The Indoor League

The Indoor League was a pub games competition series that was produced by Yorkshire Television and aired from 1973 until 1977.

The TV Times magazine dated 31 March 1973 contains a one-and-a-half-page editorial on it, featuring noted darts player Tom Barrett.

The programme was broadcast from The Leeds Irish Centre, which was later recognised as the 'birthplace of television darts'[2] The Indoor League was created by Sid Waddell,[3] who also produced the series from 1972 to 1976.

In the first series, all darts matches were played on a Northern England "doubles dartboard" that does not have any treble scoring segments.

The competition was restricted to players from within the Yorkshire Television region but, due to the programme's success, from the second series onwards the men's and women's darts competitions were open to all players from around the globe, and they played for the Indoor League World Darts Championships.

From the 1974 Season onwards, the winner of the men's darts tournament qualified for the BDO World Masters the following year.

After the second series, The Indoor League Bar Billiards added the unusual rule of a 45-second maximum break limit.

[citation needed] Alan Evans, in his semi-final match against Tony Ridler became the first ever male player to score a 180 on Television.

The current News of the World Darts Championship winner Ivor Hodgkinson entered the tournament but was beaten in the first round by Frank Crolla.

Reigning champion Leighton Rees was unavailable at the time of filming the competition due to him touring Australasia doing dart exhibitions.