Welcome to the OFFICIAL website for the Liverpool Open Darts League.
Rob Gerrard, Secretary, L.O.D.L. 
Call or text: 07742-601-331
email: LODL@supanet.com

2025 - 2026

April 3rd

LATEST RESULTS

Heather beat Prince George 11-2 and Anglesea had a narrow 7-6 win over McGinty's only
winning the match on the very last leg . 

The second 180 of the season was scored by Danny McDonough from Heather.

March 18th

LATEST RESULTS

Heather beat Anglesea 8-5 and Prince George beat McGintys 9-4. This week saw the first 180
of the new season, scored by Barry Dodson from Anglesea.

March 11th

FIRST RESULTS OF THE NEW SEASON

Wins for both home teams this week with Anglesea beating Prince George 8-5 and Heather beat
McGiny's 9-4.

February 26th

NEW LEAGUE START - MONDAY 9th MARCH

New league will start on Monday 9th March. Sadly it will only have the four teams that have
been playing regular friendlies over the last few months. The teams involved are

   ANGLESEA, Beresford Rd, Dingle

   HEATHER, Speke Sports and Social Club, Bramhall Close, Speke

   McGINTY'S, Mill Lane, Old Swan

   PRINCE GEORGE, Longmoor Lane, Fazakerly

Each team will play the other teams four times, twice at home and twice away. The league matches
will follow the new format played in all the friendlies as shown below

   Before Match starts both Captains write down the names of their first five players and
   the ORDER in which they will play. Captains then swap papers and the five names from each
   side are put on the board.

     Game 1 - Two legs of 501 Away team throw first in first leg, Home team in the second leg
     Game 2 - Two legs of 301 Home team throw first in first leg, Away team in the second leg
     Game 3 - Two legs of 501 Away team throw first in first leg, Home team in the second leg
     Game 4 - Two legs of 301 Home team throw first in first leg, Away team in the second leg
     Game 5 - Two legs of 501 Away team throw first in first leg, Home team in the second leg

     Game 6 - One leg of 301 Home team put name up first and throw first 
     Game 7 - One leg of 301 Away team put name up first and throw first
     Game 8 - One leg of 301 Home team put name up first and throw first 

   In games 6, 7 and 8 the captain can play any three of the first 5 players again OR three
   different players from their team if they wish. Names are put up one at a time.

   There are 13 legs to play for (7 x 301 and 6 x 501) and the first to win 7 legs will be
   awarded the two points. The team with the most points at the end of the season will be 
   declared the league winners.

January 26th

MARINE FC - DARTS COMPETITION - 20th MARCH 2026

Marine FC are running an amateur darts night with a professional theme on Friday 20th March
as a fundraiser for the club as Merseyside's Premier Non-League football club. 

They are currently looking for Players to enter this competition so if you fancy your chances
then get in touch with Darren Court at Marine FC - see contact details below. 

It will include: 

- Lights!

- Live footage from the oche beamed around the venue

- MC/Compere.

- A recognised and famous Professional darts caller and referee in Paul Hinks

- Darts Anthems

- Amazing Player Walk-ons

- Prizes

- Sing-Alongs

Almost everything you would experience at a professional darts night is recreated at the event as
some of the best local amateur players on the circuit battle it out in a 16 player single elimination
tournament played over one evening.

To watch is £10 or to play is £25. For further details and ticket information click the link below or 
contact Darren Court on 07739-569-541 or email partnerships@marinefc.com

Marine FC Darts - March 2026

For a video from the previous Darts night held in December last year click the link below 

Marine FC Darts December 2025

January 10th

League Update

Unfortunately one of the four teams interested in keeping the league running cannot commit to
playing every week at this point in time. Therefore the start of a new league has been put
ON HOLD.

The remaining teams will continue to arrange friendlies and hopefully other teams might pop up
to play a friendly or two along the way. I plan to revisit this in April - if there is no sign
of any interest then I think that will be the time to finally put the league to sleep.

If anybody has a team that wants to sample the new format of the league then get in touch with me
using the details at the top of the page and I'll put you in touch with one of the existing teams
to arrange a friendly. Remember you only actually need FIVE players to play a match in this league.

I'll continue to update this site as and when I get anything positive to report.

December 7th

League Update

After the last update things have gone backwards. When it comes down to the number of teams 
committed to playing in the league this season we only have FOUR - Anglesea, Heather, McGintys
and Prince George. After speaking to the teams involved we have decided to run a league starting
in January 2026. Each team will play the other teams four times, two at home and two away. There
will be no cup competition and if we are to have Individuals/Pairs competitions they will be held
on one night at a single venue at the end of the season.

Each team will pay £50 resulting in £200 prize pot which will be split £130 to league winners
and £70 to league runners up.

Fixtures will be published nearer the start of the new league.

NOTE - Still not too late for teams to join - if interested then let me know

October 30th

LEAGUE RESURRECTION

We currently have 8 teams wanting to restart the league using the new format of mixture of 301/501
games with potentially another 2 teams joining (See below for details of the new format). A number
of friendlies have been played over the last four or five weeks and there seems to be a positive
reaction to playing the new format. There's another couple of weeks of friendlies ongoing an I 
intend calling a meeting in the next week or two once I've confirmed the final number of teams.

Friendlies (that I know of) scheduled over next two weeks are :-

November 3rd
  Woodies       v Anglesea
  Prince George v JB's

November 10th
  Anglesea v Woodies
  JB's     v Prince George

A full list of confirmed teams and Venues can be found on the "Teams/Venues" link 

September 30th

MARINE FC - DARTS COMPETITION - 13th DECEMBER

Marine FC are running an amateur darts night with a professional theme on Saturday 13th December
as a fundraiser for the club as Merseyside's Premier Non-League football club.

It will include: 

- Lights!

- Live footage from the oche beamed around the venue

- MC/Compere.

- A recognised and famous Professional darts caller and referee in Paul Hinks

- Darts Anthems

- Amazing Player Walk-ons

- Prizes

- Sing-Alongs

Almost everything you would experience at a professional darts night is recreated at the event as
some of the best local amateur players on the circuit battle it out in a 16 player single elimination
tournament played over one evening.

To watch is £10 or to play is £25. For further details and ticket information click the link below or 
contact Darren Court on 07739-569-541 or email partnerships@marinefc.com

Marine FC Darts Competition

September 10th

NEW FORMAT PROPOSED

The four basic problems affecting the LODL (and I suspect probably other local leagues)
are:
1. Distance – Because of fewer teams in the league they tend to be spread over further
   distance and the only way that I can see to mitigate this is if we get enough teams
   in the league to allow us to maybe have area/zonal divisions.

2. Number of Players – traditionally it has always been a 9-a-side league but very few
   teams can guarantee to get 9 players each week and even after we reduced the required
   number of players to 7 in the last two years this that has also proven difficult for
   teams. The obvious choice is to drop to 5 players. This could allow some of the larger
   teams to maybe enter two 5-a-side teams and may even encourage other teams to enter
   the league.

3. Format 301 or 501 – this has always been a bone of contention across Liverpool/Merseyside.
   This league has always traditionally been a 301 league, though over the last couple of
   years we did start including 501 in the league games even though it was in the pairs.

4. Number of Legs – quite a few people recently have commented that it’s hardly worth the
   travel for just one leg of darts and maybe it should be best of 3 etc.  The obvious
   option is to incorporate this into any new league format.

In trying to answer the problems above we could just make it 5-a-side best of 3 legs of
301/501 though choosing 301 or 501 would not solve the problem number 3 completely. To
solve all the problems above I’m proposing the following match format:

Before Match starts both Captains write down the names of their first five players and
the ORDER in which they will play. Captains then swap papers and the five names from each
side are put on the board.

  Game 1 – Two legs of 501 Away team throw first in first leg, Home team in the second leg
  Game 2 – Two legs of 301 Home team throw first in first leg, Away team in the second leg
  Game 3 – Two legs of 501 Away team throw first in first leg, Home team in the second leg
  Game 4 – Two legs of 301 Home team throw first in first leg, Away team in the second leg
  Game 5 – Two legs of 501 Away team throw first in first leg, Home team in the second leg

  Game 6 – One leg of 301 Home team put name up first and throw first 
  Game 7 – One leg of 301 Away team put name up first and throw first
  Game 8 – One leg of 301 Home team put name up first and throw first 

In games 6, 7 and 8 the captain can play any three of the first 5 players again OR three
different players from their team if they wish. Names are put up one at a time.

There are 13 legs to play for (7 x 301 and 6 x 501) and the first to win 7 legs will be awarded
the two points This would solve problems 2, 3 and 4 above and indirectly if the format proves
popular it may go some way to solving problem 1 by allowing us to have area/zonal divisions in
the league thus reducing the amount of travel involved. 

Though it is officially a five-a-side team because technically you only need five team members
to play the match the addition of the three games at the end allows for three additional members
of the squad to play if the captains decides to pick them.

As part of the league we can still run a Presidents Cup, Individuals and Pairs competitions but
would need to resolve 5-a-side, Charlie Frost and Secretaries competitions. Fees would also need
to be considered.

At the moment the format is being trialled by a couple of teams but I would encourage other teams
to try the format and I'd appreciate any feedback.

Ideally I'd like to hold a meeting for interested teams sometime before end of September with a 
view to starting some sort of league or competition by Mid-October. 

If anybody has any views or questions they can contact me on the details at the top of this page.

Sample Match Card 

August 27th

LEAGUE IS NO MORE

It is with regret that I have to announce that this league has come to an end. Over the
years the league has slowly reduced in numbers, both in teams and players and has now 
reached the breaking point. We had SIX teams willing to continue as a league but it
appears at the eleventh hour one of the teams was unable to recruit enough players and
therefore had to pull out. With only FIVE teams other teams agreed that it ws no longer
viable to continue.

At this point I will take a few weeks to try and find a way of continuing with some sort
of Monday night team competition with smaller teams ( 5 or 6 a side ??) so please keep 
checking this site for any updates. 


I've been part of this league since 1976 when it was originally the Tetley Walker Darts
league. The headquarters in those days were The Gregsons Well on Brunswick Road, L7. In
1978 the headquarters were moved to Grosvenor Hotel (The Red Brick) on Lodge Lane L8, 
where it remained until 1990 when it then moved to The Pineapple Hotel on Park Road L8.

In 1997 Tetley Walker ended their sponsorship of the league and at that point we became
the Liverpool Open Darts League and headquarters were moved to the Fairfield Police Club
on Prescot Road. The loss of Tetley Walker sponsorship was a significant loss from which
the league would never fully recover.

With the impending closure of the Fairfield Police Club in 2010 the league took temporary
residence in Rileys Pool & Snooker Club in Wavertree for one year and moved on to The
Newstead Abbey on Smithdown Road for a further 10 years.

For the last five to six years the teams have reduced to such low numbers and over further 
and further distances that we took the decision to not have a set headquarters but to hold
meetings in various venues.

With regard to numbers of teams over the years the following summary will show how numbers 
have declined since the 1975-76 season. The table shows the numbers of teams in the league
and in each section. At one time in the Gents league we had a PREMIER section and SIX area
sections and in the LADIES league we had two section with FOURTEEN teams in each. We lost 
the last of the Ladies sections in 2013 and the Ladies were then allowed to play in the 
"Gents" teams.



             75-76    79-80    86-87    89-90    99-00    12-13    19-20    24-25

TOTAL          90       78      123       95       64       24       10        9

GENTS

Prem           14       15       16       14       12       10       10        9

A Secton       14       16       15       16       16        8        0        0

B Section      11       16       16       16       14        0        0        0

C Section      12       16       16       16        0        0        0        0

D Section      12       15       16       15        0        0        0        0

E Section      14        0       16        0        0        0        0        0

F Section      13        0        0        0        0        0        0        0

LADIES

A SECTION       0        0       14       18       22        6        0        0

B SECTION       0        0       14        0        0        0        0        0


All in all I've enjoyed my time in this league both playing and administering the league.
I've been to many pubs/clubs that I would probably never have even thought of visiting any
other time and met many many people. They're just some of the joys of playing darts for a
team.

Its going to be a big miss on a Monday night - not playing darts, but as I've said above keep
an eye on this website and hopefully we can come up with something.

Good Luck to all in finding something for Monday nights.

August 26th

NEW SEASON - 8th SEPTEMBER

The new season will start on Monday 8th September.

All the details for the new season are now uploaded to this site.

The next league meeting will be on Tuesday 10th September at Mill Lane Sports Bar. Secretaries
need to bring:-

    Team Registration Fee                           - £10
    First three months league fees @ £15 per month  - £45

    Initial player registration form. Players can then be added through the season.