00:00With pubs across the country closing, one social club in Maidstone are making sure their
00:04beloved way of playing darts survives with regular competitions, so the Kent tradition
00:08doesn't die out for good.
00:10The Kent dart board looks a little bit different than the standard one. It's missing the trebles
00:14and the ring around the bullseye, so the highest number of points is either the bullseye itself
00:18or the double 20. And you start the game from 301 rather than 501, making it a much different
00:25game to play.
00:25To be a good double player, you have to be consistent, consistently scoring, but a lot
00:32of treble ball players that come along start to throw at double top all the time and the
00:37darts that go off the ball don't score, do they? So it's better to get 60-60-60 and be
00:43down
00:43to a finish. That's the more suited way of doing it, rather than throwing a double all
00:51the time.
00:52Now I am far from a darts pro, but let's see, can I play on a Kent darts board just
00:57as
00:58good as a regular one?
01:08Not quite. Maybe I should consult someone who actually knows how to play on this board,
01:12and who better than someone who actually made it? So it starts with like a bullseye, and
01:17then I have a machine that's quite a hefty sort of press machine, and that creates the
01:22little wires that go from the bullseye to the outer ring. And by using that machine that
01:28creates the wires, I can then put down with just a simple hammer. And that's effectively
01:33it. I've got it down to an art. It doesn't take me that long, probably about an hour to
01:39do a board. But yeah, it's fun and quite therapeutic at times.
01:45While the supply of the dart boards in Maidstone is keeping up with demand, pubs shutting their
01:50doors means taking down their boards. So competitions are responsible for keeping the traditional
01:55game alive.
01:55I used to be a landlord of the pub Dragoon in Sanding Road in Maidstone, when there was
02:02many pubs playing Tuesday night darts, the Kent ball. Unfortunately, the circumstances were
02:09in, a lot of the pubs were closed, including my old pub. The league needs the pubs and the
02:14clubs, and the pubs and the clubs need the league to bring the income in.
02:18The league are hoping the knockout competitions and the explosion in popularity of the standard
02:22game will reach a new, younger generation of players. And while they haven't trebled attendances
02:28yet, the Kent board is certainly taking flight.
02:31Finn McDermid for KMTV in Toeville.
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