Zoom darts lifting spirits of Bank Quay Bulls under 16s rugby team

The players had teamed up to start a lads and dads darts team at St Benedicts Social Club a few weeks before Covid-19 took a grip of the country.

But when the rugby league season got suspended, and the pubs and clubs were ordered to shut down, they have taken to competing against each in other in daily tournaments from home using the Zoom app on mobile phones.

Dean Alcock, whose son Dylan plays in the Bank Quay team and is on the scholarship books at Widnes Vikings, said: “I think it’s brilliant what we’re doing to keep all the lads together.

“We’d just started darts as a way of socialising at St Benedicts. They had an A and B team but allowed us to set up a C team called the St Bens Bulls.

“We were going there for a few weeks and were just about to have games and then all the pubs and clubs got shut.

“So to keep all the lads together we’ve started to play tournaments from home, and then when the clubs open again they’re going to give us some games in the Warrington League hopefully.

“We’ve got some cracking players, about 10 of the players and their dads as well. Some of the lads are beating the dads.

“Ste Gamble, one of the parents who also used to coach the team, has been setting up and doing the tournaments for us all, putting time in at night setting it up all properly.

“It’s brilliant the way it’s set up.

“We had about 30 playing one night and now people all over Facebook want to join in.

“It’s live on the Zoom app on your mobile phone. It gives you a split screen. Ste can look at who’s playing, and the two players who are drawn out will get put on the main screen and the rest can watch.

“Everybody’s set up a dart board at home and set up a camera to it the best they can.

“I mentioned on the PDC page on Facebook and everybody was ‘Woah, how do you do that?’

“It’s just about keeping all the lads together. It’s a shame, for many of them it could be their last year playing rugby together and they’ve been together for quite a long time.

“With rugby having been suspended I can’t see them getting back out there this year.

“After this year, some of them will go to play open-age rugby or some of them have got scholarships – Leon Hayes at Warrington, Jacob Bourdet and Dylan Alcock at Widnes, and Finn Beardsworth at Wigan.

“St Bens have welcomed us on a Wednesday night, letting all the lads go in when it’s quiet so they can have a good practice.

“Now they’re all practicing at home as well I think they’ll do well as a team.

“Most of them have been playing together for eight years so they’re good friends, and it’s made their parents good friends as well, so that’s why we’re sticking together doing this.

“We’re all talking together while doing this, instead of all seeing each other twice a week at training and then recently with the darts.

“So it had gone from everything to nothing and it’s lifting the spirits a bit.

“Hopefully the virus doesn’t go on for too long and everything does go back to normal.”