The Legend

Ace Arthurs is a maximum man!

STEVE Arthurs was celebrating after becoming one of the few players to complete the rare double of a maximum 18-doll haul indoors and outdoors, writes Russell Smith.

The 52-year-old painter and decorator, from Over Norton, near Chipping Norton, bagged his latest full house for Deddington in their 6-0 whitewash of Tysoe Social Club in the Banbury Indoor League.

It came eight years after he achieved the same feat for the Fox (Broadwell) at the Plough in the Chipping Norton League.

“It was very pleasant, I must confess,” said Arthurs, who had twice come agonisingly close to a maximum with two 17s earlier this season.

“There was not a great deal of pressure, although I needed to get four in one leg to win it.

“Some nights it just feels good and it goes and some nights it doesn’t. When it all comes together it is a lovely feeling.

“The further you go it is difficult to put it out of your mind as you are throwing.”

As Arthurs knocked off the last doll to complete the magical maximum, his feat was warmly received by his teammates and opponents. “Everyone was cheering and coming up and congratulating me,” he added.

“They were all brilliant about it – it is a bit like Phil Taylor at the darts – you have got to admire someone who is good at what they do.”

Arthurs’ 18-doll haul also enabled him to silence his good friend, Darren Kettle.

“He gives me a bit of a ribbing about getting 17s, and said let’s do it properly and it gees me up a bit,” he added.

“He has nicknamed me ‘The Legend’, which is slightly embarrassing.”

Arthurs is the first player to hit a maximum in the Banbury Indoor League, and he remains the only player to hit a triple six in the Chipping Norton League.

“That’s a nice feather in my cap,” he added.

And he puts his new-found success down to having stopped playing during the summer.

“I played for 33 years in the Chipping Norton League and I had a summer away from it,” he explained.

“I had got a bit stale, and I started playing with some friends of mine and Deddington called me in because they were short. “It seems to have charged the batteries.”

Captain Graham Timms was sticking up the doll as Arthurs kept knocking it off.

And as the last leg took place, he felt he was about to see something special. “Once he got the first three I knew he was going to get the rest,” he said. “He is that sort of thrower.

“It is the first time I have seen it. I have seen plenty of people get 17, but not 18.”

It’s also the second time Arthurs has hit the headlines in recent weeks.

A keen angler, he was crowned the king of Coldstone AC after winning the club’s open match on the Evenlode at Ascott-under-Wychwood.

And with his luck obviously in, Arthurs joked: “I ought to do the lottery.”