Glen Robert Huff and myself seem to have something in common so I have found out! Sorry to not have noticed earlier Glen, we are BOTH avid collectors of darts, dartboards and other paraphernalia that goes with the sport. We have both been hit by the “collector bug” and our 1st sets of darts were Unicorn, Glen’s was the T80 in 1985 and mine was the John Lowe 21gram which I received in 1984 as a gift from Unicorn.
Also we have both been lucky enough to meet players both professional and the non professional players but it’s the great game of darts that makes us all equal as friends, as we say here in Australia it creates “mateship”.
To my, anyone with a dart in there hand is a friend and more often than not that friendship blossoms to something special, comradery!
We both have disabilities, yet love the game and play as often as possible even at our own personal levels due to one thing or another. Glen suffers from Cerebral Palsy and when he walks he is aided by 2 walking canes, here is a link to Glens 1st Blog:
http://www.unicorn-darts.com/uniBlog/detail.asp?entry=145
He has a fantastic collection of Unicorn darts and boards as well as other branded darts as well! The thing that I found we have very much in common (besides loving to collect dart “artefacts”) is that no matter how bad our disabilities are we love the game. I know myself that my game has picked up (maybe I have left me run in the sport to late age-wise… then again I may set a precedent) here is a link to my 1st Blog:
http://www.unicorn-darts.com/Uniblog/detail.asp?entry=124
I do believe there is a place in top level darts for players with disabilities/handicaps, it’s just a matter of the person or persons being able to adapt to the long hours playing on the floor then if good enough into the knockout stages and advance to the finals.
Although I have not reached my peak I don’t think I could just settle for “Pub Darts” as I believe in myself and really do think I can go that step further. As with most players of various sports I have talked to with disabilities they all have one thing in common which I have as well and that’s “positive attitude of never say die” and the mental toughness to overcome the disability however large or small it may be to achieve their goal!