‘In darts you are mixing with the greatest people you will ever meet’

"Darts is more psychological than anything ....staying mentally strong'

The words were uttered by English man and professional darts player Rob Cross - and anyone who ever stood in front of a darts board to play a game (whether for fun or in competition) would surely agree.

It's certainly an observation another English man would go along with. John Shipp has been involved in the game all is life - and he's still playing it competitively.

Next May John will turn 82 and he has no plans to retire from competing competitively and why should he? He still enjoys the sport. Every Friday night he will join his mates in The Shinney bar in Kells for a game. Every year he takes part in the Kells & District League. Not only that he was - along with local man Willie Arkins - an key figure in setting up the league back in the seventies.

The game has been an integral part of John's life since he was a youngster growing up in London. His life has been enriched he will tell you by his involvement in the sport.

"It's a great community, the darts community, you are mixing with the greatest people you would ever meet playing darts," he said when he sat down to talk to the Meath Chronicle in his house in Kells. He admits his form can fluctuate widely these days but then many darts players, sportspeople, would say that. "Some nights when I play I'm very good, the next night I'm useless, it's like I never played before," he says before breaking into a smile.

The walls of his front room are festooned with photographs of his family. He and his wife Gay, had seven children, while John had another son, Gary, from a relationship before he was married. They are all there, most of them photographed on their wedding day.

What you won't see are any dart trophies or a dart board. That is down in one of the bedrooms. It's where he practices. His eyesight, he adds, is "going a little" these days but on the good days, you suspect, when he is on form, he is a good as he ever was in the old days.

You suspect also that giving up darts for this welcoming, genial, quietly-spoken man would be like giving up breathing. He has played the game so long now it's simply part of who he is. Darts has been stitched into the fabric of his life ever since he was a youngster growing up in a London. A London still recovering from the ravages of the Second World War.

FINCHLEY

When John Shipp was born in 1942 London was full of bombed out buildings. They were the legacies of the bombing of London and other cities by the Luftwaffe between September 1940 and May '41. John's family home survived the Blitz. Other members of his family also made it through. "My mum had three brothers and I remember them coming back from the war, all three of them. Two of them were despatch riders on motorbikes, one in the Air Force. They all came home on the same day.

"I grew up in Finchley, Margaret Thatcher's country! At that time it was countryside, Hartfordshire, not far from Luton," he adds. "My Granny really introduced me to darts. In her kitchen there was a press for the food and in those times the darts boards weren't put on the wall like they are now, they just hung on a hook. I couldn't reach it so she got an old dartboard put it down level with me so that I could play. I was about four of five at the time.”

Among the family photographs on his wall are images of him with his mother and father - and therein lies a tale. His mother was Joan French who's father was Irish - Percy French. Not THAT Percy French but Percy French nonetheless. His father was Peter Cyril Shipp.

John is the eldest of nine children and while growing up in Finchley he proved to be very good at darts and football. Very good. He had a run out with Barnet reserves but darts was the game he was passionate about. "I was good at football but darts spoiled it, the drinking and smoking," he adds wistfully.

As a young man John worked in various jobs. He was a milkman for a time. He also worked as a gravedigger in Finchley Cemetary, a vast expanse of land given over to the dead. His football club is Tottenham Hotspur and in the late 1950s and '60s he enjoyed going to White Hart Lane. He watched as they won and league and cup double with the great Northern Ireland player Danny Blanchflower as one of their leading lights.

John Shipp recalls meeting in London, the Northern Ireland star and another great Spurs player, Bobby Smith. "Bobby Smith was in a pub one night and he introduced me to Danny Blanchflower and after Danny went off somewhere Bobby said to me: "Did you understand what he was saying?' I said yeah, I did. Danny had a strong Northern accent. Some people might have had trouble understanding him, I didn't."

John puts that down to the fact that he mixed a lot with Irish people. "I used to play darts in a particular pub that was run by an Irishman and all the Irish fellas who were doing the roads would come in. All my mates were Irish, they might not all have been born in Ireland but their parents were," he adds.

Another great Spurs player was Jimmy Greaves and towards the end of his career he turned out for Barnet where one of his team-mates was John Shipp's eldest son, Gary.

Darts, however, remained John Shipp's number one sport. He reached Super League level in London which was international standard. "Every pub had a dart board at the time and two or three really decent throwers. You had to play well to win any competition."

If he was on the London scene these days he might well be seen on TV playing for the World Darts Championship in that most famous of venues - the Ally Pally itself. Who knows.

KELLS

It was through darts that John Shipp made a lot of friends. It was also through darts he met the Kells woman who became his wife, Mary Gabriel Griffin or Gay as she become known far and wide.

"Gay worked in an Irish pub where I played darts, there were three dart boards in the pub. I would be there playing darts for five or six hours maybe every night of the week. She played darts as well even though she had rheumatoid arthritis since she was 11," John added before showing a trophy she won for finishing runner-up in the Kells Ladies Darts League in the mid-1990s.

Gay, John and their growing family travelled to Ireland for 10 years until it that routine suddenly stopped. "About 1973 or '74 we came over, Gay got very upset and didn't want to go back." The Shipps decided to stay.

John got a scaffolding job in Tara Mines for two years before he landed other pieces of work that kept him going. He trained as a welder and worked at that. The darts proved to be a great way to get to know people in Kells; something that broke down barriers. Over two years ago now Gay passed away. "Everyone called her Gay, she was a Kells lady through and through - and she was a lady."

When the Shipps moved to Kells the town was smaller. Only one pub in Kells had a darts board at the time, he says. That was Joe Murphy's. John set about spreading the gospel. He, along with Willie Arkins set about setting up a local darts league with 1977/'78 it's first season. The Kells & District Darts League is still going strong.

One of the players who has emerged in the last year or so is 14-year-old Charlie O'Connor who plays for the Silver Tankard team. Charlie and John have played against each other.

"I played against Charlie once and was in the team that played his team, he's got a great temperment and he can only get better. His family give him great support."

A teenager taking on a man many years his senior. It's one of the wonders of darts. Age doesn't matter. Instead it's about temperment - and staying mentally strong of course.