Darts in The Netherlands, The Hague.

Part 1 Where did it all begin?.



In the year 1960's this is where it all began Darts in the Netherlands.


Where now the entrance of the media market electronic shop is, Grote Marktstraat te Den Haag, in the street stood proud Cafe de Luifel. This local cafe for me stood fast until, 1989 owner Wim Koek.What is so amazing I was part of this history, but did not know this Blog had been published, until I met in November 2013, Frans Remmerswaal, who did a great job researching the material, I have simply added to the original, well done Frans Remmerswaal.

Op de plek waar zich nu de ingang van de Media Markt in de Grote Marktstraat te Den Haag bevindt was tot en met 1989 op nummer 37 Café de Luifel van Wim Koek gevestigd. In dit café is eind jaren zestig het darten in Den Haag begonnen. 

 

Part 2

 

Deel 2 Kampioenen Eredivisie D.S.W.N. en voorgangers

2010-2011 Fifth Division
2009-2010 Fifth Division
2008-2009 Super Switch
2007-2008 Super Switch
2006-2007 Super Switch
2005-2006 Diplomats
2004-2005 Diamond Dukes
2003-2004 De Gaper
2002-2003 Shanghai-Express
2001-2002 Burdock Jupiter Stars
2000-2001 Burdock Jupiter Stars
1999-2000 Daco Carrousel
1998-1999 J van Zweden Reclame
1997-1998 Infothuis Carrousel A
1996-1997 Mac Donalds H.D.S.C.
1995-1996 Diplomats
1994-1995 Dichters
1993-1994 Ent/The Diplomats
1992-1993 De Dichters
1991-1992 Bull's
1990-1991 The Godfathers
1989-1990 Pingouin Voorschoten
1988-1989 Boetzelaer Super
1987-1988 Boetzelaer Super
1986-1987 MacDonald A
1985-1986 Diplomats
1984-1985 Diplomats
1983-1984 Winmau Diplomats
1982-1983 Winmau Diplomats
1981-1982 Cosmos Tornado's
1980-1981 Cosmos Tornado's
1979-1980 Klein Duimpje 2
1978-1979 Dartvillains
1977-1978 Luifel 1
1976-1977 Luifel 1
1975-1976 Luifel 1
1974-1975 Luifel 1
1973-1974 Luifel 1
1972-1973 Luifel 1
1971-1972 The Luifel
1970-1971 The Luifel

                                                                                  

Deel 3 Terry Henney en zijn team Luifel 1

Tijdens mijn onderzoek naar de geschiedenis van het darten in Den Haag en omstreken ben ik o.a. de naam Terry Henney tegengekomen. Via Google heb ik hem opgespoord in Spanje en van hem heb ik de volgende informatie ontvangen over de kampioen van de eerste acht seizoenen Luifel 1.

DARTS IN THE NETHERLANDS

Darts was first introduced to the Café de Luifel somewhere around the late sixties when a large contingent of English engineering designers / drafts men were imported to work at some of the Larger chemical engineering companies based in The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Such companies as Badger, Aramco, King Wilkinsonin, Crawford & Russell Engineers & Constructors Corp , Matthew Hall, Lummus Crest, Den Haag, Comprimo in Amsterdam and Bechtel in Rotterdam (to name but a few) employed large numbers of these engineers who spent most of their free time in the local ‘hostelries’!

Many of the original guys to frequent the Luifel were from Manchester in the north of England and yes Southener's as well, to name Lester Millard as one, the northener's came from, a town where darts was the next most favorite pastime to angling (fishing) and it wasn’t long before Wim Koek  jr. (proprietor of the Café de Luifel), was talked into having a Dartboard installed in his bar.

It is also worth mentioning that the Manchester influence was so strong in the early days that both Wim Koek and his then wife Mary, both leaned to speak fluent English with a perfect NORTHERN accent!

Some of the Manchester lads are names that may well still be remembered: Jim Bevan, ‘Mac Macadam’, Geoff Kirkman and John Berry spring readily to mind. Also there were some well known ‘southerners’ (who through darts became ‘honorary Mancunians!’) such as Colin Miller and Jim Brown.

In the very beginning the nearest thing to a competition was the Saturday and Sunday games of Knock-out ‘Killer’ and ‘Mickey Mouse’ in the Café de Luifel where, for the cost of 1 Guilder per person per game, you could pit your skills against the best of the rest and after a long day at the Dartboard it was quite possible to walk away with enough Guilders to pay your bar bill for the entire weekend!!

Around about 1970 a fledgling darts competition began to take shape.

Initially centred only in Den Haag and surrounding areas the game began to gain popularity spread which of course resulted in inter-café matches being arranged.

Eventually, so many bars and Café’s began to take an interest, that the first league table was drawn up and organised (I think by Wim Koek and Geoff Kirkman, but of this fact I am not entirely sure).

At this time Wim Koek had only one team at the Luifel (called of course ‘The Luifel’) but after the first couple of seasons so many people wanted to play, (women included) that more teams had to be formed thus ‘Luifel 1’, ‘Luifel 2’, ‘Luifel 3’ and ‘Luifel Ladies’ came into being.

Similarly more bars and Café’s from farther afield wanted to join in, leading of course to the obvious need to divisional separate this fast growing competition.

Also obvious at this time was the need to register the league with the Dutch sporting authorities in order to take part in and organise officially recognised competitions and Internationals.

And so The Nederland Darts Bond was formed.

As far as I can remember the Founder members and first officially elected NDB committee were as follows:-

Frans v/d Geest (President)……………..Owner of ‘Hotel v/d Geest’ Noordwijkerhout

Colin Brown (Treasurer)……………….. Employee, Patents Office, Rijswijk,

Ingrid Raith (Secretary) Dutch Girl (I think that was her Surname!) Capt Luifel    ‘Ladies 1’

Wim Koek    (Committee member)………Owner, Café de Luifel

Terry Henney (Committee member)……Engineering Draughtsman

Since that time NDB selected teams have represented The Netherlands in International matches against Belgium (its called ‘Vogelpik’ there!) European cup matches in various countries, World Cup matches (the first of which was in Australia!) etc, etc,

On a more personal level, I have represented The Netherlands in two international matches against Belgium, European cup matches in Denmark (Which I think was in 1978) and Wales in 1980, also the Winmau world Masters in 1976 and 1980.  I was Dutch National Champion in 1975 and runner up in 1980.

I formed the first Café de Luifel team (pre NDB) at the request of Wim Koek and subsequently won ‘the league’ in 1971 and 1972.

Teams were then made up from :-

Terry Henney (Capt) - Ronnie Watson, Charlie Fisher, John Berry, Eddie Eve, Nigel Greenm, Dave Blake and many others like Lester Millard.

Interesting note: In those days many of us played with wooden darts, lead weighted with feathered flights until Ronnie Watson came on the scene with his big brass darts with white feathers slightly preceding the introduction of the Tungsten darts of today.

In 1973 I formed the first ‘Luifel 1’ team to play in the NDB  ‘Eredivisie’ Winning the championship for the following five consecutive years.

I will try to remember the team players for these years but it is entirely possible that the list will not be as accurate as I would like!

1973 Terry Henney (Capt.) – Ronnie Watson, Charlie Fisher, Terry Mottershead
1974 Terry Henney (Capt.) – Ronnie Watson, Charlie Fisher, Terry Mottershead, Dave Blake1975 Terry Henney (Capt.) – Ronnie Watson, Charlie Fisher, Terry Mottershead, Peter Lee1976 Terry Henney (Capt.) – Charlie Fisher, Terry Mottershead, Peter Lee, Lester Millard, John Hollamby1977 Terry Henney (Capt.) – Charlie Fisher, Terry Mottershead, Peter Lee, Lester Millard, Roger Ryan(I would like to apologize in advance to any past team-mates for possible inaccuracies?)
Staaten Café, 
Klein Duimpje,
Cavalier Club
Ned Kelly
Scorer
Om de Hoek

In the year 1977 (I think) we also won the first NDB National Team championship held in Noordwijkerhout.

Finally in 1978 I opened my own ‘Darts oriented Bar’ in partnership with Ruud van t’Hart, (the first bar with multiple dartboards), the bar was called ‘DARTSVILLE’.

With respect to our former achievements I requested ‘lowest level entry dispensation’ from the NDB for my new team ‘DARTVILLAINS’ (which was to all intents and purposes the old Luifel 1!) and was granted immediate entry into the 2^nd Division of the league. We won the 2^nd division title at the first attempt and were promoted to the Eredivisie which we went on to win in1979.

1979/80 Dartvillains:  Terry Henney (Capt) – Peter Lee, Lester Millard, and Jimmy Cox


I finally returned to the UK in Late 1980 and have not played competitive darts since.

Some of our biggest rivals were:

Cosmos,

Unfortunately after 30years many of the other names are just distant memories but I’m sure if you are still in contact with Jilles Vermaat,  who along with the Smith brothers and their father formed the team that were our strongest rivals and came nearest to defeating us, will be able to fill some blanks ( I know for a fact he used to play in the same team as Rob Scholten!).

Here are some pictures that may be of interest.

Myself at the Congressgebouw (Den Haag).

                                           Luifel I - Eredivisie kampionen 1973 to 1977

                    Terry henney, Terry Mottershead, Roger Ryan and Charlie fisher
I hope the above will be of some help in piecing together the history of darts in the Netherlands and if anything else comes to mind I will be sure to let you know.

Part 4 My (Lester Millard) added section to this blog written by Frans.

Finally I have added my part, I found so old photos where we all were playing at the Café de Luifel (I was part of the team as you have now gathered) in a championship against Biffy, needless to say the pictures speaks a thousand words, yes we WON.

I am the one with the curly hair; believe it or not yep it’s me. Lester Millard
Myself at the Cafe de Luifel with team players and friends (Den Haag).

Would juts like to add it was great not only playing for Terry He4nning but also working for him at PES Engineering in Rijswijk. Good on you Terry.

Lester Millard winning dart Café De Luifel Den Haag