Guilty Pleasure: Margi Conklin On Darts
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Your support makes all the difference.It was just so exciting and exhilarating that I found myself shouting out "180!" whenever someone got a complete score. You just can't help but get caught up in the drunken, bellicose fun of it all. There's a lot of high emotion and passion in the game and initially I found a real ironic pleasure in it all, and then I found myself really getting into the sport itself - because there is real sportsmanship involved.
Phil "The Power" Taylor is a real star and he wins every time. He comes from Stoke and and he has this charisma. He has a long-suffering wife and there was a programme on recently called Darts Players' Wives. They don't look anything like footballers' wives, which added to the irony and fun of it. But they're very devoted to their men and really support them. There's a lot of love there.
I also like Wayne "Hawaii 501" Mardle - they play the music from the TV show when he comes on - and Kevin "The Artist" Painter. He's a bit of an underdog to Phil "The Power" and when they got together last year they had a bit of a barny and nearly punched each other.
I love the crowds as well , and Sid Waddell, the commentator. He comes up with these ridiculous Shakespearean references, as if it were some kind of Olympic sport.
Margi Conklin is the editor of New Woman
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