Introducing The Forgotten Women of Darts

 

When people talk about the history of women's darts, the same names understandably come up.

Fallon Sherrock, Beau Greaves, Lisa Ashton, Trina Gulliver, Anastasia Dobromyslova and, going back further, Maureen Flowers.

All have made enormous contributions to the game.

But what about the women who came before them?

Who was playing darts in the 1920s and 1930s? Were women entering competitions against men? Were there organised women's tournaments long before the BDO or PDC existed?

And perhaps most importantly, how many talented female players have simply disappeared from the history of the sport?

That's what I want to explore in a new Q4QS series, The Forgotten Women of Darts.

I'm going to start in the 1920s and work forwards, looking at the players, competitions, personalities and developments that helped shape women's darts.

Some names will be familiar. Others may be completely new to most readers, including me.

I'll be using historical records, contemporary newspaper reports and other available material to piece together the story. Where possible, I'd also like to hear directly from people who played, organised or witnessed women's darts in earlier decades.

And I suspect there will be a few surprises along the way.

The first instalment takes us back almost 100 years, to a time when darts was largely played in male-dominated pubs, yet women were already entering major competitions and beating men.

Welcome to The Forgotten Women of Darts.

The Forgotten Women of Darts – Part 1: The Women Who Played the Men (1920s–1937)

When you think about women playing competitive darts against men, what comes to mind?

For many people it will be Fallon Sherrock beating Ted Evetts at Alexandra Palace in December 2019.

Perhaps you think of Lisa Ashton earning a PDC Tour Card, or Beau Greaves competing against some of the best players in the world.

Go back further and you arrive at Maureen Flowers, arguably the first truly recognisable female darts star.

But what if I told you that women were entering major darts competitions against men nearly a century ago?

And not simply entering.

Some were winning matches, progressing through qualifying rounds and earning places in the biggest tournaments of their day.

For the first instalment of The Forgotten Women of Darts, I'm going right back to the beginnings of organised competitive darts.

Before the television cameras

Darts in the 1920s looked very different from the game we know today.

There were no packed arenas, televised World Championships or professional tours offering substantial prize money.

The pub was the centre of the darts world.

The National Darts Association was established in 1925, helping bring greater organisation to a sport that was growing rapidly in popularity.

Then, during the 1927–28 season, the News of the World Individual Darts Championship began.

It initially attracted around 1,000 entrants in the London area, but would eventually become one of the most prestigious competitions in the sport.

By the 1938–39 season, participation had reportedly grown to more than 280,000 entries.

Imagine trying to win your way through a competition of that size.

And here's something that surprised me when I started looking into this period.

Women were allowed to enter.

That doesn't mean they enjoyed the same opportunities as men.

Far from it.

A man's world?

We have to remember what Britain was like during the 1920s and 1930s.

Pubs, particularly public bars, were overwhelmingly male environments.

For men, playing darts regularly might simply mean visiting the local pub after work, joining a team and entering competitions.

For women, things weren't always so straightforward.

Even where there was no formal rule preventing them from competing, social attitudes and access to playing facilities created considerable barriers.

A woman might be perfectly capable of playing good darts but have far fewer opportunities to practise or compete.

That makes the achievements of some of the early female players all the more interesting.

Because despite those obstacles, women were playing.

And some were clearly very good.

Eileen Turnage — the teenager from Essex

One of the earliest names I've uncovered is Eileen Turnage.

Eileen grew up at the Cherry Tree pub in Witham, Essex, where her father William was the landlord.

Unlike many women of her generation, Eileen had regular access to a dartboard and the opportunity to develop her game.

She also played in the Cherry Tree darts team.

In 1936, aged just 18, she entered the News of the World competition.

Not a women's competition.

The same competition as the men.

Eileen won the Cherry Tree's qualifying event and progressed through the competition until she reached the Chelmsford Area Final, held at the Golden Fleece.

There she reached the last eight.

Her achievement was reported in the Essex Chronicle in May 1936.

Now, a quarter-final appearance might not sound particularly remarkable to somebody following modern darts.

But put yourself back in 1936.

An 18-year-old woman had entered a major darts competition, beaten male opponents and progressed far enough to attract newspaper attention.

And this was happening decades before organised women's darts became an established part of the sport.

I wonder how many other young women were doing something similar without their achievements being recorded.

Mrs Morgan — a remarkable achievement in 1937

If Eileen Turnage's story was impressive, what happened the following year was even more significant.

A woman recorded in historical accounts as Mrs A. Morgan represented the Old House at Home pub in Colden Common, Hampshire.

In April 1937, she competed in the Winchester Area section of the News of the World Championship.

And she won.

That victory earned Mrs Morgan a place in the News of the World Grand Finals in London.

She had qualified through the normal competition structure, playing against men.

She wasn't appearing as an exhibition player or receiving a special invitation because she was a woman.

She had earned her place.

Mrs Morgan lost in the first round of the Grand Finals, but that result hardly tells the full story.

As far as the surviving historical research establishes, she became the first woman to qualify for the News of the World Grand Finals.

Think about that for a moment.

In 1937, a woman was competing in the final stages of one of the most important darts tournaments in Britain.

This was nearly 40 years before the BDO was established and more than 80 years before Fallon Sherrock's famous victories at Alexandra Palace.

The circumstances were different, of course, and I wouldn't pretend the achievements are directly comparable.

But Mrs Morgan deserves a place in the history of competitive darts.

And yet how many darts supporters today have heard of her?

Were these women really exceptions?

This is the question I keep coming back to.

We know about Eileen Turnage because her progress was reported in a newspaper and later documented by darts historians.

We know about Mrs Morgan because she achieved something significant enough to enter the tournament's historical record.

But what about everyone else?

Were there women's pub teams competing regularly?

How many women entered local News of the World qualifying events?

Were there female players capable of matching the better male players in their areas, but who never progressed far enough to attract national attention?

And how many names have simply been lost?

I suspect there are considerably more stories waiting to be uncovered.

One of the difficulties with researching early women's darts is that the records are incomplete.

A newspaper might report that a woman won a competition without giving her first name. Other reports might mention a women's tournament without recording the results.

That makes building a complete picture difficult.

But it doesn't mean those competitions or players weren't important.

In fact, the gaps in the records are part of what makes this project interesting.

The day the Queen played darts

Towards the end of 1937, something rather unexpected happened.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited a community centre in Slough.

During the visit, they were invited to throw darts.

The Queen scored 21.

The King managed 19.

Apparently, the Queen was allowed to stand a little closer to the board, so perhaps we shouldn't read too much into the result.

But the scores weren't the important part.

The photographs were.

Pictures of Queen Elizabeth playing darts appeared in the newspapers, bringing the game to an audience far beyond the traditional pub environment.

Historical accounts suggest that the publicity encouraged greater interest among women, with enquiries being made about opportunities to learn and play.

It is difficult to measure precisely how much influence that royal appearance had.

But what happened next is certainly interesting.

During 1938, women's darts competitions were attracting substantial entries.

One tournament reportedly involved around 2,000 women, with its final broadcast by the BBC.

There were female players recording 180s, women's competitions appearing in local newspaper reports and growing evidence that darts was reaching women from very different backgrounds.

And all this was happening before the Second World War.

A forgotten beginning

When I started looking into women's darts history, I expected the story to become interesting around the 1970s, with Maureen Flowers and the development of organised women's competitions.

Instead, I've found women competing against men in the 1930s.

An 18-year-old from Essex reaching the last eight of an area final.

A woman from Hampshire qualifying for the News of the World Grand Finals.

And a Queen whose three darts helped bring national attention to women playing the game.

I certainly didn't expect to find all that in the first few years of research.

And I suspect we've only scratched the surface.

Women's darts didn't begin with the television era. Its roots go much further back.

The challenge now is to uncover as much of that history as possible.

Coming next: The Forgotten Women's Darts Boom, 1937–1939

In Part Two, I'll look at what happened after the Queen's famous visit.

A women's tournament attracting approximately 2,000 entrants.

A BBC broadcast of a women's darts final.

Women hitting 180s.

And some rather surprising names appearing in darts competitions.

It seems women's darts was developing momentum in the late 1930s.

Then came September 1939.

And the world changed.

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Can you help uncover the forgotten history?

I'm researching this series for Quest For Q School and would love to hear from anybody with information about women's darts in earlier decades.

Perhaps a parent or grandparent played competitively. Perhaps you have old newspaper cuttings, tournament programmes, photographs or stories that have been passed down through your family.

I'm particularly interested in the players and competitions that have largely disappeared from the records.

You can get in touch through Q4QS or the Q4QS Facebook group

There are almost certainly many more stories waiting to be told.

The Forgotten Women of Darts is an ongoing Q4QS historical series, tracing women's involvement in competitive darts from its earliest organised years to the modern professional game.

The main sources supporting this first instalment are:

• Dr Patrick Chaplin — The Eileen Turnage Story.

• Dr Patrick Chaplin — A Brief History of Ladies Darts.

• Dr Patrick Chaplin — The News of the World Individual Darts Championship.

• Essex Chronicle, 15 May 1936 — contemporary reporting on Eileen Turnage, as identified in Chaplin's research.