Dave Gorman – Interview with Bravo TV’s Euro champs presenter

While we all enjoy the World Match Play from Blackpool, don’t forget that Bravo TV will be showing the European Championship of Darts next week (more info here; runs Thurs 29th August – Sun 1st August).  Bravo are promising to bring something new to darts tournaments – a fresh new approach.  You can find the draw and format of play HERE.

To celebrate Bravo bringing the darts to the masses, I have an exclusive interview with one of their presenters; Dave Gorman, stand up comedian, writer, and TV & Radio personality (I’m sure he has a personality off TV and Radio too!).

Over to Dave, and as they always say to comedians… “say something FUNNY!”

Dave Gorman Interview

Q.  Some of your less obsessive fans may not realise that you are a bit of a darts nut.  When did that start, and what got you into darts?

I followed darts as a kid. I used to love John Lowe. We were gathered round the telly watching as he hit his 9 dart finish and we were watching when Keith Deller won in 1983 too. We used to love it. My twin brother had a dartboard in his room and we used to play a fair amount. Like kids taking a sudden interest in tennis during Wimbledon I’m sure the board took a hell of a pounding during and shortly after the World Championships and then lay relatively fallow for months. I followed it off and on since but with the touring I was doing a few years ago it was impossible. I used to be away from home for 8 or 9 months of the year so I’d never subscribe to Sky Sports of anything like it because it always seemed so extravagant for the amount of viewing I’d get out of it but then I stopped touring for a while and got my TV set up and found darts was one of the sports that I got even more into than before. But I still wasn’t playing. Then this year, as I was watching Simon Whitlock I realised how odd it was that I would watch this sport so avidly but not actually play it anymore. I mean it’s not exactly a difficult game to get into… so I went out and bought some darts.

Q.  How is your own game going?  What darts are in your wallet at the moment?

I’ve tried an embarrassingly large number of darts. But I come back to the same set and am going to settle on them. 22g Dum Dums (Unicorn) only with Phase 5 stems, slikstiks etc. I use extra strong flights too.
I was getting better and better and then I hit a slump. Most of my darts happens in my spare room and I’m not very disciplined so it’s very easy to spend time just hammering the 20s(or at least trying to) instead of any practice routines that would improve the rest of my game. I really need to take my game out of the spare room and play some other people. I’ve now hit 13 180s. The last 6 of them came in a period of 2 weeks… and then since then, nothing. I think I’d started to overthink my throw, believing that I’d got somewhere and I might be able to improve if I thought about every part of what I was doing and tried to make it more systematic. But I turned to cack. I tried different darts to see if I could loosen myself up and just throw them for a while… and it’s started to get better again. Not back to where I was by any means but better. And I’ve gone back to the Dum Dums.

Q.  How closely do you follow the professional darts, and do you have many players on speed-dial yet?

I’m not obsessive about it – I don’t have time to be. I follow it when I can. I’m not mates with any of the players. Just a fan from afar.

Q.  When I think of darts presenting, I have to admit your name didn’t jump out immediately – how did this gig with Bravo come about?

Well they’d know more about that than me but I think they decided they wanted to try darts on the channel and thought that as they’d never done it before they’d like to do something different with it. Someone must have told them that I like it – which isn’t hard to find out if you follow me on twitter or read my blog or whatever – and they thought that maybe getting me involved might be a good way of doing something new. Of course that remains to be seen as yet!

Q.  Are you doing any special preparation for your stint as darts presenter?  Any ‘Motty’ like stats cramming?

Nope. I don’t have time. And in all honesty I don’t think it’s my job. There’s a very professional anchor for the shows in the shape of James Richardson and there’s a professional team of commentators too. I’m more your minister without portfolio. I’m sure the hardcore darts fans will watch the show whoever is presenting. But I think there are other people out there who would love darts if it was made more accessible to them. I hope that by being honest about what I enjoy about it and by _showing_ that enjoyment some of those people will find their inner dart fan.

Q.  Any hot tips on who’s going to win or do well in the competition?

You’d always be mad to bet against Phil Taylor obviously but I think he’s drawn an interesting first round in Co Stompe. He’s had some form recently – they both came away from Vegas with a win – and in the shorter games in the opening rounds you never know. I think Andy Smith has an opportunity to do something against Paul Nicholson in the first round – that looks like an interesting one – but the field is full of people who can do it on the day. With so many first round matches that are hard to call, I wouldn’t dare try and pick a winner for the whole thing. Some of the European qualifiers are unknown to me but I guess Tomas Seyler has the best chance of getting through the first round as he’s got Michael van Gerwen. No disrespect to van Gerwen… but when he’s recovering from a broken collarbone he has to be vulnerable.

Q.  As any good sports presenter knows, you’re only as good as your clichés – have you got any catchphrases at the ready that you want to introduce into the darting vocabulary?

Not yet. Let’s see what happens.

Q.   What should be expect from Dave Gorman the sports presenter… Des Lynam on valium or Sid Waddell on poppers…  Or something on that sliding scale?

Just me. On caffeine.

Q.  After his short foray into darts commentary and punditry, are you worried about being “the poor mans Stephen Fry”?

There’s only one man on this earth who isn’t a poor man’s Stephen Fry and that’s Stephen Fry.

Well I think that the darts is in safe hands with Dave, and if the power goes down (in more ways than one) at this tournament, we won’t be short of other forms of entertainment.  Remember to tune into Bravo TV on Thursday 29th July (7pm?) to see the darting action from Germany. You can get inside info and gossip on twitter by following Bravo_darts .. or me!

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