Jocky Wilson, 1950-2012

Jocky Wilson, who died on Saturday night aged 62, was a very Scottish sporting hero: short, fat and toothless he was touched by equal measures of brilliance and self-destruction. Darts is glitzy now but back in its 1980s pomp it needed no rock music or scantily-clad dancing girls to lend an air of semi-ironic gladiatorial mock-heroism to the action. Especially during the World Champioships, three men made darts compulsive television: Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Jocky Wilson. The supporting cast – featuring “Big Cliff” Lazarenko, Leighton Rees. Keith Deller and Bob Anderson (“The Limestone Cowboy”) were grand but never commanded the stage like darts’ original Big Three.

Bristow may have been the greatest player and Lowe the most consistent but Wilson came closer to earning folk-hero status than any darter in history. Bristow’s brilliance could be taken for granted (at least until dartitis – a condition comparable to golf’s yips – got the better of him); so too Lowe’s emotion-free consistency (reflected in the nickname Old Stoneface; oddly suggestive of an American Civil War general).