox home from 1910-1990, exclusively at lastcomiskeybook.com.
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Before getting to the actual main event, I need to rewind to 2012 and so-called “the crap part of Soho” in New York City. In the dark days of that winter, I got tickets to a live taping of the “Men in Blazers” podcast hosted by British ex-pats, television game show producer, Michael Davies, and author, Roger Bennett. Their show focused on English soccer from a jaundiced American perspective. The podcast was part of sportswriter/podcaster Bill Simmon’s former ESPN-Grantland empire and included various figures from the soccer world from both sides of the “pond”. As Chairmen of the oft-struggling Leyton Orient Football Club from 1995-2014, Barry Hearn OBE was frequent guest on the Pod. For this particular live taping, “Sir Barry”, as the MIB podcasters called him, would be in the flesh at the Le Poisson Rouge theater in Greenwich Village. While this article will barely do justice to Barry Hearn’s illustrious career, the Men in Blazers poster shown below for the NYC live show succinctly conveys his overall essence, aura and brand.
Left: Poster of Barry Hearn promoting his 2012 “Men in Blazers” live show. Right: As club chairman from 1995-2014, Barry Hearn was instrumental in redeveloping Brisbane Road, Home of Leyton Orient F.C., seen here in 2011.
From the first time I heard Mr. Hearn speak; I was mesmerized by the renowned and bold sports promoter. His endlessly positive aura was seductive. One signature element of Hearn’s can-do creed is his list of “10 life lessons that made me a multi-millionaire.” The lessons include working hard, taking chances and the all-important, being lucky. After the New York show, I was lucky enough to chat with the legend at a nearby pub as Sir Barry mingled with the assembled “Great Friends of the Pod” (GFOPs).
During his “Men in Blazers” guest appearances, Barry Hearn spoke about the explosion of the “professional darts” scene in the UK and beyond. Curiosity piqued -- I learned much more about this world from a 2013 “60 Minute Sports” segment on American television that I watched with my wife, Jaime, back in our Brookline home. We were both astonished and perplexed at the big money spectacle that seemed to defy logic. With video proof of the darts experience, even my wife’s skepticism of my tall tales of this new/old sport morphed into tepid curiosity. As described below, professional darts matches have evolved beyond a mere pub pastime. Just like he did with sports such as snooker, boxing, bowling, fishing and table tennis, Mr. Hearn applied his Midas touch to darts starting in 2001 by creating a must-see television experience. Today, Barry Hearn is the President of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and his son, Eddie Hearn, is Chairman.
As an aside, my wife is no stranger to my fascination with sports event from outside the mainstream. Our first
sporting event “date” was a professional bowling “Tournament of Champions” at the Mohegan Sun Arena in 2005.
A year later, the Men in Blazers had gone big time and hosted a 2015 “Blazercon” in Brooklyn with 1,500ish GFOPs. One of the event’s speakers was Barry Hearn, who again charmed the audience with his wit and wisdom. Ever the man of the people, Barry chatted with his admirers in the makeshift beer hall lobby. While I balanced a meat pie and a pint, we chatted about our mutual
appreciation of pies, pints and the English sports world. Much to Mr. Hearn’s shock, I relayed my sincere desire to witness darts in person. As we said goodbye, the Officer of the British Empire gave me his business card and told me, “when you are in London, write me and just mention ‘Men in Blazers’ and I’ll make it happen”. I tucked the card away and we both lived our respective lives for the next nine years.
Fast forward to November, 2024 when I was planning our upcoming London “festive period” vacation. While we had hoped to see our beloved Arsenal play in person at Emirates Stadium, we could NOT get tickets for the only possible match. Frustrated, I searched online for other events on the December sporting calendar. After a brief internet scan, I discovered that the London’s holiday season happened to be peak professional darts season too! As quickly as I learned about the darts event, I also learned that the tournament had long ago sold out all available tickets. Tickets were going for hundreds of pounds on the secondary market and through travel agencies. According to media reports, 40,000 available tickets sold in the first 30 minutes of presales, with almost 100,000 tickets being sold out for the 28 sessions of the whole 16-day tournament. Interest in darts is high on television as well, with the 4.8 million views on Sky Sports and Now for the 2023-2024 Final. Barry Hearn has even estimated, “I could’ve sold over 300,000.” Somewhat deterred by my lateness to the darts party, I remembered Barry Hearn’s business card gathering dust in my desk drawer for nine years.
Thanks to Barry Hearn, London’s festive period has become synonymous with darts. Luckily, I kept his business card.
Barry Hearn once said in a 2012 documentary on BBC, “don’t start looking over your shoulder and say, ‘I should have done it.' Do it or shut up!” Inspired by the lessons of Sir Barry’s optimistic teachings, I sent a longshot email request for a darting miracle. Much to my delight and surprise, he wrote back with a short and sweet message, “It’s tough, but let me try”. I was flabbergasted that this sporting legend even entertained our request us based solely on a chat over pies and pints nine years earlier. A few weeks passed and I sent a check-in email, “I am humbly checking back to see if any Xmas miracles were possible for this family’s Dickensian darts dreams”. While I am not sure if Dickens ever wrote of darts, I’m a sucker for alliteration.
Officer Barry Hearn is a man of his word. Just a few days before our plane departed from Boston’s Logan Airport for Heathrow, Mr. Hearn informed me that he “arranged four VIP tickets (no fancy dress in this area)…you are my guests.” HOLY FRICKING AMAZING WOW!!!!!!! I could not believe our good fortune. Even my oft-jaded teenage sons were excited about the event after scrolling through a few darts YouTube videos. That said, they were both perplexed by the “no fancy dress” rule?
Like how the word “sweetbreads” is a misnomer (neither sweet, nor bread), “fancy dress” is a bit of misdirect for the American ear. Instead of describing elegant ballroom gowns or regal top hats and tails, “fancy dress” connotes silly themed costumes. In the case of the carnival atmosphere of professional darts, fancy dress is an encouraged and essential part of the experience. Most of the darts fans wear clever costumes mined from the pop culture world, usually in some sort of matching theme with their mates. With our snazzy VIP tickets from Sir Barry, however, my sons gladly left their Halloween costumes back at home.
“The unofficial dress code for championship darts is “Fancy Dress” costumes.” Scroll through the photos for some of the highlights.
Just released from the Westminster and Chelsea Hospital, Charlie and I Ubered through the dense twilight fog towards to Alexandra Palace in North London. First opened in 1873, the original Alexandra Palace burned down just 16 days after its debut. After its reconstruction, the so-called “people’s palace” reopened in 1875 and has been an essential part of London life ever since. Ally Pally has been a BBC television studio, a Belgian refugee camp during World War I and II, a German and Austrian prisoner of war internment camp during the first World War, an ice skating rink, concert hall, theater, chapel, war hospital, arts college and much more. Bad luck struck Ally Pally again with a major fire in 1980, but the building reopened in 1988. Since 2008, it has been home to the PDC World Darts Championship, which was a turning point for the sport after being held in the smaller Circus Tavern in Purfleet, Essex the prior 14 years. Beside professional darts, Ally Pally and Alexandra Park have been home to many other sporting events over the years, including cricket, horse racing, snooker, boxing, cycling, riflery, football/soccer, soap box derby, squash and ice hockey Currently, the Haringey Huskies men’s team and Haringey Greyhounds women’s team both play ice hockey at the Ally Pally ice rink.
Professional darts has come a long way since the days of Dennis Priestly in 1994. As shown on the Wall of Champions, there had been 12 different PDC World Darts Champions, with 14 of them being won by Phil Taylor (the Babe Ruth of darts).
The restored palace is perched on a hill overlooking the entire capital city, perfect for picnics and panoramic views. On this foggy London town winter night, we could barely see beyond 100 feet, let alone the skyscrapers of Central London. As soon as we got out of the Uber, we walked upstream through scores of fancy dressed folks stumbling out of the afternoon session. The departing sauced-up patrons crossed paths with the arriving fancy dressed Minions, nuns, red and white striped Waldos, bananas, human-sized adult toys, Harry Potters, Flintstones, Muppets, chickens, leprechauns, Simpsons, Oompa Loompas and Crayola crayons. Chanting and singing, each group of mates had a chosen theme for their evening attire. It was like a drunken Comicon. To ensure a general lack of decorum, many attendees wore promotional Paddy Power Kelly green briefs on the outside of their jeans or on their heads.
Left: Despite being groggy from surgery, Charlie still was sharp enough to forgo incorporating the promotional green briefs into his darting attire. Right: Alexandra Palace viewed from the top of nearby Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on a rare clear afternoon
Fancy Dress ranged from cartoonish to adult-themed costumes.
Upon entering Ally Pally’s West Hall, all of my senses were immediately overwhelmed. The bright Sky Sports television lights and Kermit the Frog-color green television set made the room pop for the “Sport’s Greatest Event”. In a surreal version of Hogwarts, long tables lined the hall awaiting its lager swilling Muggles. The drab old theater seats quickly filled with costumes in all colors and characters. The Hall smelled like the morning after a toga party at frat house. Long before the cameras were turned on for the prime time telecast, boisterous songs and chants came from all corners of the 3,500-seat ballroom. To satisfy the taste buds, trendy food trucks offered a wide array of dining options in the adjacent cavernous Great Hall.
The star of the Great Hall culinary options in the “Fan Village” was the humble pitcher of Fosters beer. Overflowing pitchers were everywhere. As one can logically infer, drinking is a big part of the professional darts experience – A LOT of drinking. In our case, given the presence of our kids, it seemed prudent to forgo boozing up. Various internet reports claim that the average darts attendee drinks 11 pints of beer per session. I would take the over. Given this mass consumption, the PDC website warns parents bringing children to be, “comfortable with the nature of the event.” Despite that ominous warning, the crowd was not an angry drunk crowd despite the event being described by the New York Times as “perhaps the rowdiest, hardest-to-get-into party in London during the festive period.” There was an unmistakable warmth to the goggle-eye darting denizens. The chants were witty. The costumes were clever or campy. Maybe the strict “no football colors” mandate did its job in mitigating tribalism. Perhaps it’s hard to be an angry drunk while dressed as a Smurf. Whatever the reason, the crowd never felt menacing, albeit a wee bit sloppy as anticipation built before showtime.
The sporting world loves a hero returning from injury. The most famous American examples include Willis Reed coming off the bench with an injured leg to spark the New York Knicks to the 1970 NBA championship. Similarly, the Michael Jordan “flu game” from the 1997 NBA Finals still lives in the collective memory of basketball fans. Outside of hoops, the whole world marveled when an injured Kerri Strug heroically landed on her injured ankle to clinch the team gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. At Alexadra Palace that night, my son Charlie, sans his appendix, was all three combined. When our trip could have been derailed, he willed himself to health to witness the darting madness. Perhaps it was dodgy parenting, but Charlie gritting through pain just 24 hours after being cut open by English surgeons was inspiring. This kid was embracing life to the fullest, a lesson that I always preach. When we were visited by our other hero of the night, Barry Hearn OBE, he commented that Charlie was tough enough to play for England. I beamed with pride.
My son, Charlie, bouncing back from his appendectomy to attend the World Championship Darts rivaled the heroics of stars such as Michael Jordan. He left the hospital so quickly, he even forgot to cut off his identification wristband before going to darts.
Besides fancy dress and beer, the other salient feature of the darts experience is the constant singing. As seen in the videos below, the crowd came to play. They performed sing-alongs, chants, taunts and cheers from the moment we hopped out of our Uber. Our unfancy-dressed VIP section was also the target of playfully derisive mocking with chants of “boring boring tables.” The singing continued on the double-decker bus ride to the Tube even after all the darts had been thrown. The atmosphere was infectious and inspiring. I got a chill down my spine when the collected masses crooned Robbie Williams’ “Angels” in unison. Often, we got lost in the antics of the crowd and forgot that a championship sporting event was taking place just steps away from our table. As he described in the BBC documentary mentioned above, Barry Hearn’s goal is to, “create an atmosphere that is conducive to people just to forget about all their problems and just enjoy themselves.” As was Mr. Hearn’s intent, it was really easy to get lured into the warm feeling in the hall. All of the stress of the prior day disappeared from our minds for a few hours.
Beyond the captivating atmosphere luring in darts fans, the marketing team at the Professional Darts Corporation has cleverly promoted each athlete’s persona in a manner that evokes Formula 1 racing or pro wrestling. Barry Hearn said in the 2012 documentary, “it is just old techniques that I’ve used all my life – you make the players famous.” As part of this fame, each darting combatant has a “nom de darts” nickname, colorful uniform and walkout song. Instead of being a competition between Gerwyn Price from Antwerp, Belgium and Joe Cullen from Bradford, England, the PDC promotes the match as a battle between “The Iceman” vs “The Rockstar”. The drama associated with these larger-than-life personalities can yield a surreal soap operatic story. For example, there was an infamous controversy known as “Fart Gate”, when “Gary Anderson of Scotland and the Dutchman Wesley Harms blamed each other for ‘rotten’ farts during their clash in the Grand Slam of Darts” according to “The Guardian” newspaper. Such tactics are emblematic of the dark art tactics used to distract darting opponents.
One reason emotions run so high is that the PDC tournaments are no back room bar contests, having lucrative payouts. For this event, the 96 players from 28 countries were competing for the Sid Waddell Trophy and over 2.5 million pounds (about $3.2 USD) in prize money. While Barry Hearn describes darts as, “working-class golf”, the prizes can push darts champions into the one percent stratosphere. The appeal keeps growing and has expanded beyond the largely male audience and participants, with two women qualifying for the Ally Pally event this year. This year, the Bahamas become the 45th country to send a darting representative to Ally Pally when Rashad Sweeting qualified.
Battle between “The Iceman” vs “The Rockstar” (Gerwyn Price from Antwerp, Belgium vs Joe Cullen from Bradford, England)
Despite their high profiles, the professional darts heroes are quite fan friendly.
Left: The Sir Waddell Trophy is awarded to the winner of the tournament at Ally Pally. Right: Despite the working class vibe of the night, there are still gourmet meals served before each session in the VIP dining room.
Another feature of the darting experience that evokes a gladiatorial vibe are the introductory walk-outs for each darting contender. Before each mano a mano contest, the darting combatants are announced to the crowd with their signature walk-out song such as the Killer’s “Mr. Brightside” for Nathan Aspinall; Oasis’ “Don't Look Back in Anger” for Joe Cullen (see video below); or Pitbull’s “Green Light” for darting 17-year old phenom, Luke Littler. During each song, the darting heroes saunter down a green runway in a mutual expression of love with their adoring supporters, all while be flanked with beefy security guards. On this particular night, two-time World Champion, Scotsman Peter "Snakebite" Wright was the star of the show when graced the runway with his festively colored royal blue mohawk hair and Christmas-inspired attire. While most other players had doled high fives along the runway, Wright instead gave elbow bumps to his admirers in a very 2020 pandemic fashion after alerting the faithful that he was battling an illness. While I doubt my son’s appendectomy story had reached the darting locker room backstage, the 17th ranked Snakebite channeled his own Willis Reed-like strength and quickly dispatched Dutchman Jermaine Wattimena, four sets to two with his 21gram Red Dragon darts.
Photos:
Left: Despite the beefy security, the darts players warmly greeted their friends, family and admirers on the green carpet runway. Right: Scotsman Peter "Snakebite" Wright gave elbow bumps to his admirers due to the illness he was battling.
Despite his illness, Snakebite quickly dispatched Jermaine Wattimena four sets to two.
Given how much action was taking place away from the oche (the darts firing line 7 feet, 9.25 inches from the dart board), it was hard to follow the action. Each player quickly tosses his three “arrows” in rapid succession in the hope of scoring a big (180 points). While we never quite learned all the key rules and terms, our tablemates from the Irish National Darts Organization explained a few important terms such as a “Big Fish” (170 points based on two 60 point darts and one 50 pointer), “Treble 20” (hitting the inner, thin red/green ring within the 20 segment of the dartboard, which is then multiplied times three) and “Flight” (the stabilizing dart tail, which helps to maintain its trajectory and accuracy). I later consulted a 2019 article from the “Ringer” website to better understand the scoring, “Each competitor starts a ‘leg’ with 501 points. The first to whittle that number down to exactly zero wins—and the dart that takes them to zero must land in the outer, “double” ring or in the bullseye.” Despite not understanding the game, we were warmly received by our neighbors. The fans around us were eager to share their knowledge after learning we were the rare Americans in the crowd, not to mention the presence of our recovering “English Patient” appendix-free son. In general, nobody seemed to take themselves too seriously in the festive crowd, with one man from Leeds admitting to me, “I don’t think the aliens will take us.” We felt a kinship with the nearby crowd, especially when they cheered Charlie as he departed with mom a few minutes early to beat the crowds to the Uber line.
On the night we attended, the top ranked darts player, Luke Humphries, closed out the night in clinical fashion. “Cool Hand Luke” from Newbury, England was the reigning World Champion after winning six TV titles during the prior two-year cycle. He used his 22g Red Dragon as his dart of dart weapon of choice and quickly disposed of Welshman, Nick Kenny. Ultimately, Luke (the “Nuke”) Littler, born on January 21, 2007, captured the trophy for the 2024-25 tournament as the youngest ever winner at 17 years, 328 days at the start of play. The wunderkind marveled the darts world with his quick ascendence up the rankings (entering the tournament as the 4th ranked player in the world) after losing in the finals the prior year to Cool Hand Luke. Hailing from Warrington England, the Nuke has captured the imagination of Brits, becoming the most Googled athlete in 2024 in the UK. Side note: The oldest player at the tournament was Raymond
van Barneveld at 57 years 239 days old.
Luke Humphries, “Cool Hand Luke” from Newbury, England quickly disposed of Welshman, Nick Kenny.
Once the action ended, my son Simon and I departed Ally Pally still buzzing from excitement of the night. As mentioned above, the darting crowd fun followed all the way back to Central London, with both the bus and Tube being packed with well-lubricated singing darts fans. During the last few days of our holiday, our family continued to recount how amazing the overall darts experience had been. As an added bonus, our family won 65 pounds by correctly betting the three darting winners on the night, making a small dent in the cost of an overseas appendectomy not covered by either American health insurance, nor the British National Health Service.
The Uber lines after the matches ended were a bit too chaotic for our tastes, so we opted for a double-decker bus ride to the Wood Green tube station on the Picadilly Line.
Our post-darts euphoria carried us through the rest of the vacation. While Charlie was slowed by has post-surgery soreness for a few more days, the four of us enjoyed many memorable moments, including attending a Crystal Palace win over Southampton at a foggy Crystal Palace in South London. After all the turbulence and health scares earlier in our holiday, it was fantastic having the whole family together for a football match in a historic stadium that opened a century earlier.
Clockwise from top left: Selfhurst Park is nestled into its diverse neighborhood in South London; While still younger than Ally Pally, Selhurst Park feels like a footballing time capsule, evoking the atmosphere of old school stadiums; In an ironic twist, the signage at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park was promoting holidays to Illinois, the home state of the Author; Festive souvenirs were on sale in the Club Shop; Selhurst Park glowed in the South London fog after the match; While Americans may be accustomed to hot dogs as a staple food at US stadiums, the savory pie is synonymous with English football. For a particular blending of cultures, indulge in a chicken Balti pie like this one, which features Indian curry flavors.
At our last family dinner on the vacation, we played a game picking our favorite memories from the trip. Quickly, the entire conversation simply shifted to darts as it was the most salient experience for each family member. We all agreed, for a wide variety of reasons, that attending the World Darts Championship was one of the most memorable experiences of this trip, travel, life, etc. The next day, we returned to the States on a New Year’s Eve flight, reflecting on a number of lessons from the journey. As described in Part I, the Rolling Stones’ warning that you can’t always get what we want proved to be an important cautionary lesson for any holiday travel planner. Equally important, some of the best travel experiences are activities that are outside of one’s comfort zone. Lastly, we all learned the importance of remaining in contact with the people you meet along life’s journeys. You never know when a chance meeting will result in a VIP sporting experience. Thank you, Sir Barry!
All photographs and text by Ken Smoller
©2025 Stadium Vagabond – All Rights Reserved.
Postscript: If the darting experience has piqued your curiosity and you live in the United States, you too can get a taste of professional darts when the US Darts Master is held in New York at the Theater at Madison Square Garden on June 27-28. Be sure to prepare your fancy dress. Tickets are available at https://www.pdc.tv/tickets. See you there!
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