Darts in Australia
The sport of darts arrived in Australia during the Second World War. Soldiers from the United Kingdom brought it with them. A lot of soldiers
stayed in Australia when the war was over and soon darts spread every where in clubs and hotels.
From Queensland is known that first local tournaments were organised in 1954 by former British soldiers.
Around 1957 in several states the first associations were founded, women were at that time not allowed to play darts.
1962 the first tournament between two states - Queensland and New South Wales - took place.
Women in Tasmania founded in 1964 the ladies darts council and started to play. It took till 1979 before the Tasmanian darts council and the Tasmanian ladies darts council merged.
The first national organisation was founded 1963 - the Austrasia darts council to which belonged six Australian states and New Zealand. A short time later the DFA - Darts Federation Australia - was founded. It was not founder member of the WDF but joined the WDF later.
To the DFA - now "darts australia" belong associations of all states and territories of Australia, it is the governing body of darts in Australia and organises the national championship.
Beside the DFA there exists for some time already the DPA = Dart Players Australia, an organisation affiliated to the PDC, which organises it's own tournaments.
So we've got in Australia a situation similar to the one in the UK with the BDO and the PDC, players have to decide for which organisation they want to play and if they want to change, they might face temporal bans.
Both organisations organise their own circuit, through which players can qualify by a point ranking for the two world championships - through the DFA circuit you can qualify for the BDO World Championship, through the DPA circuit for the PDC World Championship.
While today every where 501 is played in the early times of darts more 301 DIDO, 401 DIDO and 501 trebles SIDO was played.
Today there live around 45 000 organised players in Australia and several 100 000 fun players.