Perhaps, in this time of narcissism, material obsession and continued fascination with our precious "boom", we might do well to learn from the experiences of the inhabitants of the fringe world of darts. There was a time when there were many parallels to be drawn between the darts folk and the Irish. Each culture spent an inordinate amount of time in public houses, both spoke an indigenous language and both were perceived as amicable and happy-go-lucky-sorts, if a touch slovenly.
As BBC 2's Blood on the Carpet illustrated, though, darts went through an incredible and explosive transition much like the economic and social metamorphosis witnessed in this country. And darts is still trying to recover from it.
If you believe the fable, darts as showmanship, darts as sexy, was conceived in a pub in Muswell Hill. "I noticed something extremely unusual happening down my local," sighed a misty-eyed Ollie Croft, the man who is generally regarded as the godfather of the flight and cork game. Croft is, no matter what way you look at it, a frightening old hound, with a mad gleam in his eyes and a set of whiskers not seen on TV since Planet of the Apes was in its heyday. It's as well this programme was broadcast after the watershed.
Like all cottage industries, Ollie started small and lovingly crafted a microcosmic darts organisation, merrily setting up tournaments in pubs across middle England. This was the mid-punk, prekaraoke era, so competition was thin on the ground.
Then Ollie underwent a moment of intense and beautiful epiphany that changed the world of darts - hell, changed the world full stop. It was the day he first set eyes on Eric Bristow. To Ollie and the rest of the darts fraternity, Bristow, who in time would garner world acclaim under the alias of "the Crafty Cockney", was an alluring mix of Elvis and Essex, oozing glamour but a solid local boy nonetheless. With the crafty one as his pinup, Ollie set about assembling a stellar cast of Hughies and Jockies and Bobbys, all plucked from the provinces. He sold them to the world (well, the 1983 Tuesday night post-pub BBC 2 viewing world anyway) and we bought it.
By the-mid 1980s around 10 million were hooked on the intoxicating combination of Sid Waddell and the double top. The man who was bored by darts was bored by life, was the feeling. Darts offered escapism, an exotic alternative to the depressing reality of Arthur Scargill and Bob Holness.
The players, with their wobbling midriffs and steady eyes, were bona fide stars. For a time, the sport was regularly and sweetly hitting the 180. But it all went sour. You could, in retrospect, blame it on the drink. Jocky Wilson, the adorable (in a strictly metaphysical sense) Scot admitted on Wogan that he regularly sank six pints during a match. The comedy duo Smith and Jones, in possibly their one and only funny sketch, parodied the darts world: "Oh and he's going for the double gin, onto the triple short . . . just the half-pint needed."
Darts was placed under the microscope. As player Danny Pollack famously and improbably rapped, "Seb Coe, eat you heart out cos you would like to be me/ smoking fags and drinking beer and tasting sweet vic-tor-y."
Under pressure, TV dropped all but one tournament from the screens. The playboys, the heroes of the mat, were reduced to playing pub tournaments again.
It was at this time that the metaphorical blood was spilled. Marcus Robertson and Terry Cox saw that darts needed a new image. They met Ollie Croft in The Rose and Thistle, but found that Ollie felt PR was a waste of time and money. So the newcomers set up the Professional Darts Council (PDC) to try to get the top players back on TV again. They under-estimated Ollie. Players who turned up for the 1997 world championships were stripped of their PDC badges. At a meeting, which darts writer Phil Jones likened to a witch-hunt, the delegates of the British Darts Organisation voted to ban anyone who joined the up-start council. The players, the dead-eyed princes who used make the TV listings, sandwiched proudly between Newsnight and Open University, were now in limbo. Some, like Mike Gregory, cracked, and ran back to Ollie. No words have passed between he and the Crafty Cockney since.
Then things got worse. To their horror, they realised Ollie could try to implement a world ban and prevent the British lads from playing in hotbeds such as Norway. In a panic, Terry flew to Vegas (of course) where all the made men of darts were meeting. The meeting had it all: curses on the casino floor, desperate lobbying and anxious waits. But Ollie had travelled a long way from Muswell Hill. He was secretary of the World Darts Organisation and the ban was passed.
Litigation followed and darts went into decline. The Cockney got "dartitis", an inability to fire properly. "It's in the brain, mate, innit," the player said philosophically. The narrator assured us that the most protracted battle in the history of British sport ensued. Both parties settled, but the sport was crippled, the players pale shadows. Jocky Wilson hasn't thrown in years, a ghost of the lion who inspired the great headline, "He Yells 4 Letter Word at Betty, 71."
Ollie remains the hoary - and indeed hairy - face of British darts, but there is sadness about him now. He sometimes yearns for the glory days of motels and shandies.
"In a way, you think of it as your baby," he admitted at the end.
It was, at times, an unbearably moving tale and reminded us of how desperately hard-up we were for good TV in the 1980s. But it was also a timely lesson in the simple fact that after a boom comes a fall-out. We best hope that Charlie McCreevy, who could be regarded as the Crafty Cockney of Kildare Street, was taking note.
