My name is Wim Blokpoel. I am 16 years old and I live in the Netherlands. I am a massive darts fan and my passion for the sport started in 2017. Before then I already grew up with darts.
My dad used to watch darts way before I was born. Like most Dutch people, he started following the darts back in the days when Raymond van Barneveld had his success in the BDO. Back then in 1998 the Dutch TV channel SBS6 started showing the darts, which led to the Dutch people becoming interested in the sport and even some fans became dedicated to knowing everything about the game.
The final between Jelle Klaasen and Raymond van Barneveld even had over 4 million viewers in the Netherlands. Once Michael van Gerwen had his success in the PDC, RTL7 just started to broadcast the PDC events. I grew up seeing the likes of Taylor, Lewis, Wade, Anderson, Van Gerwen and Whitlock although I did not understand the game.
I then became interested in the game after my dad explained to me how darts worked and the first tournament I watched was the Players Championship Finals back in 2017. I also started to play darts on a soft tip board my dad had, which I really enjoyed. The tournament that made me fall in love with the darts the most was the 2018 World Championship, which is still my favourite tournament ever. It had everything, so many tense games, a very surprising debut win for Rob Cross as he managed to beat the retiring Taylor in the final.
In 2018 I also decided to join twitter, where I met a lot of other dart fans and enjoy talking to them about the game a lot. In 2020 I decided to make newspages for Jeffrey de Zwaan, Raymond van Barneveld and Danny Noppert, the last one along with fellow DartsWorld Magazine writer Henry Cheal. During the 2021 World Championship I decided that I wanted to do something more.
Being a Dutchman, and always supporting the Dutch players, I decided to make a website about Dutch Darts. I also decided to do Q & A’s with specially Dutch people involved in the darts world and Henry Cheal also started writing blogs for my website about specific Dutch players.
I now will also be writing articles for DartsWorld Magazine. I am honored to be asked to do this, and I will try my best to enjoy you readers. I will be writing about the Dutch players on their website as well, and I am very much looking forward to that!
Words and Images: Wim Blokpoel
