Famous Sporting People Visiting Pembrokeshire – Feature No 5

 

Wayne Mardle - Darts Player, Pundit and a Great Ambassador 

 

Wayne Mardle readily confesses that in his long career as a darts player he was certainly a world-class player but he didn’t win any of the top competitions like the World Championship, The British Open Championship, the British Championship or the recently-formed Premier League - but his career came at the time when Phil Taylor ruled the roost and so he missed out.
 
But he did reach the semi-final of the BDO version of the World Cup - and when he changed allegiance to the much stronger PDC he reached the World Championship Final FIVE times, no mean feat, but he often came up against the afore-mentioned Mr Taylor.
 
But in the intervening years he has become known as one of the best pundits on these top events after starting out as a commentator and ‘expert’ alongside the late, great Sid Wardell, and readily admits that he learned a great deal from someone whose star quality was such that the World Championship trophy is now named after him,
 
Indeed, when Luke Littler won the World title a short while ago (and a million quid!) he joined John Part, Mark Webster and Glen Durrant, along with hostess Emma Eaton, showing his professionalism and good humour.
 

Takes on locals, as he has done several times since in our county

 
And Wayne has also done well on the circuit where he takes on amateur players from the local darts scene and takes them on as he also regales the packed audiences with little cameos about some of the players of his day and also the current time.
 
In his playing days he had a catchy nickname of ‘Wayne Mardle - Hawaii 501’ out of deference to the very brightly-patterned shirts he used to wear, along with the number required to win a leg of darts.
 
I first saw him play at Haverfordwest Rugby Club and then at the town’s cricket Club and on each occasion, after I had introduced myself and told him I would like an interview for radio, and details for their sports’ programme, he was charm personified.
 
His MC was a character called Rob Little (appropriately named because he was VERY short), and he also played a significant part as he spoke about Wayne and his opponents’ abilities in a very light-hearted way - and on one occasion Wayne deliberately left double three (at the bottom of the board) so asked Rob to throw for him because it was too low for him - and the little feller did just that!
 

A winning formula with local darters

 
There were more than a dozen games during each evening and a number of his opposition came from winning competitions in local clubs, with others drawn out as a raffle prize on the evening - and although Wayne lost a couple of matches, we were left wondering if that was a cunning plan to make it a magic evening for a few happy darters.
 
In some ways, both were manic evenings but never got out of hand and everyone left feeling that the cost of admission was well worth it, with all the darters clearly thrilled to momentarily share the limelight with a top name in darts, although they knew they might receive some gentle teasing by the undoubted star of the show.
 
And me? I had a rattling good evening as I was seemingly the only sober person in the room (apart from Messrs Mardle and Little) as I sipped my glass of iced squash and laughed with the jokes Wayne made about the top stars - and had the feeling that I had met a really pleasant, genuine gentleman of the darting world!