Fifer Jocky Wilson tasted sweet success 35 years ago against bitter darts rival Eric Bristow – thanks to wine gums.
The tungsten tussle was served up on the biggest stage of all at Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green in a World Championship thriller on January 14 1989.
Jocky’s legendary oche battles with the “Crafty Cockney” would rank alongside Coe versus Ovett and Prost versus Senna in a decade full of intriguing sporting rivalries.
The story of Jocky’s break into the big time has been well documented in the past.
Out of work in 1973, he found himself at a loose end and went to the Lister Bar in Kirkcaldy, where he was persuaded to make up the numbers in a darts team.
While he may have been “absolutely rubbish” that day, he enjoyed the game and practiced determinedly in the privacy of his own home.
The rest is history.
His first victory in the World Championship came in 1982 when he beat John Lowe 5-3 in the final and he became a household name.
Long before teenage sensation Luke Littler emerged on the darts scene, the sport, at that time was a world populated by hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking, middle-aged men with double chins and receding hairlines.
Jocky’s regular alcohol intake during his heyday was lager chased by “seven or eight vodkas to keep my nerves so that I can play my best”.
He would bring his own optic to tournaments.
A ban on smoking on stage in 1987 stopped Jocky throwing with a cigarette in his “spare hand”.
This ruling was followed by a ban on drinking on stage in 1988.
Trying to stop smoking, Jocky picked up a wine gums habit before his tilt at the world crown in 1989.
He was sucking them “almost 24 hours a day” and reckoned it was just the thing for his concentration.
Jocky was not the only star to have superstitions.
When John Lowe won in 1987, he wore the same socks and lunched on prawns and brown bread at noon every day.
Jocky Wilson raised money for Lockerbie victims
Jocky was staying well away from the rest of the players at another hotel to avoid distractions.
He warmed up for Lakeside by going to Ecclefechan and raised £3,000 for the Lockerbie Disaster Fund by lining up against the dozen best sharpshooters in
the Borders.
It was a gesture that summed up the magic of the wee man.
A never-say-die spirit was the deciding factor in Jocky’s run to that 1989 final, along with a fair slice of luck.
In the second round Alan Warriner missed eight shots at a double to beat him.
Then Jocky beat Mike Gregory 4-3 in the quarter-final after a final set sudden death finish which made for brilliant TV.
Then he won 5-4 against reigning world champion “The Limestone Cowboy” Bob Anderson in the semis, after being 4-2 down.
Anderson was in the form of his life and earlier in the week he had missed out on a cool £52,000 when he missed the double 12 for a nine-dart finish.
It was an incredible match with Jocky leading 2-0, then trailing 2-4 before producing his finest-ever form and winning the last three sets.
Jocky said later: “When I won the first two sets I thought I was really buzzing, but when I went 4-2 down I really thought I was on the way out.
“But I never gave up and it paid off in the end.”
Jocky’s victory over Anderson set up a clash with Bristow after the five-times champion coasted through the second semi-final, beating John Lowe by five sets to one.
The 1989 world darts final was a ‘battle royal’
Jocky would go on to defeat Bristow 6-4 in the final to clinch his second world crown at Lakeside.
This prompted The Sunday Post back page to proclaim: ‘If Bristow’s worth an MBE give wee Jocky a knighthood’.
The Sunday Post said the “game’s top two gladiators” gave the crowd a “battle royal which had earlier resembled a ritual slaughter”.
They did indeed.
The 1,300 fans stood on top of their chairs to get as close to the action as their limbs would permit.
It was best of 11 and Jocky won the first five sets and came within a set of inflicting total annihilation on his deadliest opponent.
When Bristow patted his opponent on the head after taking set six, Jocky tried
hard to give his supporters heart attacks by losing the next three in a row.
Needing only double 18 in the ninth set to clinch the title, Jocky miscounted and threw at double top instead.
“I don’t know what went through my mind,” he said later.
“I needed 104 and then hit treble 18 and a single 14, which left me 36.
“But, for some reason or other, I thought I needed 40.
“I guess I got too excited.”
Instead of winning the title 6-3, Bristow won the ninth set and then had a superb checkout of 130 to pull up to two legs all in the vital 10th set.
Had Bristow made it 5-5, even Jocky admitted that he would probably have lost.
“But I kept my nerve in that final leg,” he said.
“And that’s what counts at this level.
“I must confess, I had my luck during the week because I had one hard match after another.
“My big secret is that I never give up,” said Jocky, whose victory earned him £20,000.
Among those celebrating at the Lakeside were Jocky’s two greatest fans, George Boyne and Watty Glendinning from Windygates in Fife.
George, a managing director of Scottish and Newcastle Breweries, and Watty, who was a haulage contractor, drove over 500 miles through the night to see Jocky in action.
George and Watty knew all the top players so well that they once travelled on the Scottish team bus to an international down in England.
George was marrying Helen McLaren from Kirkcaldy that March and said he was going to get it down in writing that he’d still be allowed to go to see Jocky playing darts.
But that 1989 title was also to be Jocky’s last taste of success in any major tournament.
He never formally announced his retirement from darts but simply departed from the sport following the 1995 World Matchplay and returned home to Kirkcaldy.
Jocky was 62 when he passed away after succumbing to health problems on March 24 2012, leaving his native Kirkcaldy and the wider darts community in mourning.
Arch-rival Bristow joined Jocky’s beloved wife Malvina, children John, Willie and Ann-Marie and his six grandchildren for the emotional funeral service in Kirkcaldy.
Bristow, speaking after the service, said: “He was a character.
“Every sport needs characters and Jocky was a big one of ours.
“He was a great player.
“You don’t win the world championship twice, do you?
“To win it twice you’ve got to be a proper darts player and that’s what he was.”
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