Free Eric Bristow by Eric Bristow

together in the England side, so much so that the England manager Ollie Croft paired us for the World Cups which were played every two years and which we won four times.
    John and I were chalk and cheese. He was the quiet gentleman, a money man who looked after his dough, and I was a mad man who just liked to spend it. However, we were both after the same thing: we were both chasing glory . He was the only one who could stand in my way, and vice versa, and it was this that caused some resentment between us – but the good thing was it was a resentment born of rivalry. It kept us both at the top of our game. You don’t want the top two in the world to be all pally, it wouldn’t have looked right to the public. Even so, John was savvy enough to ask if I wanted to split our winnings during these years, and I agreed, because even though we didn’t like each other we knew that if one of us went out in a big tournament, the other one would probably win it.
    So we split for seven years and at the end of it John worked it out that there was about £800 difference between us, which was nothing. Then, after we stopped splitting in 1984, he played Keith Deller in the World Matchplay tournament where he managed a nine-dart finish. This was the first time it had ever been done on telly. Not only was I gutted that John was the first to do this, because I wanted to be the one, but I was doubly gutted when he won
£
102,000. Even at the World Championships we had been splitting the money, and now as soon as we stopped sharing the pot he went and did that. That wasn’t a good moment for me.
    He was a steady player; he’d go ton, ton, one-forty, ton. He had one gear and if you weren’t on the top of your game he would just wear you down and put you to bed. This was how he won most games, and this is how he still wins them today. Although you could never really describe him as a one-eighty man, he never seemed to have an off day like the rest of us occasionally did.
    Like Cliff he was good for the game. You could take the pair of them anywhere in the world and they would have a drink, be sociable, be nice and always looked presentable. They are professionals in every way. I was completely different. I’d see John at all these different venues, play with him, chat to him, but once it came to night-time and we were ready to hit the town he wasn’t in my school. He had his own little group. Mine was the mad school, the disco school. Wherever we were, a group of us would hire limos or fancy cars to take us to the best disco in town where we’d have a bit of fun and check out the women. John and Cliff would go out for a meal and sink a few bottles of wine before going back to the hotel. If we were abroad and it was our last night my school wouldn’t bother going to bed. We’d just hit a disco, get back to the hotel at about six in the morning, pack our bags and go home. Cliff and John would be all suited and booted and my lot would look in a right state.
    The other main England player was Tony Brown. He really did suffer from being around at a time when there were too many good darts players on the scene, losing four times in the semi-final of the World Championship, twice to me and twice to Lowey. If it wasn’t for me and John he might have had a couple of titles under his belt. He did achieve some success, however. He won the British Open in 1979 and Yorkshire Television’s Indoor League in 1979. Tony was in my King’s Cross Super League team – he would come up from Dover every Monday night to play, which was a fair trek – but he just couldn’t win the big tournaments on a regular basis. Eventually, in the early 1990s, he gave up darts and lives down Torquay way today. He made me laugh, though, back then because in every tournament we played he’d go on stage carrying a large bag. Out of this he’d pull a gin bottle, then a glass which he’d wipe with a cloth, then a box of chopped lemons, and finally half a dozen tonics.