Bullseye star died penniless in council flat despite drawing in audiences of ‘millions’

A former Darts World Champion and star of one of the most popular game shows of the 80s had his life take a heartbreaking turn in the years leading to his death. Battling with depression, a crumbling family life and dwindling finances, Jocky Wilson, once a famous sports star, would become a recluse, rarely leaving his council flat before his death aged 62. Turning time back to the 1980s, darts fever had struck the UK. Before Luke Littler, Luke Humphries and Michael van Gerwen, we would have Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Jocky Wilson.

Darts back then wasn’t what it is now, with professionals chugging pints and chain-smoking while competing on the world stage. Having grown up on a council estate in his home town of Kirkcaldy in Scotland, he started his career throwing darts at the local Lister Bar, going on to join the pub’s team where he’d soon make a name for himself on the local scene. Speaking to the Observer, Jimmy Skirving, an old drinking buddy, said: “You could always rely on him.

“But I can assure you, Jocky was taken advantage of. Once he won a holiday and some suitcases. He got home with neither - he sold the holiday for 50 quid and the cases for a tenner."

By the early 80s, Jocky became a name in many households, and when he won the World Championships in 1982 and again in 1989, he looked destined to go down in the history books.

Going on to make guest appearances on Top of the Pops and a regular spot on Bullseye, millions tuned in for both his darts and his personality. People would love him for his frank sense of humour. "I'm short and fat, so what? That's life! Anyway, TV makes you look fatter,” Wilson once said.

But soon after, he and his prematch routine of lager followed by seven or eight vodkas to keep his nerves in check would disappear.

Struggling with various health problems, in December 1995, he suddenly stepped back from the sport and moved back home to Scotland, where he was rarely seen or heard from right up until his death.

It is believed he gave up in the end because of his diabetes and a need to carry on drinking while playing - two things that don’t go hand in hand.

He would refuse all interview requests and only made one public appearance in a bizarre world team tournament at Ayr Butlins in the early 2000s.

In 2007, he was tracked down to a one-bed flat in the same council estate he grew up in, his winnings squandered, and he was only surviving off his disability benefit.

The Observer interview added: “He shuttles between bed and the living-room sofa, where he watches television underneath a giant picture of himself cradling his first world championship trophy. His only regular human contact is with his wife, Malvina, and the doctors who treat him.”

Speaking back in 1996, a year before he declared bankruptcy, Wilson said: "I've been let down once or twice in my life, but I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. There's only one person to blame for the situation I'm in, and that's me.”

In 2012, it was announced that Jocky had died at the age of 62, where police confirmed it to be “non-suspicious and due to a medical matter."