How a dart league night works

A dart league is a season of weekly matches between bar teams. If you have only ever thrown for fun, the structure of a league night can look like a lot the first time. It isn’t. This is how one goes, from walking in to shaking hands.

Teams, bars and divisions

Every team plays out of a home bar, and the schedule splits its matches between home and away. A team is a roster of players with a captain, and it carries more players than it needs on any one night so people can miss a week.

Leagues split their teams into divisions by strength, so that new teams aren’t fed to the best ones. This season it looks like this:

Before the first dart

Players warm up on the match board, and the two captains fill in their lineups. The lineup is the captain’s main job: which players throw which sets. There is some guessing in it, about where the other side will put its best players.

Sets, legs and games

A match is a fixed list of sets, and the list is the same for every team in the division. Each set is one of three sizes:

• Singles: one player against one.
• Doubles: two against two, throwing in turn.
• Triples: three against three, usually the long game that ends the night.

Each set also has a game: cricket or a version of 01. Every set starts with a cork, one dart each at the bull, to decide who throws first.

SIDO and DIDO are explained in the 01 guide. “Choice” means the game for that set isn’t fixed in advance. These lists come from the league’s own match setup, and the other Queens leagues run their own formats on the same pattern.

Keeping score

Most matches here are scored on a tablet with a scoring app. Whoever is keeping score enters each turn, the app does the subtraction and tracks the marks, and the result is posted publicly when the match ends. That public record is where every number on this site comes from.

If you are asked to score, the job is simple: stand still, face the board, say nothing about what a player should throw, and enter what the darts scored once they are pulled.

Manners at the line

• Stand behind the thrower and stay out of their eyeline.
• Keep quiet while someone is throwing. Cheer after the third dart.
• Don’t touch your darts until the score is agreed.
• Shake hands, or tap fists, before and after every set.
• The home team are the hosts. The away team are guests in someone’s local.

The season

Results go into the standings each week. Leagues with playoffs send their top teams into a knockout at the end of the regular season; in the others the standings decide the champion. Most leagues here run two or three seasons a year.

On this site, career stats use the regular season, and playoff games are listed separately on each player’s page.

Getting on a team

Teams lose players every season and most captains would rather add someone keen than play short. The usual way in is to go to a bar that has a team on its league night, watch a match and ask for the captain. Where to play lists the bars and the teams in each one.