circus tavern

Blog: Darts returns to its spiritual home

Published: Wednesday, 27 January 2010, 11:31AM

You can take your Ally Pally, and your Frimley Greens, if you want a darting venue that holds more classic memories than your great auntie then you cannot look further than Purfleet and the Circus Tavern. 

Never has a venue title been better suited, a Circus it is, and has been since the PDC held its inaugural World Championships way back in 1994.

It was at Purfleet in 2007 that Raymond van Barneveld and Phil Taylor produced possibly the finest darts match of all time, the Dutchman coming back from three sets down to upset Taylor. 

The Power had made the Tavern stage as comfortable as his front room, winning the Worlds an incredible eleven times leading up to the 2007 final.  

In that time he went through more dodgy 'taches than a fancy dress shop and sported an array of naff shirts that looked like a continuing Blue Peter project, but his power remained undiminished. 

However in 2007 Barneveld finally made a stand.  With both players averaging over a hundred, the match went to a sudden death leg, which the Dutchman went on to take with double tops. 

Since that great final the world championships has moved to Alexandra Palace but nothing has come close to the drama of the last final that graced the somewhat sticky and beer soaked carpets of the Tavern. 

The Circus Tavern is totally unique as a venue, completely isolated with only a local garage for company, it stands like a lonely bastion of darting history amidst the wilderness. 

As well as being the home of the World Championships for fourteen years it also boasts a nightclub. Now, Wembley may be the home of British football but can you fall over yourself after a few beers whilst staggering to the DJ booth to request Chesney Hawkes?

Players and spectators are scrunched into a relatively tiny space. The low ceilings drip with anticipation and a fair amount of actual sweat.  The crowd are so close to the oche that one heavy breath can push a dart from the red bed into the five or the one. 

The PDC obviously realised the need to return to the iconic venue and hence the Players' Championship was born.  A quickfire four-day knockout tournament which allows tungsten fans a chance to wedge themselves into the Tavern for another night of no-holds-barred darting madness. 

The first round is a race to six legs, so you better be on the money early otherwise you can pack your flights away before you can say ‘Eric Bristow’. 

There are some pretty tasty match-ups early doors in this year’s draw.  Peter Manley takes on Taylor, unsurprisingly the reigning champion. 

Manley is the pantomime villain to many darts followers and walks on to ‘The Road to Amarillo’, dressed in a lurid pink shirt.  When the music stops he is greeted by a chorus of boos which he milks obviously. This is darts - it’s all about the show. 

‘One Dart’ Manley is not quite the force he used to be, although he is well at home at the Circus having reached the World Championship Finals three times.  Admittedly each time he was handed a severe lesson by Taylor but for a long time he was amongst the best of the rest.

Taylor against Manley is just one of sixteen matches to keep an eye on. Watch out for the all-Premier League head-to-head between James Wade and Mervyn King. Neither are what you would describe as crowd favourites. In fact Merv normally wears earplugs to shut out the din, but they are top quality tungsten flingers and should serve up some decent fare. 

Kevin ‘The Artist’ Painter meets Robbie Thornton, who went all the way to the final last year. Neither will have appreciated such a tough draw early on. 

Dutchmen Jelle Klaasen and Vincent van der Voort both throw super-quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-them darts, and both have drawn heavyweight pros in Terry Jenkins and Gary Anderson. 

Also worth a mention is ‘The Muffin Man’, Steve Hine, who hands out... you guessed it, muffins, during his walk on. He is up against Mark Walsh. No prizes for guessing his nickname, it's Walshie. 

The action will be less predictable. The Tavern will be rocking. Make sure you don't miss it!