Darryl Fitton
Darryl was born on the 5th of may 1962 in Stockport, England.
Stockport is a middlelarge English industrial city in the northwest of England. Looking at the map of Great Britainit seems as if Stockport is the most central point of England te zijn. Stockport is located about ongeveer 10 kilometers southwest of Manchester and has over 135.000 inhabitants. The welknown river Mersey starts in Stockport by the coming together of the rivers Goyt and Tame.
Stockport has a lot of beautiful things to offer.
Darryls career at darts started early. When he was of off school and during the schoolholidays he mostly went with his mother to work where he could see the male colleagues playing their gam of darts. Darryl liked to watch them and was always picking up the bouncers. When one of the men asked him if he wanted to try the game he waited till they stopped tot go back to work and started practising. And within 3 to 4 weeks Darryl was able to defeat these players. At the age of ten Darryl got his first own dartboard. His father seemed tot be the one to beat and he didn't really succeed at it. The fun in the game was lost there and the young lad picked up football instead. A sport which Darryl is still very fond of. His love for FC Liverpool started in this period. At fifteen Darryl got injured during a footbalmatch and he had to stay behind in the dressingroom during halftime. In the dressingroom was a dartboard, there were darts and in fact the rest is history.
During his first season Darryl entered the highest division and he won won more matches than he lost. A year later he played with a couple of his best friends (his mate Pete Wooding, Alan Evans and Cliff Inglis) in the best team of this division. This team is even now still going strong.
Darryl first played in his own region before he started in the Super League. His Cheshire debut was against Merseyside in the Everton Road Social Club on his 17th birthday on the 5th of may 1979. Darryl played about 20 years on a row for Cheshire before he started playing for Lancashire with players like Baxter, Warriner, Williams, Coote, Derbyshire, Roe, all internationals.
His debut for the English team was in 2001. His first tournament for the BDO was the Scotisch Open in 2001. He reached the last eight players, and lost his game from the guy who went on to win the tournament Richie Davies. Darryl was able to go and play the Embassy (now Lakeside) with 16 points in his first year and is one of the regulars since then as one of the topplayers of the BDO.
The Dazzler
The nickname The Dazzler came out of two things. The old type of scoreboards often seen and used at local games. On this board were 3 little lights for each part of the dartbord. The lights in the triple 20 were red and scoring the maximum 180 the light lit up, flashing. 'Light up the dazzler!' was a often heared yell. Daz as a short version of Darryl was combined with the often lit up score boards dazzler to 'The Dazzler'. So this nickname has nothing to do with The Dazzler of the Marvel Comics or with the verbe 'to dazzle'.
Apart from his nickname it is the 'nutty boy-dance' performed on the wellknown and fantastic "one step beyond" of the British Ska-band Maddness and his sunglasses that made him famous with a large dartsloving audience. The Madness 'walk-on' was only first performed in 2003. The dance wasn't new to Darryl, he performed it often with his friends when the song was played on juke-boxes in the pubs.During the IDL (International Darts League) in Holland, 2003 Darryl did the 'nutty boy-dance' for the first time on stage (in a match against Raymond van Barneveld). The next time at the World Darts Trophee in Holland the room was filled with fans wearing sunglasses and 'nutty boy' t-shirts. From that moment on "The nuttyboy-style" started leading an own life.
Darryl doesn't only do his walk-on on their music, he's also a big fan of Madness the English Ska-band.
Darryl the man behind the dartsplayer
Darryl Fitton is really popular in the dartscircuit. It's not strange that he won the 2006 Grand Slam Personality Award. A price that suits him: Darryl is an enthousiastic, kind, sportive oponent en mostly takes a lot of time for his fans voor zijn. Despite his large figure Darryl is a friendly en huggable guy en is at his best surrounded by friends and most important: family. Darryl is wellknow for the attention that he gives to guests (young and old) during the many demonstrations that he gives. Often he evens opens his 'book of trics and tips' to his (young) fans helping them to get better at the game he likes so much.
Darryl lets a young fan enjoy being part of the game during a demonstration.
Darryl is still very good friends with his ex-wive Samantha. They have 2 daughters a grandson (Harrison) and two granddaughters (Ella and Sofia), of which he speaks a lot and is always showing pictures of. A proud granddad!
Before starting his professional darting career Darryl had a job as an undertaker.
At the start of 2006 Darryl decided to stay ith the BDO when a lot of other players went to the PDC. 'I could have doubled my income but want to play with my friends and they are at the BDO' was what he said to www.infodarts.nl. 'I have taken this decision with my hart and not with my wallet'. It cost him the possibility of playing the Masters of Darts.
Darryl's hobbies
The Dazzler loves football (especially Liverpool and the English team) and golf.
His youngest daugther plays korfball and he likes going to see her play her matches. Besides that he likes to go to the cinema and go out for a good meal.
The Dazzlers darts
Darryl used to play with Harrows 22 grs. nickel-tungsten darts, modell Crafty Cockney (Eric Brostow). In the year 2006 Darryl had a new design made which was part of the collection of Master Darts. Nowadays Darryl plays with Dazzler G-force Pro range darts, 22 grs. This model is for sale 20, 22, 24 and 26 grams.
The barrel of the 'Crafty Cockney'