“141 points away from £52,000. Everybody cheering him on, hoping and so is he.”
Treble 20.
“Yes!”
Treble 19.
“Yes! Double 12?!”
Double 12.
“Yes! It’s there! Paul Lim, a nine dart finish! £52,000! Can you believe it?”
The date is January 9, 1990 and it is a date steeped in darts folklore when Paul Lim threw a nine-dart leg at the Lakeside.
Tony Green was the man in the commentary box calling the action when Lim hit the perfect leg. The first, and only, nine darter at a BDO World Championship.
In late 2016, Green announced he was hanging up the microphone after commentating on all but one of the first 39 stagings of the historic event.
“I’ve had so many great years, so many great times,” Green recalls fondly. “I’ve travelled the world three times over helping other countries.
“I think I’ve done my part. I’ve enjoyed it and I’ll never regret it.”
Green commentated on the very first BDO World Championship on the BBC back in 1978, and would be a regular in the commentary box until 2011.
At the end of 2010 it was announced that Green had been diagnosed with cancer of the tongue, and as a result he would not be commentating on the 2011 BDO World Championship.
Green returned to the commentary box later that year, and was involved with commentating duties up until 2016.
“Because I’ve had the cancer I’m just having to think, I’m not fair with myself and I’m not fair with anybody else,” he said.
“That’s the reason (I’m retiring). I think it’s time as well. But I’m going to miss it.”
Before becoming a commentator, Green played darts on the BDO circuit and also represented the county of Lancashire.
“I played for Lancashire and then they wanted someone to do the calling out,” he said.
“It was a county match and I said ‘yeah give us it here, I’ll do that’ and it went from there.
“And then I got into the commentary with the BDO, that came along and I put my darts away.
“As soon as that came up, I thought ‘yeah, I’ll put my heart and soul into the commentating side of it.’ And in my point of view I loved it, I still love it.
“I can still commentate, but I don’t feel it’s fair. I’m sure there’s some more (commentators) just sitting there, waiting in the wings, ready to jump in the hot seat and I wish them all well. I’ve done my spell.”
A few years after making his commentary debut on the BBC, Green was asked to be a part of a programme on rival station ITV called Bullseye, a television darts quiz show which has become synonymous with the sport and is still popular today, with repeats regularly being shown in the UK.
“Bullseye was one of the big major factors in my life,” Green said. “It’s there and it’s going to be there for a while, I know that.
“It’s all down to the producers, what they feel like and at the early stages darts wasn’t even thought of. But it’s thought of now.”
Green struck up a formidable partnership in the commentary box with the late Sid Waddell, with the duo commentating at Lakeside from 1978 to 1994, before Waddell left the BBC.
“It was such a sad day (when Sid died) and to be honest with you I still haven’t got over it,” he said.
“We were mates, we had fun and we could do what we wanted back then (laughs). it was early days, with Sid’s comments and everything, we just had a great laugh. I think we had a duo there.
“I think it was renowned, but now what the heads of the BBC really wanted, but we kept it going and we were getting the viewers, that was the main thing.
“And it carried on from there, and it’s just built up and built up. The darts I’ve just seen (at the PDC World Championship), it’s unbelievable.”
With Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson and Raymond van Barneveld all setting new records at Alexandra Palace over the last few weeks, Green says he would love to have had the opportunity to commentate on the other side of the darting divide.
“I wish I was still doing the commentary and on the other side of it,” he said.
“Putting into the viewers how difficult it is and how simplified they’re making it.
“180s, the doubles, it’s just fantastic the excitement that’s there. When you look at the people that’s attended from abroad, it’s coming from every corner of the map.
“I’d be there now but I’ve got to be fair with myself and be fair with the public, and there’s some good commentators out there. But it won’t be me.
“I loved it and I still love it, I’ll see it on the box, I might pop in!”
Green was a BDO official during the time of the split in darts in the early 1990s, and was a former chair of the International Darts Players’ Association, which served as the players’ union for those who remained in the BDO.
“It was a revolution really with the players all going on their own with the PDC,” he said, “but it was there to happen.
“The BDO took it that far and I feel sad really, but at the end of the day I think it shows now that it was wanted.
“Darts wanted something different and the PDC brought it together, but there was a lot of people beforehand that helped it when it first started with the difficulties.
“Things change, you can’t be stagnant. It’s just there, someone can come along with a few million saying ‘right, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.’
“In hindsight I felt it was wrong, but having seen how it’s come through no, it was the right thing.
“They did the right thing, it’s sad to say that. There was a family and Olly Croft really put it all together.
“But it had another meaning, another time and place where it had to change and it was through the players.
“The players united for a better world, and they said we’re going to do this and it worked.
“Mind you, the BDO are still there. They’re still bringing on the youngsters and you can’t do without them.
“The BDO will be there, it has a part to play, even if the PDC was to pile the money into it, I’m sure they would see the youth coming through, you’ve got to maintain that.
“The thing is, the way it’s going now it’s just money, it’s the money side.
“The players will do the same thing. They want the money to go up. It’s like a boxing match isn’t it, the bigger the match, the bigger the outlet.
“I think it will carry on. The viewers I’m sure they’re all ready for it, hot on their chairs, cups of tea by the side of them, they get the best view.
“But they don’t get the excitement of being there at Lakeside and Ally Pally.
“It’s excitement, it’s only when they get down to that last dart and bang, that’s when all the excitement explodes.”
Article republished from January 6, 2017
Tony Green (January 29, 1939 – March 4, 2024)
Weekly Dartscast 
Leave a comment