Authors: Eric Bristow
All the TV cameras and photographers were there as usual; they could smell blood. As far as I was concerned, if I was found guilty they might as well have pronounced a death sentence on me because it would’ve meant my life was over. In the grand scheme of things the rest of my life really did hinge on this day.
Everyone stuck by me. The people who knew me well knew I would never do anything like that. Harrows, who had sponsored me in exhibitions and the like, didn’t even flinch, whereas a lot of other companies would have pulled the plug on you for something as serious as what I was facing – guilty or not guilty, it wouldn’t have mattered. The people at Harrows, who had known me since I was eighteen, backed me all the way. Their representative Colin Harris even phoned me to say, ‘Don’t worry about it. You just get to court, sort it out and we’ll take it from there. Don’t put any pressure on yourself, just get through this court case first.’ That gave me heart, as did Sky’s reaction. I was working for them at this time, and as far as they were concerned I was innocent until proven guilty, which is how it should be.
I was acquitted and as the verdict was read out I just said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and left the court.
As I walked up to the press afterwards one of them said, ‘Congratulations, Mr Bristow, you have won the case.’
I said, ‘I haven’t won a thing. I have lost a wife,’ and with that I walked off, feeling utterly crushed.
Everyone who knows me knows my views on wife beaters. I grew up in pubs from the age of fourteen and knew the drinkers who came in for a pint and later went home to beat up their wives. They were brave lads weren’t they? I barred a bloke from the Cockney for beating up his missus. I lost faith in people from a very young age. I don’t really trust anyone, apart from a couple of very close friends, so to be faced with a wife-beating rap was just ridiculous. It’s just not me.
Following the case I didn’t talk to Jane for months. I felt very bitter towards her. It was sad because I wanted to watch the children growing up with my wife at my side.
When the assault charge came up, I moved into Mum’s old house while it was all going on.
I really didn’t see it coming, though I admit I wasn’t the best husband in the world. In the run-up to the court case I was told I had to have no contact with Jane and was not to see her or speak to her. It was another situation I found farcical, especially when she phoned me to ask for some money. I told her that because of
the
court order I couldn’t drop it off at our house, but instead I’d leave it for her in an envelope at my local Ladbrokes, where they know me. So I drew three hundred pounds out of the cashpoint, went into the bookies and told them Jane was coming in to pick up some money, and left the cash with them. Then I texted Jane the words, ‘This is the Leek Lifeguard, the coast is clear’.
That was a big mistake. As soon as Jane got that text I’d broken the restraining order and had been in touch. The police were round to arrest me in a shot. As I walked out of Mum’s house, I gave my watch and wallet to a next-door neighbour and told her I’d collect them the next day when they released me.
I was put in a cell down at the cop shop. This time the police were sympathetic. The arresting officer said to me, ‘Eric, I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do about this. We have to follow orders here. We know where you’re coming from but we have no choice.’
They gave me a crossword puzzle book and a pen and paper and I settled down for the night. They really didn’t want to take me, but they had no option. In their eyes and in the eyes of the law I had broken the restraining order.
I was up in court the following day and when the full facts of the matter were explained the judge just gave a sigh and said, ‘What’s this doing here?’ I don’t think he could believe the police and court time that was being
wasted
. He simply said, ‘You must not get in contact with her any more. You must agree to no more contact.’
I just nodded my head and I was a free man again, but I just couldn’t understand how it had ever got to be like it had.
The kids had initially stayed with Jane when I moved out. This was the house I’d worked for all my life, and all of a sudden I was never allowed there again. I haven’t seen it since and I haven’t even been allowed near it to this day. A few months after the court case, I got a call from my daughter, and she said, ‘Can we come and live with you, Dad?’
I was touched and told her, ‘Of course you can, you don’t have to ask, you are family and I’m your dad. Of course I’ll look after you.’
So they came to live with me at Mum’s house and have been there ever since.
I was worried at first when they came because the darts meant I’d be away from them for certain periods of time. Fortunately, I had two sisters living either side of me who agreed to take the kids in and look after them while I was away working, and the rest of the neighbours also chipped in – but if Jane had wanted to, she could’ve got them back quite easily, by pointing out that darts took me away from home quite a lot. However, there was no fight for them, which I was pleased about.
In the first few months after the divorce we sent messages by text. I couldn’t speak to Jane after what
had
happened. But I felt more sorry for the effect it had on our children. They went from having a mum and dad together all the time to having a father who was in jail and being threatened with assaulting his wife. Surely to God we could’ve sat round a table and worked everything out amicably, like I did with Maureen.
When I moved out of the family home I didn’t go straight to Mum’s house; I stayed in hotels for a month. If I was playing an exhibition in Blackburn I would stay in a hotel up there for three or four days and then move on. I hadn’t been to Mum’s house since she died, I couldn’t face all those memories, but in the end it just got daft because it was costing me a fortune in hotel bills so I went and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
I hadn’t let anyone touch anything in there when she died, so at first going through the drawers wasn’t very nice. I’d suddenly come across old photographs that I’d never seen before, hidden in little special places. That brought back the memories and one or two tears with it. But I stayed there, in that modest terrace, and I’m still there now. I don’t need a big house with a big mortgage to go with it, just like I don’t need a massive amount of money. I’ve got enough to live a comfortable lifestyle and recently bought my daughter a two-grand car for her birthday. She hasn’t passed her test yet but she’s itching to use it. Every weekend she’s cleaning it and
checking
the tyres. She lives with her boyfriend now, so I rang her up and said, ‘Have you moved the car?’ I was only kidding but it frightened the life out of her. James will get one as well, when he’s seventeen.
I’ve never thought about getting the big house back. It just doesn’t bother me. If Jane drops dead tomorrow the children will get it. I’ll just carry on working and making money. I’ve always been a licence to print money anyway because of the darts, so I’ll make more than make what I’ve lost.
As for relationships, that’s me done now. I will never settle down again. I don’t want to, I just want to do what I want to do. The divorce hurt me, and I have made a vow to myself never to get hurt like that again. It really did knock the stuffing out of me. Now I don’t miss waking up next to somebody every morning. I like doing my own thing. I know how to use a washing machine, I know how to use a dryer, I can iron and I’m a brilliant cook, especially when it comes to roast dinners. My father taught me how to cook from a young age. He drummed it into me that the best thing to be in life is independent, which is right.
The only thing I have to remember to do, which I didn’t have to when I was living with someone, is eat. I have never eaten a lot. The trouble is I don’t get hunger pangs. I can go two or three days without eating and not get any twinges, nothing. I have never had them and I have no idea what people are on about when they
say
they feel sick through lack of food. I make myself eat, though. If it’s there I’ll eat it. I don’t do breakfast or lunch but I’ll have a curry most nights or cook a roast lamb or roast chicken dinner for James and myself, then that’s me done until the following day’s dinnertime.
SIXTEEN
Legend
IF THE EIGHTIES
were brilliant and the nineties were the decade of being second best, by the turn of the millennium it was quite clear to me that my darting career on the professional circuit had come to an end – though I could hardly call my retirement peaceful with a brother suddenly being revealed to me in all his glory, my mum dying, court cases to win and a divorce to contend with.
Through this turmoil one thing kept me going and that was my work with Sky Sports. They approached me to become a spotter for them, something Keith Deller had been employed to do. I said no at first, I didn’t think I’d be suited for it or enjoy it, but they persuaded me to try it out.
I went into one of their big Sky vans during one of the premier darts events, and there were all these TVs lined up inside, all focused on different dart boards, and monitoring about eight games in progress. I had to tell the producer which game to focus on, advise on what
players
would go for to checkout, and basically keep the cameras moving from board to board. I loved it. I thought it was brilliant and basically it meant I was being paid to watch the game I love.
It wasn’t quite enough for Keith, though. He still wanted to be part of the limelight and found it very hard when he was no longer on telly. Legends of Darts was his brainwave. He had the idea of getting all the top players of yesteryear together for an eight-week round robin tournament that would culminate in a final at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet. Player after player signed up. As well as Keith there were Lowey, Bobby George, Big Cliff, Dave Whitcombe, Bob Anderson who went on to win it, and Peter Evison.
When they approached me I said I didn’t really want to do it. Setanta had promised coverage but I told them I really didn’t want to appear if I wasn’t playing well – if the yips came I really didn’t want to make a fool of myself on TV. I could still remember the end of my career with the PDC: I’d practise or play an exhibition game on the Tuesday night and be brilliant, and then as soon as a televised tournament began on the Friday I’d play horribly.
In the end I got harassed into doing it because they said they couldn’t have a Legends tour without me being there. I was basically told in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t play it wouldn’t go ahead and it would cost them all close to £20,000. So I relented. Whether
it
would’ve happened without me anyway I will never know, but I became part of the first Legends of Darts Tour 2008 which formed part of the old school’s last hurrah.
I would’ve liked Jocky to be there. He is possibly the biggest name from that era apart from me. We had heard rumours that he was playing darts again, so Keith rang him up, but he said he hadn’t thrown a dart for twelve years and couldn’t throw now because of his arthritis. If we’d got Jocky in, we’d have had a leg of the Legends Tour in Scotland and that had the potential to be riotous. But it wasn’t to be, and it was also sad that the very first World Champion Leighton Rees was missing. He had died in 2003, aged sixty-three.
I did a charity show with him two weeks before his death, picking him up at his local pub in Ynysybwl and taking him to the venue. He was complaining then of fluid on his chest and he was clearly not well, but we ended the night having a good booze-up before my driver Phil took him back to his Welsh village. As I wished him goodnight and gave him a hug, he said to me, ‘I want to come to America with you again. Debbie and I want to come out to Vegas, we miss it.’
I said, ‘Brilliant. Come to Vegas and we’ll have a piss-up. It’ll be just like old times.’
A fortnight later the fluid retention killed him. His heart just blew. He had a doctor’s appointment set for ten days after he died. If he had just gone to him earlier
and
said, ‘Look, doc, this isn’t right. I don’t feel right,’ he would still be here today.
I miss Leighton, he would’ve been great for that Legends Tour because he was the original Legend, the very first one at that inaugural World Championship. We had some great times together, me as the young lunatic and him as the disbelieving older player who got his laughs watching what I got up to. He used to say to me, ‘Why do you always keep on upsetting people?’
‘Because they’re all cunts.’ I’d say back.
Shaking his head he’d say, ‘Leave them alone, boyo, leave them alone,’ and he’d take a pull on the huge cigar he liked to smoke while having a drink.
I didn’t go to his funeral. I couldn’t go because it clashed with the funeral of Lorna Croft, Ollie’s wife, who helped set up the BDO. I didn’t go to hers either. Lorna was like a second mum and Leighton was my best buddy of old, so I thought by not going to either funeral I wouldn’t be showing any disrespect by just going to one. You would’ve thought the BDO and the Welsh BDO could’ve sorted that one out and had the funerals on different days. A lot of county teams sent half their side to one and half to the other. It was the only way really.
So Leighton wasn’t there at Legends, which I think he would’ve enjoyed, because other players like Whitcombe and Anderson were chomping at the bit. They hadn’t earned anything from darts for years, and
suddenly
they were back in the game again, as were Lowey and Bobby George. Getting Bobby involved helped to bridge the gap between the BDO and PDC, it healed some old wounds, but the good thing about Legends was that it wasn’t BDO or PDC organised. It was an independent tournament where maybe a guy whose career as a professional darts player was finished could get two or three years extra money and a bit of publicity to keep the exhibition door open.
The press launch was at Manchester United’s ground and it was good to see all the old faces together again. Me and Lowey get on brilliantly now. He’s a changed person from the guy I knew back in the eighties when he was a bit too serious for me. Now he is more relaxed and has completely lost the edge that used to personify him. When I asked him his thoughts on Legends he said, ‘Well, we have to carry on, mate. We have to earn a few more bob because we don’t know how many more Christmases we have got left.’