Legend Darts · Heritage
Seven centuries from the archer’s butt to the arena. The very British story of a game of skill.
Origins · Medieval England
Tradition holds that darts began with the English longbowman: arrows shortened by hand and thrown at the upturned end of a wine barrel, practice for the eye when winter kept the bow indoors. The dry, cracked rings of the wood made the first scoring zones. By Tudor times the game had reached court: in 1530, so the story goes, Anne Boleyn presented Henry VIII with a set of richly ornamented darts.
The Pub Game
The modern game grew up in the British public house. Lightweight wooden darts and fléchettes imported from France met the fairground throwing games of the age, and the pub game came out of the mix. Most villages had a board, and most taprooms had a player nobody could beat.
The Numbering
A Bury carpenter named Brian Gamlin is credited with the board’s devilish arithmetic: twenty segments arranged so that every big number sits beside punishing small ones, an order that penalises ambition and rewards nerve. It hasn’t changed since.
The Leeds Ruling
Summonsed for permitting a game of chance in his Leeds pub, landlord Jim Garside called on a local regular, William “Bigfoot” Anakin. He put three darts in the twenty on demand, then did it again. The bench agreed that darts was a game of skill, and the pub game was legal.
The First Crowds
The News of the World championship began in London in 1927 and grew into the biggest open title in British sport. By the post-war years, hundreds of thousands entered from the public bar, and the winner was carried out of it a national name.
Material Science
For centuries darts were wood and brass. Tungsten is more than twice as dense as brass, so the same weight fits in a far slimmer barrel and three darts can sit closer together in the treble. Legend still machines every barrel from it.
The Television Age
The first World Championship was thrown in 1978, and television made club players into household names. The decade that followed belonged to one of them above all: a Hackney boy called Eric Bristow, five times champion of the world. In 1993, sixteen professionals broke away to found what became the PDC, and with it the modern professional circuit.
The Modern Era
Today darts sells out arenas from London to Sydney, and the World Championship at Alexandra Palace pulls television audiences that used to belong to cup finals. The test hasn’t changed: three darts and a steady nerve.
The Brand
Legend is a British darts brand and the home of the original Eric Bristow Crafty Cockney darts. Every Bristow barrel carries his cocked-finger hallmark and date.
Est. in the pub · Engineered for the stage
