‘Yorkshire darts (no triples) at the Arncliffe Arms in Glaisdale… they do a good burger.’

Interesting and Unusual Facts About Yorkshire Dart Boards

Early London dart boards were divided into 12 segments with each segment worth 5,10,15 or 20 with doubles and trebles.
Between 1910 and 1920 along came a Dewsbury dominoes and darts enthusiast Thomas William Buckle who built Yorkshire dart boards which he sold to pubs around the county. Tom’s boards had an outer ring for doubles but no trebles ring and no central ring around the bull for twenty five.
The numbering pattern 20,1,18,4,13 etc that we are familiar with today was created by Tom for the Yorkshire board and subsequently copied on the London boards that also incorporated the trebles and 25 rings.
Yorkshire dart boards flourished until the 1970′s but then fell from popularity when the British Darts Organisation BDO made the London board the dart board of choice for all major darts competitions.

Tom Buckle was a wire worker by trade and the numbers were originally make out of twisted wire. I think that was so that bad arrows could bounce off and you could claim it was the rim of the double.

There is another claim to be the inventor of the numbering system from a Lancastrian Brian Gamlin, a carpenter from Bury but there is no proof of this claim.

Winmau Yorkshire Specialist Bristle Dartboards can still be bought from amazon for around £37.

A ‘Darts Miscellany: History, Trivia, Facts & Stats from the World of Darts’ by Matt Bozeat should cover the Yorkshire board in more detail.
Patrick Chaplin is an expert on all matters connected to The Yorkshire Dartboard and his new book 180! Fascinating Darts Facts is about to be released

The bull of your Yorkshire Dartboard should be 5ft 6ins off the ground.
The normal ‘Oche’ should be 7ft 2ins from the board and 9 ft to the bull (thanks to pythagoras). Some Yorkshire rules allow a throw from 7ft – 8ft 6inches from the board.
Since the 1920s the throwing line was called the ‘Hockey’ and not ‘Oche’. Oche is a modern version that fits with TV coverage.
The name outer bull or half bull is bullxxxx when you only have one inner bullseye scoring 50.
Photo Credits
Day 13 by Kloeffon, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Dart board by cbcastro, CC BY-NC 2.0

Yorkshire county cricket club have been promoted to the LV County Championship Division One after beating Essex by 239 runs.
With or without overseas player, in the first division or second, Yorkshire are still our ‘top’ team as they have been for 149 years going on 150.

2013 will see Yorkshire county cricket club celebrate 150 years as a club and team which has given so much pleasure to the folk of God’s Own County at home or abroad. We forgive them the occasional lapse in performance knowing they will come back strongly. We also tolerate the politics and egos, that sometimes seem to stray on to the field of play, knowing there will be someone stronger or more vocal waiting in the wings. In the meantime Colin Graves the current executive chairman has done the job of funding and motivating the club to this seasons performance.

The clubs website has the unenviable and unnecessary task of listing some ‘true legends’ from the last 150 years …‘the Club has seen some true legends of world cricket pass through its playing squad. From Lord Hawke, Herbert Sutcliffe, Wilfred Rhodes, Hedley Verity, Sir Len Hutton, Bob Appleyard, Brian Close, Fred Trueman, Ray Illingworth, David Bairstow and Geoffrey Boycott to the modern era which has seen Michael Vaughan, Darren Gough, Craig White, Matthew Hoggard, Darren Lehmann and Tim Bresnan represent the White Rose County…..’ and more history

Well done in 2012 good luck for 2013 and all I can say, like the crowd at Headingly or Scarborough, is ‘Yorkshire Yorkshire Yorkshire’.

Those guys at Cycling Info always seem to have a camera on them when cycling or walking and are proficient photographers to boot. These results from York show some of the fun of cycling.

Photos from York Cycle Festival 2012
Cycling in York Photos

Yorkshire and 2012 Olympic Cycling

Cyclist Ed Clancy won a gold and a bronze medal in track cycling. He was born in Barnsley and lived for most of his life, so far, in the Huddersfield area.
Lizzie Armitstead was the toast of Otley when she clinched silver in the women’s cycling road race.
Not exclusively cycling but the triathlon includes cycling as one of the disciplines so the Brownlee brothers gold and bronze efforts count towards our cycling tally.
None of our Olympic success would have been possible if it wasn’t for a roll call of support staff, local clubs and regular participants in the hobby and sport at all levels.

Of course having great scenery in which to train must help!

See Yorkshire 7th in medal table

The Guido Fawkes pub in York is a good place to start our quick review of Yorkshire fireworks.
Without the gunpowder plot of 1605 it is doubtful Yorkshire would have taken up the top spot of ornamental firework production during Victorian times nor top wholesalers now.

Review of Yorkshire Firework Suppliers

Standard Fireworks started making and supplying fireworks in 1891. The fireworks and ingredients were imported from China or made by outworkers like local coal miners supplementing their income. Then in 1910 a factory was built at Crosland Hill Huddersfield and although manufacture has long since been transferred to China it is still the admin HQ for Yorkshires Standard fireworks.
Black Cat fireworks are now part of the same group as Standard Fireworks but have their admin base at Lawkholme lane Keighley. Both brands are owned by the Chinese firecracker business Li & Fung company.

It now costs a lot to see your money go up in smoke but that cost or pleasure is generally shared by at the larger displays with bigger audiences.
Around our home bonfires of childhood, a rip rap or rocket in a milk bottle probably also seemed a costly part of a family’s November budget.

I was stimulated to write this page after receiving some direct mail from Jimmy’s Fireworks at Tankersley and Epic Fireworks. It is good to see a Yorkshire business thriving, as they must be to afford a large 16 page highly glossy catalogue posted to an unsolicited address. Still it gets them this mention and a web link. They claim to be the largest wholesaler of Fireworks in the country.

Review of Firework Prices

In the brochure, Penny bangers have now been replaced by 50 shot ‘Nuclear Weapons’ only £64.95!. And Rockets are still available in packs of 38 for £84 Mmmmm
Selection boxes like Vendetta can cost £595 for 11 fireworks or the Ultimate for £2000 which has 80 fireworks delivered to your door. (I would expect an Exocet for that money). I was looking for the little kids version of snow storms, roman candle and volcanoes without avail until I spotted a 36 firework pack for £44.95 that included a good old Standard fireworks selection box called ‘Cliff Hanger’ (but I will be kept in suspense to see what that contains.)

For local bonfires rather than formal displays I like the historically named packs called Guido’s, Cateby’s Revenge, Plotters Party, Treason and the simple Plot Night. Getting down to basics ‘Penny for the Guy’ is a better priced option for £44.95 with a free Chinese Flying Lantern to set fire to your local woods.

I think I will stick to Indoor Fireworks which came up first on this list of fireworks you can buy from amazon. Obviously the price of rocket packs and other products ascends but I remember Christmas time with simple yet different indoor fireworks to let off around the dining room table. For less than £7, compared to the prices above, I think they will be better value for a tight Yorkshireman.
Indoor fireworks have their own genre and nomenclature and types include blazing bengals, snakes alive, flash gordon, sizzling strobes, ice fountains, fun snaps, puff the magic dragon, disco inferno and indoor sparklers.

Photo Credits

New Years Eve Fireworks by robynejay CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Firefalls by Chip_2904 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Heworth York