Oche wind blows ill for shivering Ted as Lipstick beats the Count

TV VIEW:IT ALL turned a bit ugly at the World Darts Championships on Saturday, the low point when Ted "The Count" Hankey, the 2000 and 2009 champion, got so angry with the officials over an alleged draught on the oche he chucked his arrows away – that's the technical term for throwing them in an uncontrolled manner towards the board, so wildly there's a chance they'll end up embedded in the officials' foreheads.

“There’s pandemonium at the Lakeside,” as our BBC man Tony Green put it, the venue by now drowned in boos (and booze too, it has to be said). “He’s his own worst enemy, is Ted.”

And it was, indeed, the mother of all meltdowns, although those who have followed Ted’s career closely will know he’s long had “oche rage” issues, once getting in to trouble for actually punching a dartboard.

But the problem with the draught was it resulted in Ted freezing, quite literally, having led his semi-final 5-3 against Christian “The Lipstick” Kist, a native of Vroomshoop in the Netherlands, as you probably knew already.

Ted even had a match dart, just missing the bullseye for a place in the final. Agonising.

But The Lipstick edged his way back to 5-5, taking advantage of Ted’s shivering, and by then you could hardly look.

“For those at home, I’m sure you’re so nervous you’ve been patting the dog so much it’s going bald,” said David Croft, conjuring a slightly unpleasant image of hairless whippets and Jack Russells snuggled up beside their masters back home, glued to their tellies.

In the end, Ted, almost unbelievably, lost, leaving the stage to a mixture of jeers and tears.

He didn’t, it should be said, do much to help himself warm up, his shirt open to just above his belly button, although when he spoke to Colin Murray after the match he denied the issue was personal chilliness, it was just the fact the air conditioning was blowing his darts off target.

“It did look like you felt that wind come on, we certainly felt it in the commentary box too,” said Colin, trying to calm a simmering Ted.

“Yeah, I said to the referee, the air conditioning’s come on! And I know why it came on, I’m not going to say why in front of the cameras, but it has come on, right? Simple as. I’m really, really not happy about it and I will see people about it later ’cos I can’t say what I want to say.”

There was a hint of a conspiracy here, draught-gate perhaps, but Ted wasn’t prepared to elaborate, leaving you a bit worried for the safety of the people he intended seeing later.

“Is this the last time we’re going to see you on the Lakeside stage?” Colin asked.

“Yeah, it is mate. Sorry, but, you know,” said Ted, paying tribute to his fans around the world, one of them, visibly distressed, picked out by the camera as he sat on his own out in the hall. We knew he was a Ted fan because he was dressed as Count Dracula and was wearing what appeared to be a coffin.

“Fangs for the memories,” said Colin, but Ted couldn’t even raise a smile; this was no laughing matter. “Times change, things move on, mate,” he said, before taking his leave.

The Lipstick, needless to say, was in decidedly chirpier form, although he needed a translator to share his post-match thoughts. Does that make him the first sporting Dutch person in the history of the world not to be fluent in English? Probably.

He spoke at great length about the final in his native tongue, so all we really learnt is that the Dutch for “comeback” is “comeback”.

His translator beamed, but when asked to translate said The Lipstick, “Can’t find the words, really”. That was clearly untrue, and left the viewers feeling a little cheated.

Meanwhile, news broke that Ted wasn’t actually retiring at all, he was just switching to the rival darts circuit, the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), his relationship with the British Darts Organisation (BDO) so frosty now it’s like they put their air conditioning on full blast.

And speaking of non-retirements. Channel 4 News’ Jon Snow did a little piece last week on footballers returning to the game even though they’re ancient, mentioning Paul “Sholes” and Zinedine “Zidany” along the way. It’s possible that Jon isn’t a big football fan.

He also talked about Thierry Henry “coming out of retirement” to score for Arsenal in the FA Cup. As tributes go, it wasn’t the warmest one the MLS has ever received.

Like Ted, it might even have left them chilled to the bone.