Bling at Bradford-on-Avon

All that glitters is . . . .  probably Bobby George at the oche. The King of Bling was in fine form on Friday 26th June at The Beef and Barge where he challenged a dozen happy hopefuls to beat him at 501. Little Richard Ashdown compered a fantastic evening of  practical jokes and laughter mixed with spectacular darts from the master. Kim and Greg from We Love Darts enjoyed a good meal in the waterside restaurant followed by a night of top class entertainment. Thanks to everyone and love to ‘ The Shoes ‘.

Bobby treated the audience to a fine display of bling!

Seaside Stars

Three days of competition, 1800 darts fans and a good old fashioned holiday camp are the ingredients for a spectacular amount of fun. That was the case at the BDO  International Open Festival of Darts at Brean Sands 12th – 14th June. The WLD team arrived with the new banners which attracted loads of attention from the crowds and we made hundreds of new friends. Olly Croft and the BDO made us really welcome so thanks to everyone.

Chris Aubrey took the Youth Singles title, Trina Gulliver won the Women’s Singles and Tony O’Shea beat Ted Hankey to the Men’s Singles crown. There were some tremendous performances to thrill the fans, plenty of 180′s and a few that had one over the eight.

Brilliant Bolton

When the last dart thudded into the lipstick of double top, The Power swept to glory. 98 professionals and 31 superb amateur qualifiers fought the Battle of Bolton and the last two left standing at the end of the fourth day were Colin Osborne and Phil Taylor. From being three nil down, Taylor finally defeated his magnificent opponent eleven six and took the title for the third time. Greg and Merv from the We Love Darts team had a cracking time meeting many of the thousands of darts fans at the Blue Square UK Open Finals at the Reebok Stadium and enthusiasm for the magazine was overwhelming. Some great suggestions for future issues, so thanks to everyone for their help.

Wonderful Wembley

The immense crowd at the Wembley arena on Monday night roared with admiration as four giants of darts battled for the Premier League crown. Barney was knocked aside by The Machine, The Power was deposed by The King and finally, to howls of both disbelief and delight James Wade raised the glittering trophy and a cheque for £125,000. The atmosphere was unbelievable, the chanting and singing were deafening. Merv, Greg and Kim from The We Love Darts team were there in the thick of it and having a ball. It was a night to remember!

Amanda and Steve were in Essex on Saturday 23rd for the Harlow Open. Gary Brown organised a great event in a tremendous venue. Suzanne Smith beat Appley Jones and Dave Askew was beaten by Steve Maish. A big thank you to Lee White for buying Amanda a pint!

The Fordhams enjoying the Wembley atmosphere

The story so far . . .

The We Love Darts team have been unbelievably busy since the launch. We went up to Redcar on May 1st for a great night at the Leisure Centre. Ted Hankey, James Wade, Gary Anderson and Ronnie Baxter provided top class entertainment and the good natured, enthusiastic crowd made us extremely welcome. We also made time to grab a lungful of sea air before the journey home on the following day and will award a prize to the first one to send us a photo of a ‘penguin’ in a We Love Darts T shirt!

So far this month our travels have included Cardiff for the Premier League. Thousands of fans gathered and the atmosphere was electric.  Amanda from We Love Darts was in the audience with her dad who was celebrating his birthday. When he was introduced to his hero Phil Taylor he swore it was the best day of his life! Better not share that with his wife!

At the other end of the scale, Amanda was at Drayton Manor on the 10th for a Courage tournament where the number may have been smaller but the passion ran high. Forty teams competed for the £16,000 prize pot with Walton Working Men’s club taking the top prize of £5,000. What a day!

Legends on tour

Last night saw the We Love Darts team head for the Pavilion in Bath to enjoy a night of top entertainment with the legends of the game – namely Bobby George, Eric Bristow and John Lowe.

MC Duncan “Chase Me” Novell got the evening started in his own unique way, and darts fans turned out in their droves to watch the masters at work, and play a leg against their heroes.

We Love Darts’ editor, Mervyn Hathway, took on Bobby George in a close match which eventually saw Bobby victorious, checking out on 57.

One of the rivalries of the game was reborn when Eric Bristow took on John Lowe, with Bristow proving victorious, winning 2-0.

It was fantastic to see so many of you there last night, reading the mag and wearing your We Love Darts T-shirts. The cameras were busy all night long and we really want to see your snaps of the evening – especially those of you who were fortunate enough to get your picture taken with Eric, Bobby and John!

Send them through to us at editor@welovedarts.com and we’ll try to get them in the magazine for you!

If you want to see the legends in action, visit the Legends of the Oche website and find your nearest venue.

The legends of the game, John Lowe, Bobby George and Eric Bristow, along with MC Duncan Novell

The grand unveiling…

Hi there. Sorry it’s been so long since the last blog. We’ve been finalising and sending  to print Issue 1 of our much-anticipated magazine – and I have to say it’s looking great!

While you’ll all know by now that it’s packed with interviews, features, match results and all the latest news and views, what you won’t know is who’s in it. But today, we are ready to reveal all…

Kicking off the star-studded line up is Barry Hearn, who talks exclusively to We Love Darts about his passion for the game, the BDO, being a darting anorak and making money – according to Hearn, “Darts is recession proof”.

Next up is James Wade, who has been in the headlines for his much-publicised relationship with Sky Sports’ Hells Bells. Not only does he tell us all about his relationship with Ms Chamberlain, but he also talks about his darting future… and boy is that interesting!

Get ready lads, because we have an interview with the lovely PDC walk-on girl Nicola Moriarty! Best known to the darting fraternity for dressing up as Princess Leia, not only is Nicola seriously sexy, she’s also a massive darts fan and she reveals all to We Love Darts!

Legend Eric Bristow shares an extract from his autobiography “The Crafty Cockney”, and also offers up his opinions in his regular column Dartmouth, which is not to be missed!

Moving on, we talk to Ted Hankey about his career renaissance, chat with We Love Darts’ own Mark Dudbridge about life in the darting lane and take a look and the runners and riders for this years Premier League.

Plus, we review all the latest equipment, books, games and websites, and take a look at all the match results, county games and darts headlines!

So, keep your eyes peeled for your jam-packed first issue from the 19th March – we’re on the newsstand in WH Smith, Sainsbury’s, McColls and Borders up and down the country – not to mention a number of independent stores.

Alternatively, get your copy earlier by subscribing today!

We Love Darts!

On the road with the We Love Darts team

Just a quick hello from the hard-pressed We Love Darts team. Why are we hard-pressed? Because we’re working overtime to bring you the very first full edition of We Love Darts. It’s looking brilliant, we have to say, and we’ve got interviews with lots of top players and darts personalities as well as some truly brilliant writing. We’ve also been out and about quite a bit, enjoying some top darts action around the country – don’t know if any of you saw us at the Circus Tavern in the snow recently for the Player’s Championship final? And if you’re the very warm-looking gentleman dressed as Chewbacca, get in touch – we’d like to give you a prize for being a star!

“Chewie, Chewie, sing us a song”

We Love Darts takes you to the Tavern

Three lucky We Love Darts readers struck gold when they won a VIP trip to watch the finals of the Player’s Championships at the Circus Tavern last month. The We Love Darts team picked them up from the George and the Dragon pub in Winterbourne, and  whisked them off to the final in our We Love Darts limo. Don Scott from Bristol, James Wright from Poole and Ian Roderick from Hereford were the lucky readers who went to Purfleet to watch Phil “The Power” Taylor take on Robert Thornton in the final – and they also enjoyed a great night out with the We Love Darts team, lucky them! If you’d like to win a a money-can’t-buy prize, make sure you pick up Issue 1 of We Love Darts in March – we’ve got some cracking prizes coming up!

Our lucky competition winners, sporting their We Love Darts T-Shirts