GR Jessica Swanlake

[Ben Johnson]

The numbering of a standard dartboard is designed in such a way as to cut down the incidence of 'lucky shots' and reduce the element of chance.  The numbers are placed in such a way as to encourage accuracy.  That's it.  Pure and simple.  The placing of small numbers either side of large numbers e.g. 1 and 5 either side of 20, 3 and 2 either side of 17, 4 and 1 either side of 18, punishes inaccuracy.  Thus, if you shoot for the 20 segment, the penalty for lack of accuracy or concentration is to land in either a 1 or a 5.



http://web.ukonline.co.uk/patrick.chaplin/Darts_History/why_are_the_numbers_on_a_dartboa.htm



Its popularity although nation-wide with the 'drinking classes' tended to be especially prevalent in the northern counties.  Photographs provide evidence that a competition was held at Tyneside in 1938, interestingly outdoors!  The sport was (and still is) a typical example of the power of popular culture to create private languages for players, such as exclamations of 'swans in a lake' or 'three in a bed'.  Undoubtedly such cultural developments reflect the consolidation of national identity in the late thirties that revisionist historians have attempted to deny.  

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/patrick.chaplin/Darts_History/importance_of_darts_in_the_1920.htm

Next stop:  Crazyland (are your papers in order?)


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