A dartboard is used to play a variety of games all of which require darts to be thrown towards a round target board. Although many people play darts professionally, it is essentially still a pub game played for recreation and pleasure. The game was invented in the UK, which is also the first country to have assigned darts the status of an official sport.
The game was born in Dartford, which probably gave the game its name. The first dartboard may have been made from the cross section of a tree with concentric rings around a central target, which became the bull’s eye of the dartboard. Initially, the dartboard was known as a “butt” as many people believe that the bottoms of wine barrels were used as the first dartboards. It is speculated that the dartboard originated when soldiers threw darts at the bottom of wine barrels. Sections automatically developed on these early dartboards when the wood dried up and developed cracks. Soon, dartboards were created for local pubs frequented by these soldiers. Another theory is that the name of the dartboard is derived from the French word “butte” which means “target” in archery.
The design of the dartboard has been standardized across the world. Even so, variations in the design still exist especially in Manchester and Staffordshire. However, most dartboards are created from boar or sisal fibres with the cheaper versions using paper filling or coiled paper. A dartboard should have 20 sections on a circular board, about 18-inches in diameter, with each section separated by a metal wire or a thin metal sheet with numbers either printed or embossed on the sections.
The dartboard is hung so that the bull’s eye or the centre of the board is at eye level which is usually about five feet eight inches high. The line behind which the dart thrower must stand is a little more than seven feet away from the dartboard and this line is known as an oche. Normally, the bull’s eye has an outer iris or the outer bull which is green in colour. This is known as the bull’s ring. There is also a red coloured inner bull also known as a double bull or just the bull, which is worth double the points of the outer bull (50 points). A number of different games have been devised using the dartboard in different parts of the world.
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