Acknowledgements

It was a good friend of mine, Sheila Handley (a well known Essex darts enthusiast) who first suggested back in 1999 that I should have a website. At first I was hesitant because I thought it might interfere with my PhD research.

Quite the contrary.

The global darts community responded well to its introduction and indeed a number of valuable contacts were established with people I would otherwise not have known existed, contacts which contributed to my final PhD thesis.

I thank Sheila from the bottom of my heart for all her help and encouragement and for enabling me to bring my work to the attention of millions.

In 2007 another good friend, David King (of www.Darts501.com fame), took over as my webmaster and did a great job of hosting and improving my website for a number of years. Subsequently Sean Pettit took over as host until we parted company in 2019.

Then Kevin Golding of www.complaintgroup.com took over the job of reconstructing and hosting this website. What a job it’s been! I thank Kevin for his hard work and infinite patience in bringing www.patrickchaplin.com bang up to date and dragging me, rather belatedly, kickin’ ‘n’ screamin’ into the 21st Century.

Thanks are also due to some of my favourite people in darts who include Tony Wood, former editor of Darts World, who was the first to publish my darts history articles back in the 1980s, darts journalist Wayne Baker, Dr. Eddie Norman, Dave Allen, Head of Media at the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), Stanley Lowy OBE., the late Olly Croft OBE (former top man at the British Darts Organisation (BDO), David King (www.Darts501.com), Paul ‘Dartoid’ Seigel, Glen Huff of Seattle and three-time World Professional Darts Champion, John Lowe and ten-times Women’s World Champion, Trina Gulliver.

Thanks too to my sponsors for more than a decade, the WINMAU Dartboard Co. Ltd., especially Ian Flack, Vince Bluck and Simon Hall.

But I would have achieved absolutely nothing without the love and support of my wife Maureen. She has helped me through the worst of times and shared with me some great times.

Long may it continue.

Patrick

November 2019 (Updated January 2021)