The origins of the game of darts in England can never be firmly established, but it dates back to at least the middle ages. It seems that bored soldiers took to hurling arrows at the upturned covers of wine barrels, perhaps seeing who could come closest to the cork bung. As the pastime grew in popularity, some bright soul decided that a cross-section of a tree would offer a better target.

The natural growth rings of the tree provided a built-in means of determining who was closest to the centre, and as the tree dried out the cracks provided radial divisions within the target (the current system of numbers was standardized around 1900). When winter came and the soldiers spent more time inside, they couldn't hurl full-sized arrows about, so shortened versions of the arrows were used.

Darts history shows the military connection of darts during the founding and formation of the “British Empire”. Soldiers used their drinking clubs and fitted dartboards. In no time, the sport was embraced by citizens in different countries.

Archery and spear throwing and are the likely originators of darts. Darts history facts reveal that the first dart throwers in the history are believed to be King Henry VII and King Charles VI of England.

So popular did the new game become during the medieval period that it was taken up by nobility; in 1530 Anne Boleyn presented Henry VIII with a set of ornamented darts. The game maintained a strong military appeal, and the worldwide spread of darts is credited to the British army who brought the game with them to every corner of the Empire as it grew.

Darts remained an Anglo-American sport until the Victorian era when it spread all over the world. However, it was not until around 1900 that a set of rules comparable to the modern incarnation were put into place, and the system of numbering and scoring of the dartboard was implicated. Christopher Carey, however, describes how these rules did not become fully standardised until World War II, after which time the popularity of darts as a pub game grew greatly.

As it grew in popularity, the game of darts has defeated multiple attempts to have it banned. Many people believed that darts was a game of chance and not a game of skill, so it had to be settled in a courtroom in 1908.

Darts was banned in Glasgow and Liverpool in the 1930s and this ban was not lifted until after the Second World War, prior to this the town of Huddersfield also initiated a ban. And to the rescue of a Leeds publican in 1908 William ‘Big Foot’ Annakin showed off his skills to the powers that be in the courtroom to prove that Darts was a game of skill and not chance, therefore allowing Darts to be played in the public houses.

The game was banned in Scotland as a corrupt influence but the public outcry made it short-lived. Today the sport is most popular in Britain where there are millions of players and thousands of registered clubs; however it's quickly becoming an international pastime. The game is also very popular in the Netherlands, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. In the U.S. hundreds of thousands of dartboards are sold every year and millions of Americans play darts every week.

From the turn of the century to WWII darts grew in popularity as a pub game. Regular leagues were organised, and competitions took place on a regular basis. The most prestigious of these competitions was that organised by the News of the World newspaper in 1927. A National Darts Association was formed in 1954, and national championships organised. Today it would be hard to find a pub in Britain without a dartboard.


 
In Late 1906, the barrel made up of metal was patented by an Englishman. Not only has the dartboard undergone a series of changes but so have the darts. In the 1940s Jim Pike became a big star of the darts world and as with all stars he had equipment named after him. Jim Pike darts were all the rage for many years with their brass barrels split cane shafts and paper flights. They were the first modern darts and brass continued to be favoured for the barrels until the 1970s when tungsten started to become popular.

This gave the weight without the need for a very thick barrel, which in turn gave more room in the segments aimed at, thus scoring more.


 
Many "standards" were used for the regulation of the throwing or tossing distance too, as revealed by the history of darts. Initially, three crates placed from one end to another.

As the beer crates were about three feet in length, the tossing distance came to be nine feet in length from the line to the dartboard. Later as the crate size was reduced to two feet, four crates were used and the distance was marked to eight feet. For several years now, this eight foot distance continues to be the standard pattern.

In the 1900’s, the darts game and its rules were established, which are recognized and accepted today. The board size, the darts size and the distance of throwing was standardized. Soon, regional standards emerged and many woodworkers supplemented bar tabs by fabricating dart boards for the local pubs.

Unlike the traditional folklore many believe, there was no Hockey & Sons brewery. Two theories exist on the origin of the starting point. The first theory was about the word “oche” it had its origin through a brewery called "Hockey and Sons" or "S.Hockey and Sons”, in the West Country of England. The original throwing distance for darts was 9 feet. It is said that “Hockey & Sons” delivered bottled beer to pubs which came in wooden crates that was exactly 3 feet long. One English pub owner then made the 9 feet rule by placing three “Hockey & Sons” beer crates (3 x 3 feet) as a distance marker. Many people also believed this is how the phrase “toeing the hockey” came about, which added more validity to this theory.

Sadly it seems this theory is completely untrue, because no record exists anywhere in Britain about a brewery called ‘S. Hockey & Sons’ or 'Hockey & Sons' for that matter. This was apparently confirmed by the Brewery History Society in the early 1990's.The second theory about the word "oche" had its origin, when an English newspaper, News of the World, who held darts competitions in the 1920’s, used the word “hockey” for the throwing line in their “tournament rules”.

The word “hockey” was derived from an old English word “hocken” which meant "to spit". It is said that spitting competitions were held in the public bar of the English public house, and that the “hockey line” was determined by the length that a given player could spit from a position with his back to the dartboard


 
In 1898, an American patented a “folded-paper” target.

The Dartboard may have its origins in the cross section of a tree. An old name for a dartboard is a 'butt', and from this, folk etymology infers that the bottoms of wine barrels were the original dartboards; this word in fact comes, via archery, from the French word butte, meaning target.

Various designs of dartboards have been used, and regional variations remain in parts of Staffordshire, Manchester (log-end board) and Yorkshire. In particular, the Yorkshire and Perrigo Manchester boards differ from the standard board in that they have a single, inner bull and no treble ring. The London Fives board is another variation. This has only 12 equal segments numbered 20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10 with the doubles and trebles being a quarter of an inch wide.

The numbering plan generally in use today has a 20 on top; however, a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and in different geographical locations. By most accounts, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin in 1896 to penalise inaccuracy. Mr Gamlin was a carpenter by trade from Bury, Lancashire, he was also fairground showman.

Many different layouts would penalise a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently. There have been several mathematical papers published that consider the "optimal" dartboard.

In the standard game, the dartboard is hung so that the bullseye is 5 ft 8 in (1.7 m) from the floor: eye-level for a six foot person. The oche line behind which the throwing player must stand - is generally 7 ft 9¼ in (2.37 m) from the face of the dartboard measured horizontally. This is the recognised world standard and is played as such in most areas. Owing to measurement error, this may be incorrect in some places (such as measuring from the wall, rather than using a plumb line to measure from the board face). The diagonal distance from the bull's eye to the oche will be 9 ft 7⅜ in (2.93 m), when horizontal measurement from the dart board face isn't easily done.

London 5 boards or narrow 5's board set up is slightly different from the standard board. The height is set at 5 feet 6 inches to the center of the bull and the oche is at 9 feet from the face of the board.

The Manchester board (Log-end) only has one number in the same place as the standard dartboard 19, no trebles and smaller doubles and is a smaller board played at a lower height. It has no outer bull and the bull is aptly called ‘Audrey’. Generally round the board is played on this board.

Modern day bristle dartboards were first produced by Nodor in 1932, replacing the plasticine dartboards which had a strong chemical odour. When Nodor invented the new bristle dartboard it did not smell. Modern dartboards are made of sisal fibers; low quality boards are sometimes made of coiled paper. However, there are several types of sisal fibre that are used in dartboards today, originating from East Africa, Brazil and China.

A regulation board is 47.08 cm (17¾") in diameter and is divided into 20 sections. Each section is separated with metal wire or a thin band of sheet metal. The best dartboards have the thinnest wire separating sections so that the darts have less chance of hitting these wires and bouncing out. The numbers indicating the various scoring sections of the board are normally made of wire, especially on tournament-quality boards, but may be printed directly on the board instead.

Most dart boards today are made from highly compressed bunches of sisal - the same material used to make heavy ropes. Elm boards were used for many years and attempts were made to replace them with paper boards which were totally unsuitable as they soon broke up. Gradually bristle boards were developed and when Dutch elm disease overtook the country this prompted the changeover. Bristle boards are far superior and have now been adopted universally. Elm boards had to be soaked to close up the dart holes in them in between matches and did not last very long as they dried out and cracked under the heat of the spot lights.


 
Darts first appeared on British Television in 1962 when Westward Television broadcast the Westward TV Invitational to the South West of England. In 1970, ITV broadcast the News of the World Championship and from 1972 the Indoor League, which featured a Darts tournament.

Over the next decade darts coverage expanded with many major tournaments appearing on both ITV and BBC through the 1970s and early 1980s, but the cancellation of ITV's World of Sport show in 1985 meant they had to cut back on darts coverage but despite this they still showed the World Masters until 1988. The BBC also cut back on their coverage to the extent that one major event was still broadcast on either channel by 1988 - the World Championship.

With the creation of the WDC/PDC in 1992/93, darts gradually returned to television with events shown on local ITV networks, Lada Classic on Anglia TV, The Samson Darts Classic on Tyne Tees, Scottish Masters on SKY Scotland, UK Matchplay on Yorkshire TV and with Sky Television covering the new organization's World Championship and World Matchplay events from 1994. Sky's coverage continued to increase throughout the 1990s, with more new events added. The PDC's Premier League, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay and World Grand Prix, which are all televised live on Sky.

More recently more events have been added, with the inaugural Jockey Wilson Cup (SKY) and The Grand Slam of Darts, European Championships and Players Championships Finals (ITV), Championship League Darts (Perform Media Internet), German Darts Championships (DSF).

This now gives over £5 Million in prize money on the PDC circuit.

The PDC has also tried to break into the television market in the United States by introducing the World Series of Darts in 2006. It had a $1 million prize to showcase professional darts in the States. The tournament was replaced with a US Open event in 2007 which was screened in the UK

Darts has continued to grow again on television and there now several major tournaments broadcast in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. Dutch station, Sport One, DSF in Germany and several other tv stations across the globe also broadcast the PDC events. 


 
In early 1993, 15 of the top professionals were banned by the B.D.O.

Just before this in 1992, darts manufacturers, players, managers etc. decided that the sport of darts was dying and in decline so something had to be done about it, there was only one TV event (The World Championships) where as five years previous to this there was plenty and the future looked good. So the W.D.C. was formed in 1992 to promote the professional game and get more darts on T.V., some early T.V. events were a success and things were starting to move where they were stagnant before, but the B.D.O. didn't like this and in 1993 the B.D.O. banned all the players who had joined the W.D.C. from County darts, Super league, all B.D.O. Tournaments & Internationals unless they pledged their loyalty to the B.D.O., they even told other B.D.O. members that if they played a W.D.C. player in an event or exhibition even a charity night they would be banned also, so this put a lot of pressure on all the players, but all stuck together in the W.D.C. except 2 players, Mike Gregory and Chris Johns who were both promised the world but if they returned to the BDO, but ended up with nothing, except obscurity.

From this the WDC decided to take the B.D.O. to court and a few years and a lot of money later the court case was won and the Tomlin Order was in motion (preventing restraint of trade) so players could then play in anything they wanted except the "2" World Championships we had to choose "1" only.

All the top players chose the W.D.C. (now P.D.C.) which has now proved to be the right move for darts.

The 15 players were;

Alan Warriner (No 1 at the time), Phil Taylor, John Lowe (World Champion), Jocky Wilson, Bob Anderson, Keith Deller, Ritchie Gardner, Denis Priestley, Cliff Lazarenko, Kevin Spiolek, Jamie Harvey, Peter Evison, Rod Harrington, Chris Johns, Mike Gregory.

 
  The tournament was arranged on a regional basis from 1927 until 1939. The National Championship began in 1947-48

• 1947-48 Harry Leadbetter (Windle Labour Club, St Helens) beat Tommy Small (Sth Durham Steel & Iron SC, West Hartlepool) 2-1

• 1948-1989 Click Here

• 1989-90 Paul Cook (Gorse Hill WMC, Swindon) beat Steve Hudson (Oakworth SC, Keighley).2-0

• 1990-1996 No competition

• 1996-97 Phil Taylor (Cricketer’s Arms, Newcastle-under-Lyme) beat Ian White (Dockside Inn, Runcorn) 2-0.

• The tournament was first organised in the 1927/28 season thanks to the help of the staff on the News of the World newspaper and other volunteers, who helped set up the competition.

• There were around 1,000 entries in the first event, which was held in the Metropolitan area of London. The tournament then began to expand around the different counties in England. By 1938/39 there were six different regional events - London & South England, Wales, Lancashire & Cheshire, Yorkshire, the North of England and the Midland Counties.

• The total entries, in 1938/39 were in excess of 280,000. Enormous interest was created that year by the London and South of England championship. A record crowd of 14,534 spectators filled the Royal Agricultural Hall, London in May to witness the final between Jim Pike (representing the Windmill Club, Southwark) and Marmaduke Brecon (Jolly Sailor, Hanworth, Middlesex). Brecon ran out the winner by two games to one.

• There was, however no national champion of the event until after World War II. It was revived as a national competition in 1947/48, and continued to be described as ‘the championship every dart player wants to win’ until its demise in the 1990s.

• The News of the World was the first nationally televised darts event as ITV broadcast the championship from 1970 onwards (with the exception of the 1986 event which wasn't broadcast due to a technician's strike).

• But as quickly as darts tournaments began to appear on television throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the bubble burst and competitions such as the British Professional Championship, the British Open, the British Gold Cup and the team World Cup event had all disappeared from the screens by 1988.

• No reason was ever given for its cancellation, but television coverage of the sport continued to decline to such an extent that it possibly came as no surprise that the News of the World Championship also ended in 1990. Ironically, 1990 was also the first year that separate competitions were held for men and women.

• The News of the World Championship made a one-year reappearance in the 1996/97 season, when Sky Sports and the News of the World resurrected the competition.

• In his autobiography, Phil Taylor says that his mentor, Eric Bristow always mocked him for never having won the competition and that it was the tournament that everyone wanted to win.

• Taylor put the record straight by beating Ian White 2-0 in the final in June 1997, collecting the News of the World Big D Trophy, a cheque for £42,000 and a set of Unicorn golden darts. Following his victory, which also saw him take out the then England captain Martin Adams 2-1 in the semi finals, Taylor was quoted as saying "I've won five world titles- but this one means everything".

• Patrick Chaplin PhD Darts Historian, has studied the game of darts for many years and can be found here http://www.patrickchaplin.com/home.htm