WHAT I can't understand is why the product endorsement men aren't already beating a path to my door, wads of cash in hand. After all, I am now a world champion, which is more than you can say for David Beckham.
OK, so the day I beat world darts champ Tony David - double five with my last dart to snatch victory - it wasn't in an official tournament. And I did have a little help from a friendly scorer.
But there was a packed crowd at the Burnholme Social Club to witness my victory. And a World Champion is a World Champion. If you beat him, that makes you World Champion, surely?
It was 20 years since I'd last lifted a dart in anger. So when I took the floor at the social club on Monday night, I needed a couple of ranging shots to get my eye in. We were on a raised dais in the bar area, the world champ and I, watched by a packed and expectant crowd. My first couple of throws missed the board completely, whistling into the wall high above. The third was better, but still too high and well out.
There was a ripple of amusement from the crowd. Darts must be much lighter than in my day, I muttered. "They were practise shots, ladies and gentlemen," boomed the familiar voice of TV darts commentator Tony Green, renowned for his famous calls of "One hundred and eighty!"
Game on for real now, though. I lined up a shot, let fly. It zipped unerringly into the treble one. The next missed completely. Third dart, I concentrated, gazed down that corridor of space separating the tip of my dart from the treble 20. The dart flew, thunked satisfyingly into the 20, two inches above the treble but still a good shot. Twenty-three, I thought.
"One Hundred and Forty!" boomed the voice of Tony Green. Everybody, including me, grinned.
The world champ - the other Tony, Tony David - stepped up to the line. He stood poised, darts arm crooked, all grace, power and focus. His arm flicked, the dart sailed straight and true into the treble 20.
Twice more his arm flicked. One dart shaved the top of the treble, one the bottom. I had the feeling he was being kind. "One hundred!" boomed the commentator.
My turn again. This time, my concentration slipped. One dart thunked into the one, another into the five. The third missed altogether. Six. Hardly setting the record books alight. A ripple of amusement again. "One Hundred!" boomed Tony Green.
Tony David now began to turn on the style. In rapid succession, his arm flicking effortlessly, one dart clunked into the 25 to the left of the bull's eye, one into the 25 to the right, and the third speared in between them into the bull itself. Exhibition darts at their best. "One Hundred!" boomed the commentator.
Somehow - with the scorer's help - I matched the world champion score for score, if not dart for dart. It came down to the wire: 20 needed off three darts with the champion breathing down my neck and sure to win if I blew it. I aimed for double ten, hit the single. Ten needed off two darts. "Double five," suggested the scorer helpfully. I panicked, unable even to find where the five zone was on the board. "11 o'clock," the world champion said helpfully, spotting my difficulty.
Ah, there it was. I aimed, breathed, held it, let fly. The dart sailed just above the five. A miss. Double five needed with my last dart.
This time, my aim was true. The moment the dart left my hand, I knew it was going in. It split the double perfectly. My arm shot up in a punch of victory. There was a roar from the crowd - well, a polite round of applause, anyway. "Twenty and the game!" boomed the commentator's voice.
Afterwards, over a pint, I had a chance to interview the champion. Having become the first Australian to lift the coveted Embassy World Title at the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green, Surrey, in January, he and the ladies' world champion Trina Gulliver were in York on the first leg of a 20-date World Darts Roadshow.
Tony David is a dark-haired, athletic-looking Aussie in his mid-thirties, quietly spoken and refreshingly modest. What made the man from Townsfield, Queensland, an instant star when he lifted the world title two months ago, however, was the fact that his is a remarkable story of triumph over adversity.
He was born with a crippling inherited disease, arthritic haemophilia. If uncontrolled, it causes him to bleed into his joints and muscles. It can be life-threatening, as well as drastically reducing his movement. Even today, he can't straighten his darts arm properly, or touch his shoulders, and has to undergo regular acupuncture, hot baths, massage and medication just in order to be able to play.
Back in the 1980s his illness was so severe his parents were even told he wouldn't survive his teenage years. Then in his 20s he spent a lot of time on a disability pension in his native Australia, too crippled to be able to work.
He's come from that to being world champion in just ten years. It's even more astonishing as he didn't throw his first dart until 1992. He came from a sporting family, but his illness limited the sports he could play. Contact sports were out, and while he became good at table tennis, he even had to give that up in his teens. "It is a fast sport, and I couldn't move as fast as I needed to," he says.
He took up snooker and eight ball pool, becoming good at both. Then, in 1992, while playing snooker with friends, they persuaded him to have a game of darts.
He hadn't a clue what he was doing, and took up the wrong stance. But when he threw that dart, it was obvious he was a natural. "They told me to aim for the treble 20 and I hit it with my very first dart," he says. "I then hit two more 20s to get 100 at the first attempt."
Less than a year later, he had a dream: that he would win his local Townsville Open, then the Australian Grand Masters, then - wearing a maroon shirt - the Embassy World Title. The first two parts of the dream came true and then, in January this year - sporting a now famous maroon shirt - so did the third part.
"It was unbelievable," he says. "It was disbelief, elation, joy, everything all wrapped up in one. I went back to my room and cried."
A few days later, his youngest son Alex started school. "He stood in front of class, and he said 'My dad is world champion'," Tony says. And you can feel the pride and gladness glowing in his voice.
Which is just as it should be.
Updated: 10:31 Wednesday, March 13, 2002
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