"I still get the groupies, but they’re all 70!" - Living legend Bobby George still enjoying Elvis-like receptions at exhibitions

Now aged 79, Bobby George remains one of the true living legend in the darts world. He may not have won a World Championship (a two-time finalist), but he was still the most popular player of his generation.

George introduced the walk-on with music in the 1980s, invariably entering the stage to the tones of Queen's iconic classic We are the Champions. George did so adorned with numerous jewels, sheathed in a robe and holding a candelabra. It made him wildly popular. He may not have been a multiple winner like Phil Taylor and Eric Bristow, but he still amassed a fortune, mostly on the exhibition circuit.

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Even now, he still enjoys enormous popularity. "The other night, they were all putting their hands out to touch me, and I felt just like Elvis. I still get the groupies, but they’re all 70!" George laughs in quotes collected by Mirror Sport. "I did one show about three weeks ago. I walk through the crowds to We Are the Champions with the cloak, the candles, the lot – and a woman jumped on my back and snogged me. Another night I was playing, I had a streaker come on, a bloke, and he jumped on my back. Once in Ireland during the Legends of Darts tour eight years ago, before I played, I said, ‘You can throw your knickers and suspender belts at me, and the guys can do the same if they want.’ And all these women took their knickers off and threw them on the stage. I couldn’t believe it.”

Bobby George with his signature walk-on

Ahead of Friday night's World Darts Championship final at the Alexandra Palace in London, George says he is proud of his part in forging darts' popularity with the masses. “I started the walk-on music, I started that, with the cloak, and the candles,” he says. “I still wear all the bling. I ain’t good enough to play competitive, but I play fun darts. I used to dig tunnels and lay granite floors, never had rings on. It just grew on me, I suppose. It was fun wearing one, and then I got another one, and in the end I had big chains. The jewellery over the years, I’ve spent a lot but I can’t remember how much. I would think, ‘Oh, I like that piece. That’s a bit over the top.’ I keep my jewels in a safe, I have to.”

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George celebrates his 80th birthday at the end of this year and says he has one trick to keep from getting older. "As long as I take the mirrors out of my house, I won’t get old,” he says. “If you don’t see yourself, you don’t know you’re getting old, do you?”

George still follows modern darts too, which is how he became impressed with Luke Littler. "Luke’s unbelievable. I thought he wouldn’t maintain it, but he has. The game he played earlier in the competition, he could have come unstuck, he didn’t play that well, he struggled a bit, he cried when he won," George notes. “Bless him. That’s a lot of pressure on him to do it. It’s hard for a young man, he’s still growing up. He’s got to keep his feet on the ground. And he’s got to be careful of burnout. Luke is a character and we need more of that. You can’t make a character, you have to be born that way.”

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