There was a day when darts was played by blokes with bellies the size of Brazil, guzzling buckets of beer between each throw.
Spectators looked on in awe, astonished that the players could still see the board, let alone hit the tiny rectangular part of it to nail another treble 20. And no one ever got injured.
In a world (or at least, a country) of increasing health and safety laws, a sport with inebriated participants in possession of sharp pointy objects may well have been banned by now.
But since those boozy days back in the 70s, the world of professional darts has cleaned up its act and steadily gone from strength to strength.
Today a darts player's between-throw drink of choice is most likely to be a glass of chilled water or, if he's really pushing the boat out, a lemonade (with ice). But that, of course, doesn't stop the spectators having a tipple or three.
Starting this month and running through to the 3rd of January,
the World Darts Championship takes place at Alexandra Palace.
The atmosphere at this event is always electric, with the players and crowd feeding off each other with every throw of the dart. It's often raucous and always fun.
The defending champion is
Phil 'The Power' Taylor. This guy is the Roger Federer of darts – he can't stop winning. You could blindfold The Power and he'd simply smell his way to the triple 20 – he's
that good.
He's like a product of precision engineering, somehow managing to hit the board with mind-blowing pinpoint accuracy every single time.
But that doesn't mean it'll be a walkover for Taylor. Seventy-one other players from 21 countries will be hoping to take from him not only the title, but also the top prize of £200,000. You could buy a really nice dartboard with that kind of money.
For a night out unlike any other, get along to Alexandra Palace, choose your player and cheer like there's no tomorrow when the scorer screams out "One hundred and EIIIIIIIGGGHHHTTYYY!!!"
