By Jonathan Brown
The sport of darts has experienced a resurgence in the wake of Warrington teenager Luke Littler’s sensational rise. Now, Kilkeel man Andrew Bridges is giving young people locally a chance to enjoy darts and develop their skills. Who knows how far some of them may eventually go in the sport?
Andrew set up the BDC Darts Academy in May, and the group now has close to 20 members, from nine to 14 years of age. Andrew previously played competitively in the Newry Darts League and represented his county. The idea to set up a darts academy came to him last Christmas.
“When my 12-year-old son Jack started seeing Littler on the TV, he was asking to go and play darts out in the garage. Me and him were out playing in the evenings over Christmas last year, then his mates started coming over. At one point, there were eight young lads in my garage playing darts, and that’s really where the idea came from.”
The group plays at the Bracken Centre on the Ballinran Road every Tuesday night, from 6pm to 7pm. Andrew says he wants to provide a safe space for children and teenagers to play darts, something that he couldn’t avail of when he first encountered the sport as a youngster.
“When I was playing darts when I was younger, there was nothing like this, you needed to go round the pubs to play, and not every parent will want their child in that environment on a Saturday evening. I wanted to provide a friendly atmosphere and somewhere that parents could feel comfortable bringing their child to.”
Having played competitive darts, Andrew now wants to pass his skills on to the next generation. As he explained, the sport can be more technical than it appears.
“I provide that coaching element – teaching them how to throw darts, count scores, and manage their way through a game. How do they work out their checkouts and give themselves the best probability of winning a leg. It’s not just a case of throwing a dart at a board, there needs to be a bit of science and strategy behind it.”
Although he’s also keen to provide a few life lessons.
“The benefits of getting them into darts are huge – not even just on the sport side of things, it’s the social skills that they gain from it. They’re learning how to be respectful to other people, if they lose, how to handle adversity. It encourages so much discipline, control, and resilience, and you don’t get that playing a PlayStation. It’s about keeping them off the streets and off a device,” Andrew said.
Andrew has plans to affiliate the BDC Darts Academy with the Junior Darts Corporation next year, a move that will open up the door for participation in the JDC World Youth Championships, a competition Littler won twice, in 2022 and 2023.
“That’s the goal, to take some of our boys from playing in a hall in Ballinran to playing in the World Youth Championships. It’s exciting for the boys, in that it gives them a platform to go from just outside Kilkeel to the world stage. I want to open the door and give them a road map to get there.”
If you would like to join the BDC Darts Academy, get in touch via the group’s Facebook page, or you can contact Andrew.
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