Imagine turning up to your local darts league, asking if you could join, and being told you weren't allowed.
Not because you weren't good enough.
Not because the league was full.
Simply because you were a woman.
It sounds ridiculous today, but that's exactly the sort of problem female darts players were still encountering during the 1960s.
And perhaps the most surprising thing is that, at the same time, women were beginning to win national championships and establish themselves as serious competitive players.
Welcome to Part Four of The Forgotten Women of Darts.
So far, we've travelled from the beginnings of organised darts in the 1920s, through the remarkable women's competitions of the 1930s, the Second World War and the gradual rebuilding of the game during the 1950s.
We've already discovered some names that deserve remembering.
Eileen Turnage, Mrs Morgan, Joan Adams and Rose Branham, among others.
Now we're moving into the 1960s.
And this is where the story begins to change.
A woman's place wasn't always at the dartboard
By the 1960s, darts was firmly established in pubs and clubs throughout Britain.
There were leagues, competitions and plenty of opportunities for men to play regularly.
But women didn't necessarily enjoy those same opportunities.
In 1963, a housewife from Lancaster applied to join her local darts league.
She was refused.
The reason was straightforward: the league was for men only.
Now, I don't know how good this particular woman was.
Perhaps she was an excellent player.
Perhaps she simply wanted to enjoy a competitive game of darts.
But her ability wasn't the issue.
Her gender was.
And I think that tells us quite a lot about the obstacles women still faced.
It's particularly interesting when you remember that Mrs Morgan had qualified for the News of the World Grand Finals against men back in 1937.
More than 25 years later, some women were still struggling to gain entry to an ordinary local league.
Progress clearly wasn't happening everywhere at the same speed.
Women were still playing
Despite those barriers, women's darts continued to develop.
We saw in Part Three that the National Darts Association of Great Britain had introduced a Women's Pairs Championship in 1958.
Joan Adams and Rose Branham of King's Lynn became its first winners.
That was an important development because it provided a recognised national competition specifically for women.
But there was still something missing.
An individual women's championship.
For a player who wanted to establish herself as one of the best female darts players in the country, that would be an important opportunity.
And in 1967, it finally arrived.
Marjorie Drabble — a name worth remembering
In 1967, the National Darts Association of Great Britain introduced its first Women's Individual Championship.
The inaugural winner was Marjorie Drabble, representing the Marston Moor Club near Chesterfield.
Another name that I suspect most modern darts supporters won't recognise.
Yet Marjorie holds a genuine place in the history of women's darts.
She won the first women's individual title organised by one of Britain's principal darts associations.
That deserves remembering.
Unfortunately, I've found very little reliable information about her wider playing career.
Was she a regular league player?
Had she been competing throughout the 1950s?
Did she win other significant titles?
At present, I can't answer those questions.
But I would love to find out.
It's another example of something we're encountering regularly in this series.
We know a woman achieved something important, but much of the story surrounding that achievement has disappeared.
Perhaps a local newspaper in the Chesterfield area contains more details.
Perhaps there are photographs or old programmes still sitting in somebody's collection.
For now, at least, we can put Marjorie Drabble's name back into the conversation.
A player from Cornwall
Another name worth exploring is Loveday King.
We briefly met Loveday at the end of Part Three, but her story really begins to develop during the 1960s.
Loveday was born in Cornwall in 1935 and began playing darts in 1952, encouraged by her husband Tommy.
Like many women of her generation, she wasn't entering a professional circuit or following a carefully structured pathway into competitive darts.
She was simply playing the game and becoming rather good at it.
By 1968, she was winning competitions.
That year, Loveday partnered her sister Pauline to victory in the Newquay and District Ladies' Doubles.
It's a lovely little detail.
Two sisters from Cornwall winning a local women's darts title.
Nothing particularly glamorous about it.
But these are exactly the sorts of stories I want to include in this series.
Because before the television cameras and major championships, there were players developing their skills through ordinary local competitions.
And Loveday was going to become rather more than an ordinary local player.
Was Loveday King the first female darts superstar?
That's a difficult question.
It depends what we mean by a superstar.
Maureen Flowers would later become one of the most recognisable women in darts, particularly as television coverage developed.
But Loveday was already establishing herself as a leading player before many people outside the sport knew who she was.
And her reputation wasn't confined to women's competitions.
In later interviews, Loveday recalled that she was quite capable of beating male players in Cornwall.
She was known as a strong competitor, and her ability eventually brought her to the attention of people involved in organising darts nationally.
By the early 1970s, she had become Cornwall Ladies' champion.
That achievement would help take her somewhere that very few women had reached before.
National television.
Why local darts mattered so much
One thing I keep noticing as I research these early decades is just how important local darts was to the development of women's competition.
Today, we tend to judge players through rankings, televised championships, averages and major titles.
But for women playing during the 1950s and 1960s, there wasn't necessarily a clear route from the local pub to a national stage.
A talented player might spend years competing in small tournaments without ever having the opportunity to demonstrate her ability against the best players elsewhere.
And if her local league didn't allow women to enter, the opportunities could be even more limited.
That makes the development of women's competitions particularly important.
The 1958 pairs championship and the 1967 individual championship weren't simply additional trophies.
They provided opportunities for women to compete for recognised titles.
And they helped establish the idea that women's darts deserved a place within the organised game.
It was still a long way from the professional structures we know today.
But the foundations were gradually being laid.
Then television began taking an interest
By the beginning of the 1970s, darts was starting to attract television attention.
Not yet the packed arenas and major broadcasts that would follow later in the decade.
Instead, the game appeared as part of programmes celebrating traditional pub sports.
One of the most important was Yorkshire Television's The Indoor League, developed in 1972 and first broadcast in 1973.
Presented by former England cricketer Fred Trueman, it featured traditional indoor games, including darts.
The programme also helped introduce viewers to commentators Dave Lanning and Sid Waddell.
And during its second series, women's darts received an important opportunity.
One of the players selected was Loveday King.
Loveday gets her television moment
Loveday's success as Cornwall Ladies' champion had attracted the attention of Charlie Burden, chairman of the National Darts Association of Great Britain.
He put her name forward to represent Cornwall in the women's darts competition on The Indoor League.
For someone who had spent years playing local darts, it must have been quite an experience.
Suddenly she was appearing on television.
And she didn't simply turn up to make up the numbers.
Loveday reached the final, where she faced Jessie Catterick, known as Jessie 'Javelin' Catterick.
Loveday won.
She became the first winner of The Indoor League's women's darts championship.
It was a significant moment.
Here was a woman who had learned the game through ordinary local darts in Cornwall, progressing to a televised competition and winning against other leading female players.
And the story has a rather amusing detail.
When Fred Trueman presented Loveday with her gold medal, he apparently struggled to pronounce her name.
They had to record the presentation again.
I rather like that.
It's the sort of small detail that makes these historical players feel like real people rather than just names on a list of results.
Another forgotten finalist
And what about Jessie Catterick?
We've mentioned Loveday King, but Jessie deserves recognition too.
She reached the final of one of the earliest televised women's darts competitions in Britain.
Her nickname, Jessie 'Javelin' Catterick, is certainly memorable.
But beyond that appearance, I haven't yet uncovered enough reliable information to build a proper picture of her career.
Was she one of the strongest players in her area?
How many tournaments had she won?
Did she continue competing during the television boom of the 1970s?
These are questions worth investigating.
Because the winner of a tournament is usually remembered.
The runner-up can disappear from the story remarkably quickly.
And I don't want this series to become simply a list of champions.
The women who helped build competitive darts deserve attention too.
1973 — a turning point
In 1973, the British Darts Organisation was formed.
The BDO would become enormously important in the development of organised competitive darts.
For women, it would eventually provide a much stronger structure for county competition and national events.
But we shouldn't imagine everything changed overnight.
There were still restrictions, inequalities and fewer opportunities for female players.
The prize money and television exposure available to women would remain considerably below that enjoyed by the leading men.
And the creation of a national organisation didn't immediately solve the problems faced by women in local leagues.
Nevertheless, 1973 represents an important turning point.
The game was becoming more structured.
Television was beginning to take darts seriously.
And a generation of female players was emerging that would help push the women's game forward.
Loveday King was one of them.
But others were coming.
Including a woman who would become one of the most recognisable female darts players of the television era.
Maureen Flowers.
The women before Maureen Flowers
When I first thought about writing this series, Maureen Flowers seemed like the obvious starting point.
She was one of the earliest widely recognised female darts stars and became an important figure in the development of women's competition.
But the research has shown that the story began much earlier.
We've now encountered women competing against men in the 1930s.
We've found national women's champions from the 1950s.
And we've discovered players such as Marjorie Drabble and Loveday King, whose achievements helped establish the women's game during the 1960s and early 1970s.
That's a substantial history before we even reach the better-known television era.
And I suspect there are many more players whose names we've yet to uncover.
What changed during these years?
Looking back at the period from 1960 to 1973, I think the most interesting thing is the contrast.
In 1963, a woman could still be refused entry to a local darts league simply because she was female.
Four years later, Marjorie Drabble was winning a national women's individual championship.
By 1973, Loveday King had won a televised women's darts title.
And in the same year, the BDO arrived.
Women's darts hadn't suddenly become equal to men's darts.
Far from it.
But the opportunities were beginning to improve.
And perhaps more importantly, talented female players were becoming increasingly visible.
They were no longer simply names appearing occasionally in local newspaper reports.
Some were beginning to establish reputations across the country.
The next generation would take that considerably further.
Coming next: The Women Who Helped Transform Darts
In Part Five, we'll move further into the 1970s and the development of organised women's darts.
This is where we'll begin looking more closely at Maureen Flowers, Linda Duffy and other players who helped establish the women's game.
There will be television appearances, national and international competitions, and continuing arguments about whether women should be allowed to compete alongside men.
And I suspect we'll discover plenty of other names along the way.
Because one thing this series has already taught me is that women's darts history is much richer than I originally realised.
And we're only just reaching the television era.
Can you help uncover the forgotten history?
I'm continuing to research the history of women's darts for Quest For Q School.
I'd particularly like to hear from anyone who played women's darts during the 1960s or early 1970s, or who remembers players from that period.
I'm especially interested in learning more about Marjorie Drabble, winner of the 1967 national women's individual championship, and Jessie Catterick, who reached the women's final of The Indoor League.
Perhaps you have old newspaper cuttings, programmes, photographs or family stories.
Even a small piece of information could help uncover another forgotten player.
Please get in touch through Q4QS or the Facebook group.
The Forgotten Women of Darts is an ongoing Q4QS historical series tracing women's involvement in competitive darts from the earliest organised competitions through to the modern professional era.
Sources and Further Reading
Dr Patrick Chaplin — A Brief History of Ladies Darts (1937–1997). Historical research covering the exclusion of women from some leagues, the introduction of the 1967 Women's Individual Championship and the development of organised women's darts.
https://patrickchaplin.com/2019/05/22/a-brief-history-of-ladies-darts/
Dr Patrick Chaplin — Loveday King: The First Superstar of Ladies' Darts. Biographical research based on an interview with Loveday King, covering her early career, her 1968 doubles victory and her victory on The Indoor League.
https://patrickchaplin.com/2019/08/22/loveday-king-the-first-superstar-of-ladies-darts/
Dr Patrick Chaplin — The Indoor League. Historical account of the television programme, including its origins, development and list of women's champions and finalists.
Linda Duffy — Interview, Dartoids World. First-hand recollections of women's darts and the challenges female players encountered during the development of organised competition.
https://www.dartoidsworld.net/2016/12/column-cm9-an-interview-with-linda-duffy/
Research acknowledgement: This article draws on historical research by Dr Patrick Chaplin and other published accounts. It has been independently written for Quest For Q School, with the intention of continuing to investigate original tournament records and first-hand recollections as the series develops.
