A bit of his 'strange' life history for those who are to young to remember him -
In the 1980s he won two world titles, was watched by millions on TV, and even appeared on Top of the Pops. But then it all went wrong for darts legend Jocky Wilson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlfPNhBMhTMWhen Jocky Wilson threw a double 10 at the Jollees Cabaret Club in Stoke 25 years ago this weekend (14/1/2007) to win the darts world title, he was cheered on in his home town of Kirkcaldy and by millions of television viewers who warmed to the portly man from Fife. The bounce with which he defeated John Lowe to win the first of his two world titles suggested this was a man who would be around forever in the beer-swilling, fag puffing world of professional darts.
Yet by 1996 Wilson had withdrawn into a council flat aged 45 and had admitted: 'I'm all washed up and finished with darts.' Scotland's first world darts champion no longer plays. He suffers from depression, diabetes and arthritis. He never leaves his home. And he has refused all interview requests since his last public appearance at a world team tournament at Butlin's holiday camp in Ayr. That was 12 years ago. When Observer Sport visited Kirkcaldy to try to persuade him to tell his story, many people in the east-coast town needed reminding who he was and were unsure if he still lived locally.
In the decade before satellite TV, when darts drew viewing audiences of more than eight million and before Wilson's regular drink intake - lager chased by 'seven or eight vodkas to keep my nerves so that I can play my best' - had taken its grip, it was a very different story. The game that enjoyed its peak in 1988, when there were 11 televised tournaments, had Wilson as its undoubted star. In a world cluttered with double chins, receding hairlines and straining nylon shirts, John Thomas Wilson still managed to stand out.
The former Seafield coalminer's place in the national consciousness was confirmed when his picture famously featured on Top of the Pops in 1982 as a joke while Dexy's Midnight Runners performed 'Jackie Wilson Said'. His stout but diminutive build, crooked grin and ability to out drink all-comers while consistently winning the big titles made him riveting viewing. Eric Bristow might have been better, but everyone rooted for Jocky.
'I'm short and fat, so what? That's life! Anyway, TV makes you look fatter,' Wilson once said.
He grew up on a Kirkcaldy council estate. 'You could always rely on him,' says Jimmy Skirving, a former close friend who drank with him in the Lister Bar, the local where a 19-year-old Wilson first learned to play darts. 'But I can assure you Jocky was taken advantage of. Once he won a holiday and some suitcases. He got home with neither - he sold the holiday for 50 quid and the cases for a tenner.' Skirving was also in the Stoke nightclub when Wilson beat Lowe. 'Jocky came straight off the stage and gave me his darts - I've still got them. All he said was, "I've done it". He gave my son the dartboard.'
Wilson was also generous with his time for charity and had a neat line in self-deprecation. He was known as 'Gumsy' because his constant sweet-eating and refusal to brush his teeth - 'my Gran told me the English poison the water' - meant that he had lost his last tooth by the age of 28. Following the 1982 triumph, Wilson paid £1,200 for dentures. But he never took to them. They made him belch when drinking, he complained. And once, celebrating a victory, they flew out of his mouth and on to the oche. In the end, they were employed as a ball marker in pool games with Bristow.
'People might think that having no teeth snookers you when it comes to eating,' Wilson wrote in his 1983 autobiography, Jocky. 'But I can manage just about anything with my gums. I can chew a steak provided it's well done. I can even eat apples. Great Yarmouth rock and nuts are the only two things that defeat me.'
Other tales include the time he kicked Bristow's shin before they were due to play each other - the Crafty Cockney, who became Wilson's firm friend, was forced to shake hands on stage with a bleeding shin. And after one defeat he fell off the stage. 'I was commentating on his game with Dave Whitcombe in 1984 and wee Jocky was well in command,' recalls BBC commentator Tony Green. 'It was the World darts semi-final and Jocky looked set to go all the way. But then you could drink and smoke on the stage, which Jocky always took full advantage of. He kept downing the pints, his game got poorer and Dave eventually beat him 5-4. But when the cameras turned round he'd disappeared. Jocky was so drunk he'd fallen off the stage.'
Now, though, the pub-room antics and twinkling eyes have gone. Kirkcaldy has forgotten about darts - there is not even a local league any more - and forgotten Wilson. He suffers from ill health and spends his days in a poky one-bedroom flat back on the council estate where he grew up. He shuttles between bed and the living-room sofa, where he watches television underneath a giant picture of himself cradling his first world championship trophy. His only regular human contact is with his wife, Malvina, and the doctors who treat him.
On 1 January 1982, a fortnight before the first world title and after a season in which he was ranked four, won the inaugural British Professional Darts championship and retained the British Matchplay Championship, Wilson was interviewed while playing in a charity event at his local club. He was asked how long he would play for. 'Hopefully until I'm 50,' he said. His conversation was also peppered with references to his burgeoning wealth - he won £6,000 for the British title - and his potential future earnings.
Sadly, the money all disappeared. Wilson survives on disability allowance. His lifestyle caused diabetes and Wilson's descent into himself began at Christmas in 1995. Leaving the Wallsend home he had bought to cut down on travelling to tournaments, with an unpaid-for car in the drive, he boarded a bus to Kirkcaldy with Malvina and daughter Anne Marie (his two sons, John and William, stayed in the North-East). Back in Kirkcaldy he withdrew, walling off his friends. His family life was crumbling. Wilson's brother Tommy had already sold a story to a Scottish tabloid claiming he was cheating on Malvina, which Wilson denied. His sister, Yvonne, made efforts to coax him back into life, but failed. Now, Wilson's children no longer visit the flat and 35-year-old William admitted in 1999 to a heroin problem, saying: 'I've been on drugs for years.'
In 1996 Wilson said: 'I've been let down once or twice in my life, but I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. There's only one person to blame for the situation I'm in, and that's me.' A year later he was declared bankrupt. His financial difficulties had begun more than a decade earlier when, in 1986, a dispute over earnings with his then manager, Ron Clover, ended when a court ordered him to pay around £80,000. Later, he was hit by a £27,000 tax bill.
Before the 1985 move to Wallsend, Wilson had bought a five-room detached bungalow in one of Kirkcaldy's most desirable areas. It cost £40,000 - a lot of money back then - but the family had to move out after three years. Linda Salmon, whose father then owned the Strathearn hotel next door, said: 'We had a dartboard but Jocky hardly drank in here. His father, John, did, and would boast about his son a lot. The neighbours complained a lot about Jocky for being drunk and disorderly. His children ran wild. His garden was full of empty bottles.'
Wilson now lives just around the corner from Lister's, though the place he once described as having 'a wee bit of the hustler atmosphere that Minnesota Fats and Paul Newman would have appreciated' is now being converted into a supermarket.
At Wilson's flat, a knock brings Malvina to the door. After introductions, the conversation goes like this.
Is it possible to have a few words with Jocky?
'Nah, he won't do it.'
Really? I've come from London to speak with him.
'I know and I'm sorry, but he won't do it. He never has since stopping and never will.'
Why?
'He thinks it's all in the past, it's over with.'
Malvina is Argentine and spent the first 12 years of her life in Buenos Aires before her father and Scottish mother moved to Kirkcaldy. Her 10 brothers and sisters, though, were all British and when the Falklands War broke out, in the year when Wilson beat Lowe, they were both abused because of the connection. Yet, despite what must have been a demanding life, she is friendly and seems happy to chat with a stranger.
Why did Jocky finish?
'He got diabetes and had to stop, because he would have continued drinking.'
Is he depressed?
'Oh yes, manic. He goes into himself now and then.'
It must be tough for you?
'Aye,' she says with a smile.
Does he have any visitors?
'No. No one.'
Does he ever go out - to the corner shop, maybe?
'No, never.'
The BDO world championship, the title Wilson won twice before the game was split into two, with rival governing bodies, finishes tonight. So the final question to Malvina is: does Jocky still watch the darts?
'Oh aye,' she says. 'That he does. It's just the bed and TV for him.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/jan/14/sport.news
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