"In my view, the exclusion of darts is down to class-based prejudice," Martin Kelner wrote in The Guardian last year. "Because the drug of choice among darts people tends to be lager, and true Olympians like to go for something with a few more syllables in it, other sportsmen get all sniffy about darts."
Taylor, the champion who practices six hours a day, said the game's boozy pedigree was unshakeable and a big part of its appeal.
"You can take darts out of the pub, but you can never take the pub out of darts," he said the day after winning his latest title. "We will always have that label. You can never change it. But I don't think it's a bad thing. It's now a professional game, and people are realizing it."
"Plus, we've cleaned up the image a lot," he added, pointing to the fact that drinking alcohol is not allowed during a match.
Even the players, particularly the older ones, are trying to get trim. Taylor, 44, whose paunch hangs over his pants, has been working out with a body-building expert.
It is Fordham, though, who is taking fitness the most seriously, because whenever he stepped on his home scale, as he put it, "it read `error."' At 212kg, Fordham -- a pub owner whose theme song is I'm Too Sexy -- is the first to tell you he enjoys the "relaxed" life.
To relax before a match, he used to drink 25 bottles of Holsten Pils. When he broke his wrist last year, his physical therapy consisted of lifting a beer bottle to his lips (the therapy worked beautifully, he said).
When he nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion at the pay-per-view showdown with Taylor in November, he went outside, took off his shirt, iced himself down and reportedly sipped a beer to recuperate. Too sick to continue playing, he was forced to concede.
The health scare was a wake-up call. He has joined the cast of "Celebrity Fit Club," a reality television show airing now that features celebrities trying to get in shape.
"Drinking goes part and parcel with darts," said Fordham, 42, whose affable wife, Jenny, owns The Rose, a pub in Dartford. They live upstairs. "But I'm cutting back to as much I can." His initial goal is to reduce his daily intake of beer to 12 bottles.
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