Chatting Bull with Dan Dawson - Issue #021
Will there ever be an African World Darts Champion? Perhaps more importantly, if there is to be a future Ally Pally winner from Africa, how does the sport get there as quickly as possible?
The reason I ask is because the new qualifying structure for the revamped and expanded 128-player World Championship has just been released, detailing extra spots for North America, Asia, Oceania, female players and plenty more from the professional ranks - but still just the one spot for players from Africa.
We have already seen a winner of a big-stage PDC title from Africa, when Devon Petersen enjoyed an 18 month spell as one of the most exciting players in the world four years ago.
Compare that with Asia, where there is a well-established subsidiary PDC circuit, and yet is still to produce a title winner of any sort in the elite PDC system. However, therein lies the difference between the two regions - it is still very early days in setting-up a comparable tour in Africa.
The PDC Asia Tour has grown notably (despite a real setback during Covid) in recent years, as has the CDC in North America. Oceania has a long-running tour system, although that is currently being rejigged to try and shake Australian and New Zealand darts out of a recent malaise. All three continents also have World Series events to help promote the sport in their regions. Having these carrots - big TV events and qualifying spots for Ally Pally are important “top-down” incentives for players to try and grow the sport in these areas. But the tour systems are the “bottom-up”, grass roots required to help drive up standards.
Getting the best players from an area together regularly, competing against each other, is the best way to get them to improve - to push each other to get better, until some can make the step up to PDC level. Africa does not have that yet, despite having a small handful of standout individuals (notably Petersen, along with fellow South African Cameron Carolissen and Kenya’s Peter Wachiuri). But Petersen himself is helping to try and change that with the African Darts Group. It will take time, though - both the CDC and the Asia Tour have grown in the last decade, and produced players who have won their PDC Tour Cards, but have yet to produce a top-level player.
One spot for Africa for Ally Pally is probably right at this moment, but given time, and with the right conditions to create new elite level players, then more qualifying places could be made available. In which case, an African World Champion might not be the most far-fetched idea.
Issue #021 Quiz Answers
1) Dimitri Van den Bergh
2) 16
3) Japan
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