Sports News…

It’s been a week of sporting excellence at From Beer To Paternity Towers with the punchbag taking such a severe beating on Sunday that it split in half.

I’d like to pretend that this is down to the sheer power I can unleash when in the right mood, but more realistically it’s because I bought a cheap one and it’s had three years of wear and tear.

The real sporting highlight of the weekend, however, was the start of the BDO (British Darts Organisation) World Championship at Lakeside.

Bizarrely there are two world darts championships with the PDC (Professional Darts Council) event held a week before the Lakeside one and screened on Sky. But as FBTP Towers has a ban on all things Murdoch-owned we have to settle for the BDO event on the BBC, which is essentially inferior in darting quality as all the top payers in the world play in the other one.

It’s a bit like all the top actors in the world committing to one TV station and all the top am-dram actors starring on another. The difference in quality is that noticeable…

There are still joys to be had, though, at the BBC event with Ray Stubbs, a man who always looks like a rabbit caught in car headlights, and Bobby George, a sort of Donald Trump for blinged-up chavs, doing their best to make it all sound utterly gripping.

And there’s also the joy of the roving female reporter who talks to the protagonists in the players lounge. Her name escapes me but the poor girl is great entertainment value as she quizzes various players on how and why they lost.

A sample conversation yesterday went:

‘So why do you think you lost?’
‘I didn’t hit enough trebles twenties and I missed lot of doubles…’
‘Have you learnt anything from this defeat?’
‘Yes. I need to hit more trebles twenties and more doubles…’

You get the impression that interviewing darts players, who as a rule don’t have the most extensive vocabulary and breath-taking conversational skills in the world, wasn’t the first job on her list when she got hired as a BBC reporter. But she gamely plugs away and surely deserves some sort of medal for her efforts.

Also adding his own touch of idiocy is commentator Tony Green.

The PDC event has Sid Waddell, quite possibly the greatest commentator ever. At anything. Anywhere. In the world.

But if Waddell is the Sinatra of commentary then Tony Green is a poor man’s Vince Hill. And this wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t spend most of his time trying to convince all and sundry that this is the ‘real’ world championships rather than the real world championship’s poorer cousin which by some fluke of contracting happens to have prime-time terrestrial TV.

Having written all this, though, myself and the missus will still be watching at any given opportunity. It really is that addictive.

And at least the behemoth and Fit Club star Andy Fordham (pictured above) is still in the event and he’s always good value.