where are they now - gayle king
Darts Historian Patrick Chaplin scours the country for some of the top names of the
past. “Where are they now and what are they doing?”
This series has been running for some time now – at last – it is the turn of the
girls
GAYL KING
PLAYING THE MEN AT THEIR OWN GAME
Early in the year 2000, Tommy Cox of the Professional Darts Corporation
announced in Darts World that the PDC was to include a woman darts player
in their Skol World Championship to be held at the Circus Tavern, Purfleet,
Essex that coming December.
Ladies No. 1, Trina Gulliver greeted the news enthusiastically and said, “At
last! Here’s the opportunity the top ladies have been waiting for. A guaranteed
place in a world championship darts final against the men. Darts is a sport that
women and men can play at the same standard and I know that all of the top
female players will be looking forward to the opportunity to prove it.”
The original idea was to run a qualifying event, a knockout involving the top
eight ladies at the Crosbie Cedars Hotel in Rosslare as a featured part of the
PDC’s annual World Grand Prix tournament. However, despite the initial
enthusiasm from Trina and other lady darters, the event did not happen. Due to
the politics of the sport at that time and other ‘personal reasons’, the
majority of the world’s top lady darts players, including Trina, declined to
participate.
Whilst this significantly embarrassed the PDC, the cause was not totally lost.
Even though she possibly risked being frozen out of other darts events in the
future, 36-year-old Gayl King, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, then ranked No 7
in the world, bravely stepped forward to accept the invitation to take the 32nd
place in the Skol World Championship.
A relative unknown in Britain at the time but not in her native Canada,
Newfoundland-born Gayl, a bookkeeper for a restaurant chain, had the vision to
appreciate that taking part in the Skol World Championships could really boost
the women’s game and bring her and ladies darts in general to the world’s
attention. Gayl told reporters, “It is a fantastic opportunity and I didn’t
really think twice.” National newspapers in
Britain, Canada and the
USA
seized upon the story and for a while Gayl was the subject of a media frenzy.
‘King aims to be queen of darts’ said the Ottawa Sun whilst the New
York Times described Gayl’s imminent appearance in the World Championships
as ‘a day of liberation for darts’. As usual the British press relished the
challenge as The Times announced ‘Woman with guts shakes up beer bellies’
and The Guardian weighed in with ‘Gayl force hits the bull’s-eye’
 In the competition, played out in late December 2000, Gayl faced
England’s Graeme Stoddart in the first round. To everyone’s surprise, except
perhaps her own, Gayl took the first set off of the world men’s No. 29 and the
crowd went wild. According to one newspaper, losing the first set left Graeme
‘shell-shocked’. However, Graeme immediately upped his game and eventually won
the match by three sets to one. Gayl left the Circus Tavern stage to a standing
ovation, with her head held high and her place in darts history assured.
Gayl said afterwards, “I enjoyed this. And I enjoy playing against the guys and
seeing what I can do…I had the right mindset and was ready to go and I did the
best I could. This was my dream and I lived it.” She told the New York Times,
“It was awesome. It was just electric. Everybody was going crazy. It was
wonderful.”
The British press were impressed with Gayl’s performance, The Star
stating that, despite losing, ‘King is the Queen’ whilst The Independent
headline ‘Relief for the boys as King’s rule is cut short’ reflected the relief
felt not only by Graeme Stoddart but also the entire male-dominated darts world.
The most revealing post-match headline of all was that featured on the BBC Sport
internet page on 29th December, ‘Darts player wants women out of
worlds’. Graeme Stoddart was quoted as saying “I would have hated to have been
ranked 32 and have my place in the tournament taken by a woman. The women have
got to a certain standard now and they deserve their own world championships.”
As if the BDO was watching and listening to Graeme, that organisation announced
in September 2000 that the women were to have their own world
championship which would be competed for during the same week as the 2001
Embassy.
Gayl King could rightly claim that she was the catalyst in the creation of the
Embassy/Lakeside Women’s World Darts Championship. Indeed, some people in darts
are of the view that her participation in that contest may well have forced the
hand of the BDO to establish the first women’s world championships at
Lakeside.
Before and after the Skol, Gayl registered enormous success in her sport,
including being a three-time winner of the Canadian Open Women’s Singles (2000,
2002 and 2003), Ladies champion in the 2001 Northern Lights tournament and
Canadian Women’s National Darts Champion in both 2000 and 2004.
I recently went in search of Gayl. I wanted to talk to her about this article
and about my including her in my forthcoming book The Complete Guide to Darts
(to be published in
New York in early 2009). I found her still living in Edmonton, Alberta, and now
working as an Administrative Assistant for a cheese company. My first question
was “Do you still play darts?”
Regrettably, due to sustaining a shoulder injury, Gayl no longer plays serious
darts. She told me, “I just don't have the endurance for tournaments”, although
she added, “I do play a game here and there; for fun of course.” I then asked
her if there was any truth in the story at the time of her appearance in the
Skol World Championship that she ran the risk of losing valuable world ranking
points if she took part in the event. Gayl replied, “I don't recall losing any
points due to playing in the tournament.”
Although I knew the answer in advance, I asked Gayl to look back on her darts
career and nominate one highlight. She immediately nominated her unique
appearance in the Skol World Championships. She told me, “I have to say the
highlight of my career was stepping onto the stage at the Circus Tavern and
participating in that history-making event. As I said at the time, it had always
been a dream of mine to play an event such as that and at that moment my dream
came true. I will always treasure that.”
Gayl indeed made darts history that December day and clearly illustrated to one
and all that women darters were more than capable of playing the men at their
own game.
Back to where are they now
©2008 Patrick Chaplin
The original of this article first appeared in the August 2008 issue of Darts
World.
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