The British Telecom & Post Office recreation Council, or B.T.P.O.R.C. for short was responsible for the running of the National Darts for almost 30 years and was mainly took place in the old market town of Stone, Stoke-on-Trent.

Can anyone remember the Jones boys, Stan from Luton who was B.T. and the Post Office representative, Fred from Rhyl? They were the main organisers at the time. When they retired, Alan Weeks of BT took over as Chairman with Allan Grafton, Post Office, as Secretary along with Alan Golder from Bradford as Treasurer.

After Stone we held the competition at various venues including the West Bomwich Moat House, a venue known to a number of people as the CSSC National Darts finals were held there from 1987-89. We have moved the competition to many different venues over the years in order to allow the competitors and officials the chance to travel and see the rest of the country. In 1988 we started in Bournemouth (see venues from the main menu at the top of the page). As the competition progressed we were joined by Carol Simcock from B.T. Manchester.

A short time later B.T. pulled all of their funding and the Post Office took it all on. This lasted for only a short time and in 2002 the last Post Office funded competition took place in Bradford. Many of the competitors pleaded with Allan Grafton not to pull the plug altogether but keep the competition going. After all the players were contacted, the overwhelming response was to keep it going and the players and officials would pay all their own expenses and take their own time off. The competition stayed at Bradford the following year, 2003.

Allan Grafton took over as Chairman with Colin Caffery as Secretary. Then Graham Wiley joined the team as Event Co-ordinator. Shortly after that, to look after the Ladies side of the darts, we were joined by Carol Simcock and in 2005 were were joined by Dave Henderson.

From that first year in 2003 when we all paid our own way the competition has gone from strength to strength and is now so popular we have to look for even larger venues to accommodate the event. This is mainly down to Allan’s negotiating skills in attaining some fantastic deals. As you can see from the Venues page he already has a deal in place for Manchester in 2012 and is close to completing a deal for 2013.

Long may it continue to grow as it has become one of the best, if not the best organised amateur event in darts.