Eric Bristow (20 page)

By this time I had also become close friends with snooker player Steve Davis, and we had a bet to see who could win the most world titles. He won in 1981 and 1983; I’d won in 1980 and 1981 and then in ’84 to go three–two up. He levelled it in ’84 and won again in ’87, ’88 and ’89 to go six–five up. I’ll never catch him up now, he has beaten me, but from ’84 onwards, instead of comparing myself with other darts players, I had my eye on Steve and how many titles he was winning. I didn’t like losing at anything and this was another challenge I had to win. We both recognised back then that we were pioneers of our respective sports because snooker, like darts, had just made its TV breakthrough, and every year we were effectively making and breaking new world records.

So 1985 represented lots of different challenges for me. I wanted to be the first darts player to win four world darts titles, and I wanted to nudge ahead of Steve. For the second year running I was on fire, beating Ken Summers, Willy Logie, Alan Glazier and Whitcombe again to set up a final clash with Lowey. I was confident going into that match, because my average against Whitcombe in the previous game had been just short of one hundred, but, although I won that final by six sets to two, it was far from easy. Lowey is never easy to beat and never will be, even if he is still playing when he’s ninety-five. He has a perfect throw and he doesn’t bottle it.

These were the matches people wanted to see: me against him. This was what set the nation on fire, the good bloke against the bad boy, the great ambassador for the game against the firebrand. He would get suites whenever he stayed in hotels, whereas the owners wanted to put me in the cellar. On paper it looked as if I thrashed him, but in my mind I hadn’t because I just couldn’t relax while playing him, however far ahead I was in the game. I always had to be at my best. One slip and he’d be in there and back in it. But once I got three sets ahead I was certain he wasn’t going to come back so I just concentrated on putting him to bed because I knew the only chance for him was if something went disastrously wrong with my darts, which never happened in those days. He wasn’t like Jocky who could suddenly up
his
game to do a couple of eleven-dart finishes and a twelve-dart finish to drag himself back into the match.

Jocky was unique, however, because when I faced the other players I’d know if I’d got them rattled by their mannerisms. Lowey would sweat a little bit, and sometimes he’d throw his darts just that bit faster, which was his big giveaway. He was always very steady, but when he got behind he’d suddenly throw three quick ones to try something different, and then I’d know he was panicking a bit. I got to know all the players’ flaws inside out as well, from the way they walked back after they’d thrown the darts to how many times they went to the table to have a drink. It was like a game of poker; sometimes they gave off huge giveaway signs – but with Jocky you could never tell because he’d just walk back to the table after he threw and take a blast on his fag. At the end of the game, though, whether he’d won or lost against me, Jocky would always try to walk off with his fags and mine, which he’d steal off the table.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve played him and I’d have a fag in my hand, he’d have a fag in his hand, and when I went back to the table there’d be another fag burning in the ashtray. Whose fag was that then? Then I’d realise it was mine. I was always doing it: I’d forget I’d put my fag down and go to the packet and light another one up. I knew it was me because on the times I played Lowey, like in the 1985 final, there’d be a fag in my hand and one in the ashtray, and he didn’t
smoke
. Apart from lighting fag after fag, I always tried to keep calm under pressure, and even if I was losing I tried not to change anything. I just carried on playing my game and didn’t want to give anything away. And in the 1985 Final I gave nothing away. I’d retained the title again and I was four–three up on Davis.

Twelve months later I was on fire again. I beat Whitcombe six sets to nil in the final to claim a new record of three on the trot. He really did play at the top of his game in that match and it should never have been a whitewash, but I played magically. He didn’t do anything wrong. As I threw my last dart to clinch the championship and turned to shake his hand, he threw his towel at me in a gesture of resignation and it hit me right in the mush. I said, ‘That’s the best throw you’ve done all night.’ He threw it as if to say: I just can’t beat you, however well I play.

He was like a boxer who had just been battered until he was black and blue. If he had left a double and I wanted a 129 checkout, I got it. There was nothing he could do. I didn’t even have to think about it in that final: I just looked at the board and let the dart go. Whitcombe had just tried to hang on in there, hoping against hope that my game collapsed. He was very much in Lowey’s mould in that respect, in that he was unflappable and gave nothing away in his facial expressions. He was unlike Lowey, though, in that I don’t think I’ve ever met a more lethargic player. There was absolutely
no
get up and go about him. Don’t get stuck in a lift with him; you’ll end up hanging yourself.

Despite his lack of personality, and the fact that I kept walloping him, he did achieve some glory as part of an unbeatable England side of that time which included both myself and Lowey. He was a great player to have in that team because he was rock steady.

Our England team was dominating everything in the mid-eighties. Before each game the sides would sit around this big dinner table to see who would be playing who in the draw. Other teams knew they’d be in for a hell of a game whoever they drew, whereas we’d want to avoid only four or five of them. For our opposition, to be sitting at that table was like waiting on death row. If they drew me they knew they didn’t have a chance because 1986 represented the pinnacle of my career. I was twenty-eight years old and I saw everything opening up for me. Things were going well and I just wanted to go on and on and on, winning title after title after title. There was no reason why I shouldn’t. I was at an age where most normal darts players start getting good. I’d been good for over a decade. If you asked me back then how many titles I expected to win I’d have probably estimated another ten more World Championships to add to my tally of five already.

The next twelve months did nothing to disprove that. I continued my rich vein of form and in the 1987 World
Championship
breezed through to the final, losing only one set along the way. I was up against Lowey who’d been equally as impressive in disposing of Jocky five sets to nil in the semi-final.

I lost that final six sets to four and it hurt. For some reason I had a lot of bounce outs, and you can put that down to simple bad luck, but I also didn’t play like I had done in the previous three finals and if you’re not on top of your game, as I have said before, Lowey will punish you. You have got to be consistent against him and this time I wasn’t.

After the final the BBC in their analysis pointed to my throw as being one possible reason why I’d lost. They showed the World Championship finals from ’84 onwards, and in each year my throwing action was getting slower and slower. I wasn’t releasing the dart as quickly, and I was continuing to slow down. I didn’t read anything into it. In many respects I dismissed it because I fully intended to bounce back and retain my title in 1988, and it certainly didn’t catch the attention of my dad or he’d have told me.

Then, in the summer of 1987, playing in the Swedish Open, it all went wrong for me.

My game simply fell apart. I couldn’t release the dart, and when I did it was going all over the place. It was purely a mental thing. In snooker some players can’t play with the rest: they think they are going to miss with
it
and invariably do because they don’t then go through with their shot. I wasn’t going through with my throw. That Swedish Open was the beginning of the end for me. I knew if I couldn’t sort out this problem, which is known as dartitis, I’d never dominate the game in the way that I had done throughout the 1980s.

I managed to get through to the last eight of that competition but it was a real struggle, so when I got back to Britain I went to see a hypnotist to see if he could cure me. I was desperate. This was the biggest crisis I had ever faced. The hypnotist sat next to me, giving me all this rubbish about opening pathways into my mind and unblocking this and that, and I was looking at him, thinking what a stupid job he had. Before I left he gave me tapes to listen to, which he said would help me overcome this problem. They’re still in the box. I decided I had got myself in this mess and I alone would get myself out of it.

That was easier said than done. I knew I had a big problem because I just couldn’t throw the dart. It got to a point where I honestly believed my career was over, that I was finished. Dartitis affects only a very small number of players, and of those, 99 per cent of them are fine in the practice room but only get it when the announcer says ‘Game on.’

Not me. I had it in the practice room as well. When I get something, I get it properly. There are no half measures for me.

At that time I did a lot of exhibitions for the brewery group Bass, organised through their entertainments manager Malcolm Powell. I had one set for a date three months after returning from Sweden, but my dartitis had gone off the radar. My throws were all over the place – on some days I wasn’t even hitting the board – so I phoned my manager to tell Malcolm that I couldn’t do the exhibition, which was for a group of about five hundred people. Dick was horrified and pleaded with me to honour the commitment. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t turn up to a place where there are decent darts players, knowing they will beat me. I can’t do it, Dick.’

My game at this point was at the level of a very poor local league player. I was lucky if I hit the twenty in practice, never mind the treble, so I said to Dick, ‘Just get Big Cliff or Deller as a replacement. Better still, see if the pair of them will do it, then Bass can have two for the price of one.’

But Malcolm didn’t want them. He wanted me, and he told Dick, ‘Tell Eric to come, and if he can’t let his darts go we’ll tell them he’s injured but will do a question and answer session instead.’

I really was on the verge of packing in darts. I’d had enough; dartitis had wiped me out mentally. That was how far I had got down the road. I was ready to end it all. I couldn’t play the game I loved any more because I didn’t want to step up to the oche and make a fool of myself. I remember at the lowest point saying to
Maureen
, ‘What the hell am I going to be now, a postman or what?’

I was only in my late twenties and I knew I had nowhere near enough money to retire on. I was even contemplating going to college. Only eighteen months earlier I’d been celebrating three World Championships on the bounce; now I couldn’t even throw a dart. To make matters worse it came and went. One night I’d be OK, the next awful. So I agreed to the Q&A session and turned up. I started practising and did round the board. Everything seemed OK, everything felt all right, so Malcolm said to me, ‘We’ll go out and do the first game and see how it goes.’ So out I went, and I played brilliantly all night with not a yip in sight.

If it wasn’t for Malcolm I wouldn’t have done that exhibition, and I seriously believe I never would have thrown a dart again, my confidence was that shot, but I found the plot again and got some of my old cockiness back. I knew that despite the dartitis there were occasions when I could still play well. It gave me my belief back. However, the dartitis always came back, maybe for a week or two weeks. Then it would go again for a week or so, and then it would come back. I really didn’t know if I was coming or going.

I could tell when it had come back because my arm would lock when I threw and the muscles in the back of my leg would tighten up while I was throwing. What was all that about? How can your leg muscles go when you’re
throwing
a dart? It shouldn’t have anything to do with your legs. It was weird. Who needs drugs when you can have something like this? The body is a strange tool.

I continued with the exhibitions and some nights I played well; other nights the dartitis hit and I was awful. It was a lottery I knew I was going to have to live with for possibly the rest of my darting career. I was desperate to conquer it. In some exhibitions I went on stage and threw a pretend dart first, just to get my throwing action right. It looked ridiculous, and I felt that people were paying to watch me throw air darts just so I could conquer the yips. Then I’d throw the actual darts. It helped for a while but I had to stop because I looked a wally. I was the only player who threw four darts: it was silly. It did work for a time. I had two months of perfect darts whilst I was throwing a pretend one, but then the yips came back for a week and I was back to square one.

I did notice that as time went on the gaps between the dartitis bouts were getting longer, and that is what kept me going and kept me motivated to continue playing. When it wasn’t there, I could feel the dart in my hand going wherever I wanted it to. It almost became my sixth finger. When I had the yips I could hardly pick the thing up. It felt heavy and uncomfortable, too uncomfortable for my hand to release. So I lived for the feel-good nights, the ones where I could play darts and win, but it was hard keeping motivated.

That same year I went to Canada because I was chasing world ranking points and for the first time in my career I did find myself wondering why. I went nonetheless, and as I threw the darts my arm locked. Here we go again, I thought. I was locking, my legs were going, I was throwing forty-fives, sometimes eleven and in the end I was just letting them go and hitting the board. It didn’t matter where the dart landed I just wanted game over so I could get knocked out and go and get drunk. It was depressing to watch.

From Canada we had to fly to Japan for another tournament. I knew I had to get past the first round of that one otherwise I’d have no money – I’d have travelled to Canada and Japan and come back with nothing, what a waste – but I wouldn’t have bet on myself after the trauma of Canada. Even my mate Al, who had come over with me for the ten-day tour, had deserted me. He’d fallen in love with a hooker I’d got him and spent the whole time with her. He loved her so much she ended up giving him freebies.