ALTHOUGH he tried to hide it, it was always a source of great shame to my father that I was never any good at darts.

On his day, he was one of the best players on the Macclesfield pub circuit and beyond, and our house was awash with the trophies and awards he had won over the years.

He had a brain like a computer when it came to calculating the correct three dart combination required to hit any number, and still finish on a double.

When they were in the area, he was always in demand by members of the top professional players circuit – not always as an opponent, but as the man on the chalk.

He marked for John Lowe, Eric Bristow and Alan Evans among others, and was never happier than when he had a set of darts in his hand,

He even took his arrows with him to his own mother’s funeral, in the hope that someone would want a game at the wake.

When on holiday in the Lakes, he liked nothing better than joining his brother in law and playing with strangers for beer. Very soon, their table would be awash with brimming pint pots, and he would announce: “ Ey up Jimmy we’d better start losing a few and get some of this lot supped!”

The darts gene must have passed me completely, for while I enjoy the game, I never have any real idea where my darts are going to land once they have left my hand.

I put it down to a game of Cowboys and Indians I had with my older brother, when he was about six and I was four. I was the cowboy, complete with Roy Rogers six-shooter cap gun and tasselled holster, while he was Big Chief Wallabottom with a feather in his hair, with my sister in

support as Wood Dove the Indian squaw, with mask cut out from the back of a puffed wheat box.

Initially, my brother was peppering me with rubber sucker tipped arrows from his Sitting Bull bow, but he decided this was a little tame.

He sneaked into our parents’ bedroom and emerged grinning maliciously clutching our father’s new darts, huge brass jobs topped by a bristling halo of bright green feathers.

He launched himself into a shuffling, whooping war dance, and I instantly knew what he had in mind, but as I tried to beat a hasty retreat, he flung the darts at me one after the other with deadly accuracy. Each one found its mark, and I found myself with three darts lodged in my cranium.

It didn’t really hurt, but I can recall my brother saying with some heat: “Don’t you dare bleed on me Dad’s new darts!”

We managed to work them loose with only superficial damage to my skull, but I

believe the incident may have left me psychologically damaged.

My father tried his damndest to school me in the lore of the arrow, and every Sunday night without fail, he and I and my brother in law would go to the Prince Albert pub in Macclesfield at opening time, and play endless games of darts.

He seemed to be able to hit 180s at will, while it took me all my time just to hit the board, especially when the Ind Coope started flowing through my veins.

Occasionally, my father and I would be challenged to a game by some locals and when it came to hitting the double at the end, he would always say: “You need to go to the gents lad” and then take my turn to the intense chagrin of the opposition.

On one memorable occasion though, a miracle occurred, when our opponents required double top, and we were many leagues behind on 161.

“Hextol, we require – a miracle,” jested the old man, and having written the game off, he disappeared to the loo.

More in hope than expectation, I threw my first dart, and was as amazed as anyone in the pub when it stood quivering in the treble twenty.

“I’ll try that again,“ I decided through the beer goggles, blissfully unaware that if I had somehow managed to hit it, I would have left myself an impossible double of 41.

I missed treble 20 by a mile, but the dart was miraculously sticking out of treble 17. I squinted at double top, but someone pointed out that I actually needed the bull, and seconds later I had hit it smack in the middle for a stunning finish.

I turned to bask in my father’s glowing approbation - but he was still in the gents and had missed the whole thing.