Darts icon Bobby George on feeling like Elvis, love for bling and being mobbed by streaker
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Bobby George is darts royalty and he says his fans’ adulation still makes him feel like a king. “The other night, they were all putting their hands out to touch me, and I felt just like Elvis,” he says. Regarded as one of the best players never to win the World Championship, Bobby is also seen as a founding father of the sport’s current image.
The former builder laid the foundations for the modern age by strutting to the oche in a cape and weighed down by bling, to the strains of Queen’s We Are the Champions. Bobby retired from competition after a 32-year career in 2009, having reached two world finals. He keeps his eye in by playing exhibition events.
“I still get the groupies, but they’re all 70!” laughs Bobby, 79, who has been with wife Marie for 41 years. “I did one show about three weeks ago. I walk through the crowds to We Are the Champions with the cloak, the candles, the lot – and a woman jumped on my back and snogged me.
“Another night I was playing, I had a streaker come on, a bloke, and he jumped on my back. Once in Ireland during the Legends of Darts tour eight years ago, before I played, I said, ‘You can throw your knickers and suspender belts at me, and the guys can do the same if they want.’ And all these women took their knickers off and threw them on the stage. I couldn’t believe it.”.
Ahead of the showpiece PDC World Championship final on Friday night at London’s Alexandra Palace, Bobby says he is proud of his part in darts’ recent boom in popularity. “I started the walk-on music, I started that, with the cloak, and the candles,” he says. “I still wear all the bling. I ain’t good enough to play competitive, but I play fun darts.
