Lady Darts

A brief look at the life of Stacy Bromberg and the world of Ladies Darts. 


Stacy Bromberg burst into the top echelon of darts when she made the final of the 1995 Women's World Masters.   That was the same year she won North American Open. Although she was beaten by England’s Sharon Colclough in the Maters, seven years on, by then a Member of U.S. World Masters Team and ranked the number one American woman, Stacy qualified for the BDO Women's World Darts Championship. Although she was once more defeated, this time by the Dutch, former European (1998) and World Masters Champion (1999) Francis Hoenselaar (2-0), Bromberg had shown herself to be a formidable international campaigner.


In 1997 Stacy Bromberg was chosen for the winning ‘International’ team that defeated Canada.  However, 1999 was a watershed year on the world stage for Stacy when she reached the semi-finals of the Australian Grand Masters, and gained selection for the US World Cup Team. This, alongside her double gold medal performance in the World Cup that same year (in Women's Singles and Women's doubles, in Australia) threw her into the limelight of global darts. By 2000 Bromberg had gained an impressive darts pedigree being a five-time. North American Open Champion, consistent membership of U.S. World Masters Team and victories in the Windy City Open (1997 and 1998).  Thus Bromberg dominated the last decade of 20th Century darts in the USA.  


In 2003, in her home town, Bromberg won the Women's Las Vegas Desert Classic, meeting the formidable Deta Hedman in the final, winning six of the ten legs played. Twelve months on Stacy found herself yet again in the final, but on that occasion was narrowly defeated (6-5) by the phenomenal Trina Gulliver playing at the top of her game.


In 2010 Stacy rolled aside the former world women’s champion, Anastasia Dobromyslova (4-3) to make the first ever PDC Unicorn Women's World Championship final at Blackpool's Winter Gardens v Tricia Wright, who had claimed more than half century of titles during her career. Wright held leads of 4-2 and 5-3 but failed to kill off the match.  The pressure her opponent exerted caused her to miss four match winners, leaving Bromberg to pocket the £10,000 title – then a record for the women’s game.


Brian Belton was born, brought up and went to school in the West Ham district of East London, a forth generation darts player, scoring his first nine dart finish at the age of 9.  


There being no organised outlet for young players in the early 1960s, his ambitions with the ‘arras’ were restricted to holiday camp and youth club glories. In later life he became distracted building a career as youth worker, a vocation that has taken him around the world, including Israel, the Falkland Islands, the USA and China but he never lost touch with the game as a spectator. 


Brian gained a BSc at City University, an MA at the University of Essex and was awarded his doctorate by the University of Kent.