Swish, flies the arrow of the 2015/16 College darts season – squarely into the triple 20. Riding the beer-swilling wave of excitement of the Trinity 2015 Cuppers tournament, this year’s league sees the return of 22 veteran teams and the arrival of Christ Church into the four divisions.
Hertford I, the team of the moment, will be looking to follow up a slew of successes in Cuppers with a strong start in the top division. The team packs a weighty Blues punch in the form of barman duo Jamie Tong and Jack Shirley, each trailing achievements across all forms of the game from recent years. With a traditionally cohesive team spirit, they pose a serious threat to 2013/2014 champions Wadham I, who have suffered from a series of high-profile graduations in the last two seasons. Despite retaining Blues Captain Scott England and veteran thrower Jonathan Stanhope, they have been consistently pipped in deciding legs by Hertford in recent history. A sizeable and skilled fresher uptake will be essential to their hopes of returning to the top.
Ever present and eternally menacing, Worcester I, despite a distinct dearth of silverware in the recent past, will remain a threat to the top teams. Boasting recent Blue Matt Boughen and a host of returning college stalwarts, they will look both to spoil Hertford’s and Wadham’s parties, and to curb any rise up the ranks from increasingly sharp-looking sides from Linacre and Catz.
The second and third divisions are home to several other college first and second sides, as well as two women’s teams from Wadham and Worcester. Whilst regularity and turnout for these divisions has in the past been patchy, the recent openness of the top league is surely an invitation for sides in the lower leagues to confound the record books.
A stage witnessing some of the most dramatic arrows of last season was the lone division of fours. A contest that saw OULS snatch victory from Mansfield by 71 points to 73 spawned some real danger-players in Trinity cuppers. Librarians by day, wizards of tungsten by night, Matthew Roper and Gavin Robinson led the University Library Services to their league title before occasioning dramatic upsets in the cup, felling Blues favourites in both the singles and pairs formats. It will be with great confidence that they lead the only non-college-affiliated team into flighty battle this term.
Outside the college world, the Blues team also enter this year braced for further drama and success. After victory at the National Championships in 2014, Oxford came into last summer’s tournament with courage and a steely mettle, yet also with an acute awareness of the desirous eyes of the northern universities that met them as they entered the Nottingham Trent SU. Superb consistency saw them chassé through the group stages. In spite of momentary concerns, the team sunk their quarter- and semi-final opponents to reach a second final in as many years.
In what became a pantomime performance, the outed teams, cheering and heckling from the Trent mezzanine, clearly positioned Oxford as the heroes and a bolshie Lancaster side as their villains.
Yet as the game reached its deciding match, in turn its deciding set, and tortuously a deciding leg, there was no happy ending for OUDC, as anchorman and crowd favourite Jonathan Stanhope succumbed in the final throws of the tournament. Incredible scenes, for sure, but a distinctly quiet night in a Nottingham hostel to follow for the team.
Nevertheless, with seven returning Blues from last year’s side, there is an air of renaissance amidst the now-experienced squad and its seasoned supporters; the standard exhibited by the team throughout the travails of Trinity Cuppers speaks volumes, foreshadowing greater triumphs to come in the 2015/16 season.
Whilst the lack of other-than-wrist exercise and preference for lager over Lucozade sees darts much maligned in the sporting world, it is a growing art in Oxford. With more teams than ever before, the leagues offer a great vehicle for visiting new colleges and their bars.
After a failed bid to introduce darts as an Olympic discipline at the Rio and Tokyo games, our sport must wait until at least 2024 for its turn on the biggest of stages, and for its own Olympic stadium.
But with an incipient Cambridge side beginning to appear on the horizon, there is renewed hope of finally securing Blues status for the underdog Varsity fixture. As the sport continues to throw its flights out across the town and see them settle on new teams and arrowsmiths, the cellars of Oxford’s college bars, the floor beneath its oches and the bristle of its double 20s have never looked so under threat.
If you would like to field a college team or express interest in playing for the University side, it is not too late. Please email [email protected] for more information.
