Darts is not a sport

Before an Agincourt-type barrage fatally descends upon my bonce, I know the PDC Ladbrokes.com world darts final - to give it its proper name, which is a mouthful to test even the tonsil talents of Sid Waddell - was a collision of gripping Everest-high drama. But sport?

The twist and turning steel-shafted showdown between Raymond van Barney Rubble' Barneveld and Phil The Power' Taylor could hardly have been bettered as an encounter of sheer excitement. And to underscore the point, ouch, I was assured of this most forcefully by my learned colleagues on The Press sports desk - among them Dave The Fave' Flett and Steve It's Christmas' Carroll.

Their argument ran - more than the darts players ever did, I'd wager - that this was a mano-a-mano set-to encapsulating all that is best about sport. The underdog initially battered by the favourite. Taylor, that is, tearing up the board to roar into what many believed to be an unassailable lead, only then to be pegged back by the now-flying Dutchman.

When victory looked to be Barneveld's for the grabbing he kept fluffing his line of attack to allow Taylor to level and send the duel of dartistry' into a sudden-death decider.

Forearms and fingers of dexterous power trembled; Waddell's legendary powers of cogent, compelling and convulsive commentary were tested to the apex of the alphabet; while there was enough perspiration in Purfleet to have sunk an armada before Barneveld ultimately prevailed. This was the stuff of supreme sporting contest, vouchsafed my Press peers and anyone else who bore witness to the encounter.

But at the risk of incurring the wrath of a legion of arrow-wielders and oche-jockeys - hundreds, nay thousands play in York and North Yorkshire and The Press dutifully covers their exploits - I just cannot accept that the hurling of three darts into a numbered board less than a dozen feet away is a sport.

It's the same, alas, for snooker and yes, I know York has just staged the UK Championship, second only in ranking importance to the world championship.

For me, sport has to be cloaked in a certain degree of athletic endeavour. I fully appreciate that to reach the top, hours and hours of practice have to be undertaken. But walking around a table carrying a big stick and a piece of blue chalk, or similarly, chucking three darts at a circular target, don't do it for me. Even England's Ashes flops have broken sweat during their 5-0 whitewashing by the Australians.

Darts and snooker belong in the same category as skittles, shove ha'penny, chess, bridge, poker, pistol-shooting, snap and whist. Whatever next? A detonation of dominoes - yes, it's the world doms-ination championships. Get spotted.