Junior Darts by Marlene Gray (pictured right)
From Checkout Magazine March 1990

Juniors have played in senior leagues for at least 116 years, but the actual beginning of Junior leagues in most states occurred during the early 1980's.

The first interstate junior competition, which eventually evolved inn to the Australian Junior Darts Championships, was the out come of a phone conversation in 1980.

Barry Atkinson, President of the Northern Districts Darts League in South Australia, phoned me to say to me he had a team of junior boys interested in a competitive game against juniors in Victoria. Dave Davies of Mornington Peninsula Darts Association was contacted and with the assistance of many parents, plans for the event were soon underway.

The first competition was held at the Geelong Darts Club in 1980 with some 100 juniors from South Australia, ACT and Victoria participating. The event was a tremendous success with trophies and encouragement awards being presented. In addition, each junior received a small bottle of Coca Cola engraved with the words, "VDC Juniors 1980". Many competitors still have the bottle which proved to be a wonderful reminder of a very friendly weekend.

News of the event soon spread to the other States and was an item of discussion at the meeting of the Darts Federation of Australia.

The following year a similar championship was staged in South Australia with approximately 140 juniors including teams from the Northern Territory and Queensland. This was called the "1st Australian Junior Darts Championships" for the purpose receiving Government assistance. It was played under the same guidelines as the previous events in Victoria.

Rules of play were teams of eight, with multiple entries from each state allowed playing a team round robin. The ages of the players ranged from six years to eighteen years. Once again the championships proved a resounding success.

Australian rules of play were introduced in 1982 and all States and Territories were represented by one boy's team of four players and one girl's team of four players.

Since then the improvement of juniors in all states has been impressive and the future of the sport is certainly guaranteed. Many of those juniors from 1980 and 1981 now represent their states at the Senior Championships.

The World Youth Championships hosted by the British Darts Organisation, began in 1986. The event to be held in London each year in conjunction with the Winmau World Professionals event.

Barry Rowan of Northern Territory was Australia's first representative at the inaugural World Youth contest. His splendid achievement in coming second to Harith Lim of Singapore remains the best placing by any young Australian. Though Victoria's Craig Stevens and Marlon Johns failed to emulate his success in 1987 and 1988 respectively they are both now senior representatives.

Each of these young darts players gained knowledge and confidence from their visit to the greatest darts nation in the world.

1984 Victorian Junior Darts Team (right) with Marlene Gray in the centre of the front row.