Andy Fordham: A sporting miracle that masks a bigger problem

The stereotype that professional darts is a sport for the big-boned is not one without grounding. Indeed, although walking from the oche to the board to collect thrown arrows thousands of times a week certainly adds up to a decent score on a pedometer, the match.com profile of the generic dartist still inevitably contains the word ‘cuddly’ at least once.

But why is this? Surely the amount of walking and time devoted to practice in a sport so heavily rooted in skill and precision means that, by course of logic, the most dedicated of professional darts players should not be as heavy-set as they are?

The answer to this is almost painfully obvious. Though darts has come a long way from being a game played only in the dark corners of pubs, its links to excessive alcohol consumption remain very apparent.

There is little escape from the seductive pull of a tall and frosty pint of lager before an important game.

While it is not the case for all professional players, the pressure and nerves generated around crowd-based and televised events have led many to reach for the bottle in order to dull their hand into remaining steady. If this is shown to work and the player builds up a dependency, there is little escape from the seductive pull of a tall and frosty pint of lager before an important game.

While it would appear from the outside that steps have been taken to prevent this from becoming an archaic issue bleeding into the modern game, it is perhaps a much bigger problems than is realised in the public eye. Though drinking is perhaps not actively encouraged, the BDO’s banning of alcohol on stage in 1989 was a choice made mostly to appeal to sponsors in a period of decline; whilst the decision as to whether a player’s pre-match routine contains ten consecutive Jagerbombs or not remains entirely their own.

Andy ‘The Viking’ Fordham is the best example of this in action, as one of the biggest characters and biggest men in the history of the sport. Fordham lived up to his Nordic billing in a period of great success in the BDO in the years bookending the millennium. Though the winner of only one World Championship in 2004, this figure belies the ease with which Fordham often plundered the board for checkouts; downing opponents with deathly spears of tungsten to reach four semi-finals in just six years between 1996 and 2001.

But Fordham’s imposing figure and hulking arms did little to mask his perhaps inexorable health problems. Once weighing in at an incredible 31 stone, Fordham claimed in a 2009 interview with the Telegraph that he rarely ate; attributing his colossal size purely to his liver-kicking lifestyle as a darts player. Downing the best part of a bottle of brandy alongside two dozen bottles of beer before big matches, Fordham claimed that he was rarely sober and didn’t get bad hangovers … because that would have required him to ever stop drinking.

His 2007 match with Phil Taylor was ended officially due to Fordham suffering from overheating but the fact of the matter is that it could have been any of a dozen genuinely serious health complaints ailing the Viking at the time. The doctor examining him some time after the match (Fordham remained in denial and simply went to bed with a brandy in the immediate aftermath) told him that “75% of his liver was dead and that the remaining 25% was dying”. The obvious advice was for Fordham to stop drinking immediately so he could be placed on the waiting list for a full liver transplant. When he was finally admitted to hospital, Fordham claims that doctors drained 18 litres of fluid from his body and a naked candle in the room would have burned the infirmary to the ground.

For this sporting achievement the Viking should receive great credit and applause, but the bigger miracle is a biological one as Fordham should simply not be alive.

Since then Fordham has lost around 17 stone and has not touched a drop of alcohol in over eight years. Finding it difficult to regain his form after such a dramatic change in his body and an inability to rely on the drink that played such a big part in his success, the Viking has recently qualified for the Grand Slam of Darts 2015 after a long absence from televised events.

For this sporting achievement the Viking should receive great credit and applause, but the bigger miracle is a biological one as Fordham should simply not be alive. His case is one of extremes but whilst alcohol is a genuine and readily available coping tool for the more nervous darts players, it may only be a matter of time before the underlying health problems associated with this area of the sport claim a victim who will not be so lucky.

Darts may have started as a pub game, but a lifelong professional dedication is to the game, not to the pub.