Eric Bristow Read Online Free PDF

away games.
    In the summer the leagues finished, and that was when my attention turned to girls. I met my first love, Pauline, when I was sixteen. She was beautiful, and she thought I was magic. We hit it of straight away and had a brilliant time. Then, towards the end of summer, the Monday league restarted so I couldn’t see her that night, a little later the Tuesday league began, then the Wednesday league, and she said to me, ‘When can I see you?’
    ‘How about next summer?’ I replied.
    She may have been my first love but darts came before everything – and that was the problem. I couldn’t have any relationships with girls because I just didn’t have the time; the only love affair I had was with darts. I’d meet girls, sleep with them and they’d ask me, ‘When am I going to meet you again?’
    ‘You ain’t,’ I’d reply.
    Darts was much more important. Nothing intruded on my darts. When I worked for MFI I’d barely started the job before quitting. Their busiest day was Saturday and I’d be travelling on Friday night to play darts on a Saturday so I told them I couldn’t work then.
    My boss said, ‘If you don’t work on a Saturday you’re sacked.’
    ‘I’ll get my cards now then,’ I said, ‘because I’m off,’ and that was the end of that.
    I played for the Arundel Arms for about eighteen months and then the whole team moved to another pub close by called the Red Lion. We had a nice little room at the back of the pub where we could play darts and practise. At the front, in the main bar, it was chaos. On a Thursday the place would be heaving with Irish – in those days you got paid every Thursday, so they’d be in the front drinking and our lads would be in the back playing darts. Every week these Irish lads would kick off. There’d be mass brawls inside the pub and on the pavement outside. Then they’d be back at the bar minutes later, bloodied and bruised with their arms rounds each other, knocking more booze back! Because of this the turnover of landlords was high. Some just couldn’t cope – and added to this many of them would end up getting robbed or beaten up by the customers. Our darts champion Brian Kearney, who was a good mate of mine but has now died, used to get in with a new landlord and help serve behind the bar. Once he’d got on friendly terms, and he did this to every landlord who worked there, he’d take him out for an Indian, and while they were at the restaurant Brian’s accomplices would be in the boozer robbing it. It was the norm: every few weeks we’d be playing darts and you’d hear Brian say, ‘I’m going for an Indian tonight, lads.’ I’d say, ‘For Christ’s sake, here we go again.’
    One bloke came in, yet another new landlord, and he had these two big Alsatian dogs with him, fierce beasts they were, but I never got to see this guy. He moved in on a Tuesday and announced to the whole pub, ‘I’ve heard same of your landlords here have been done over a few times. Well, you won’t fucking do me with these two Alsatians here.’
    The following night word got round that the new landlord thought he was a bit of a hard nut, so this geezer walked into the pool room, took the cue off a bloke who was playing, walked through to the front of the bar where the new landlord was serving and smacked him straight across the top of his head with it. He split his head right open and fractured his skull. As the landlord lay slumped on the floor his attacker said to him, ‘Where are your fucking dogs now, pal?’
    The Alsatians were locked in the back. They couldn’t exactly roam around the bar. This poor bloke only lasted a day and a half.
    Not all the landlords before that were bad. We had this great couple come in who were gay. They were fantastic and within days of them arriving we had the cleanest pub in London. They were there with their feather dusters and cleaning cloths, a bucket and a mop. The pub didn’t have a speck of dust in it all the time they