Sid Waddell (10 August 1940 – 11 August 2012) was an English sports commentator and television personality. He was nicknamed the 'Voice of Darts' due to his fame as a darts commentator, and worked for Granada, Yorkshire, BBC and Sky Sports. Due to his joke telling skills he was also nicknamed the Thief of Bad Gags, firstly by Dave Lanning. He was nominated for two prestigious awards for his work, and published several books. Early life The son of a Northumberland miner, he attended King Edward VI School, Morpeth, and he went on to obtain a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with an upper second degree in Modern History. At Cambridge, Waddell played rugby for St John's, and the Cambridge University LX Club, the rugby second team. Injury brought him to darts and he started the inter-college darts competition. St John's lost in the final of this in 1961 to a team of trainee vicars from Selwyn College. Career Granada and Yorkshire Waddell went into academia for a few years in 1962. He joined the Social Studies Department at Durham University and assisted the Professors of Politics and Economics in writing their books. He toyed with the idea of writing a book on trade unions but settled for folk singing in a duo with Charles E. Hall called the Gravyboatmen. They played on BBC Tonight and ITV locally. In 1966, Waddell joined Granada Television working with Michael Parkinson on local news programmes. In 1968, he moved to Yorkshire Television. Between 1968 and 1974, Waddell was a producer for over 600 editions of local news programme, Calendar. He also devised the ITV network children's series The Flaxton Boys a historical adventure series that ran for three years from 1969. 1972 was a big year for darts as ITV broadcast the News of the World Darts Championship for the first time. Waddell was an observer at Alexandra Palace during the 1972 News of the World Championship and was particularly impressed with the play and character of the eventual finalist, Welshman Alan Evans, who beat reigning champion Dennis Filkins in the semi finals with a fiery display. Also in 1972, Waddell created the show The Indoor League, which featured various pub games including darts, pool, bar billiards, bar skittles, Table football (aka foosball), arm wrestling and shove ha'penny. The Indoor League was only shown on Yorkshire Television in 1972