Sid Dowson
Sid Dowson
The only time Sid Dowson appears in the program booklets of the major tournaments is during the WDF World Cup tournament in 1977. However, he was the referee for the very first 10-dart finish by Leighton Rees on TV during the 1978 World Championship.
Patrick Chaplin (https://patrickchaplin.com/) Did a great article on Sid in his monthly Dr. Darts Newsletter (#143). Some of the highlights of that are:
Sid Dowson says he’s normally a very shy person. A surprising claim for a man behind the mike to make, you might think, but nevertheless it’s true, at least according to Sid himself. “My wife is constantly amazed that I get up there and shout out the odds,” he says. He runs the King’s Head pub in Stanley, Durham, and got into ‘miking’ about five years ago, through the B.D.O. at their Unicorn Championships, where he was an official marking the board. Researching the Unicorn Championships programmes for 1975 and 1976 shows that Sid was listed as one of the two ‘Practice Board Players Area stewards’ (with Ken Glidle) in the former and one of the ten named ‘Stage Scorers’ the following year and was shown to be the referee for the first match in the initial Friday afternoon sessions and, with Ken, a stage scorer in the evening in the International
Invitation Final.
Since then, he’s come on strong and for the last three years has appeared on Tyne Tees television as the regular compere in their 15-week Double Top competition. Now he’s an automatic for talking the fans through the big ones round Durham. And he’s got high hopes of a spot on the comperes’ team at the Embassy World Professional championships in Nottingham next month. As regards Sid making the cut at the initial Embassy World Championship, I cannot find any reference to him in the programme for that year, but former England international Doug McCarthy told me in November 2021: I might be wrong on this but I think he refereed every game on T.V. in the World Professional darts competition from Nottingham won by Leighton Rees.
In 1977 he took charge of the game between Alan Evans and Mohammad Ali at the Gypsy Green stadium, South Shields. Perhaps, from a nationwide perspective, Sid’s most famous performance as an M.C. was indeed the ‘open air’ match mentioned by Doug where the ‘Welsh Dragon’, Alan Evans, took on Mohammad Ali at darts. Throwing javelin-style and in a cross wind, Ali claimed an 8-3 victory and proclaimed himself the World Darts Champion.
His daughter Olwyn insisted in an interview with Mike Amos in 2016, it was her dad, who formulated the triumphant phrase ‘ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY!’, “Everyone thinks it was Sid Waddell. It wasn’t, it was Sid Dowson. My dad was a performer, put a
microphone in his hand and he’d sing, but he was quite shy.
According to Doug McCarthy, the last match Sid Dowson refereed was Cliff Lazarenko v Jocky Wilson at Marden Country Club in 1980 where he left early feeling poorly and died two days later aged only 56.
Nine Darters
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Sid Dowson's Tournaments
Sid Dowson
The only time Sid Dowson appears in the program booklets of the major tournaments is during the WDF World Cup tournament in 1977. However, he was the referee for the very first 10-dart finish by Leighton Rees on TV during the 1978 World Championship.
Patrick Chaplin (https://patrickchaplin.com/) Did a great article on Sid in his monthly Dr. Darts Newsletter (#143). Some of the highlights of that are:
Sid Dowson says he’s normally a very shy person. A surprising claim for a man behind the mike to make, you might think, but nevertheless it’s true, at least according to Sid himself. “My wife is constantly amazed that I get up there and shout out the odds,” he says. He runs the King’s Head pub in Stanley, Durham, and got into ‘miking’ about five years ago, through the B.D.O. at their Unicorn Championships, where he was an official marking the board. Researching the Unicorn Championships programmes for 1975 and 1976 shows that Sid was listed as one of the two ‘Practice Board Players Area stewards’ (with Ken Glidle) in the former and one of the ten named ‘Stage Scorers’ the following year and was shown to be the referee for the first match in the initial Friday afternoon sessions and, with Ken, a stage scorer in the evening in the International
Invitation Final.
Since then, he’s come on strong and for the last three years has appeared on Tyne Tees television as the regular compere in their 15-week Double Top competition. Now he’s an automatic for talking the fans through the big ones round Durham. And he’s got high hopes of a spot on the comperes’ team at the Embassy World Professional championships in Nottingham next month. As regards Sid making the cut at the initial Embassy World Championship, I cannot find any reference to him in the programme for that year, but former England international Doug McCarthy told me in November 2021: I might be wrong on this but I think he refereed every game on T.V. in the World Professional darts competition from Nottingham won by Leighton Rees.
In 1977 he took charge of the game between Alan Evans and Mohammad Ali at the Gypsy Green stadium, South Shields. Perhaps, from a nationwide perspective, Sid’s most famous performance as an M.C. was indeed the ‘open air’ match mentioned by Doug where the ‘Welsh Dragon’, Alan Evans, took on Mohammad Ali at darts. Throwing javelin-style and in a cross wind, Ali claimed an 8-3 victory and proclaimed himself the World Darts Champion.
His daughter Olwyn insisted in an interview with Mike Amos in 2016, it was her dad, who formulated the triumphant phrase ‘ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY!’, “Everyone thinks it was Sid Waddell. It wasn’t, it was Sid Dowson. My dad was a performer, put a
microphone in his hand and he’d sing, but he was quite shy.
According to Doug McCarthy, the last match Sid Dowson refereed was Cliff Lazarenko v Jocky Wilson at Marden Country Club in 1980 where he left early feeling poorly and died two days later aged only 56.
