Bristow

At twenty, Bristow won the Winmau World Masters, his first major televised title. He would win the Masters five times in all: 1977, 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1984. The Crafty Cockney nickname, taken from a Los Angeles pub, dates from this period.

Bristow beat Bobby George 5–3 at Jollees Cabaret Club, Stoke-on-Trent, to win his first Embassy World Professional Darts Championship. He was 22, and walked on in the Crafty Cockney shirt that became his trademark.

A 5–3 win over John Lowe in the final made Bristow the first player to retain the Embassy world title. By now he was the world number one, a position he would hold for most of the decade.

Heavy favourite, Bristow lost the world final 6–5 to 23-year-old qualifier Keith Deller, who finished the deciding leg with a 138 checkout. It remains one of the best-known upsets in the sport. Bristow won the World Masters later the same year.

Bristow beat Dave Whitcombe 7–1 in the final to take his third world title, then added a fifth and final World Masters in the autumn. It was the most complete season of his career, and the peak of his dominance of the rankings.

A 6–2 win over John Lowe brought a fourth world championship. Bristow was also a fixture of the England sides that dominated the WDF World Cup through the 1980s, in both team and singles play.

Bristow beat Dave Whitcombe 6–0 in the final for a fifth world title in seven years, his third in a row. No player had won more, a record that stood until Phil Taylor passed it in the following decade.

Bristow reached the world final again but lost 6–4 to John Lowe. Around this time he developed dartitis, an involuntary inability to release the dart cleanly. He fought the condition for the rest of the decade while staying near the top of the rankings.

Bristow was appointed MBE in 1989, the first darts player to be honoured. In January he had reached another world final, losing 6–4 to Jocky Wilson.

Bristow lost the world final 6–1 to Phil Taylor, the Stoke thrower he had spotted and backed financially as a protégé. The result marked the handover between the sport’s two most decorated players.

Bristow was one of the sixteen players who broke away from the BDO in January 1993 to form the World Darts Council, later the PDC. He competed in the breakaway organisation’s world championships at the Circus Tavern for the rest of his playing career.

At 39, Bristow reached the semi-final of the PDC World Championship, losing 5–4 to Phil Taylor, who went on to take the title. It was his last deep run at a world championship. He later moved into television work as a Sky Sports pundit.

Eric Bristow died of a heart attack on 5 April 2018 in Liverpool, aged 60, after attending a Premier League Darts event at the Echo Arena. He left five World Championships, five World Masters, and a claim to be the defining player of darts’ first televised era.