A Katikati woman starting up a youth darts club in town this school term is asking families with interested college-aged children to get in touch.

Natalie Dercksen, who works at Shot Darts in Katikati, said with the town having no darts club, she thought it would be best to start with setting up an avenue for local kids to enjoy the sport.

“The fact that there is a factory here in Katikati that produces darts, I just felt it would be great to have a darts club in town that can be supportive of both the community and our factory.”

Katikati Youth Darts Club is running on Tuesdays from 3.30pm-5pm at the Katikati Rugby Club for the second school term. Registration is open for Years 7-13 and costs $20 each.

‘Luke Littler effect’

Dercksen said many youngsters are now keen to play darts due to the worldwide “Luke Littler effect”.

“He’s a young guy from the UK who joined the Professional Darts Corporation circuit. In 2024, he secured 11 PDC titles and reached the PDC World Darts Championship final, aged 16, narrowly losing to Luke Humphries. This year he won the PDC World Darts Championship and being 17, became the youngest world champion in darts history.”

Dercksen said anyone who watches or plays darts knows who Luke Littler is – and his success has encouraged youngsters worldwide to get involved in the sport. “That kid has made more than £1.5 million in career prize money since turning professional in late-2023.”

Dercksen said darts is an affordable, fun sport to enjoy – and the new club has supplied the equipment needed.

Accessible to all

“We’ve kept the registration fee at $20 because we wanted it to be open for anyone, from any walk of life, to do something extra after-school that wasn’t expensive.

“And we’ll give each kid a free set of darts to play with,” said Dercksen, who will set up dart boards to use each week.

“We could have made the registration free but we felt the youth wouldn’t feel the value in the product – it needs to cost something small so that they’ve paid for a service and there is more expectancy of them to come along every week.”

STEM learning

Dercksen said darts is a skill-building sport that is great way for youngsters to develop hand-eye coordination, focus, confidence – and involves STEM learning – all while having fun with friends.

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and is a holistic educational approach that integrates the four disciplines to develop problem-solving, critical thinking and innovation skills.

Thirteen-year-olds Corbyn Richards and JR Kruger, get ready to throw darts while Tyron Dercksen, 12, takes their scores. Photo / Merle Cave

“The maths that the kids need to use to play darts, the hand-eye coordination etc – it’s just great all-round for kids.”

Dercksen also likes that darts is a sport that’s open and accessible to all. “It is a game that anyone can play, however, it is not easy to be good at!”

Initially, Dercksen has organised for local adult dart players to volunteer on Tuesday nights to help with coaching the youth.

“In Katikati, we have six players in the top 16 in New Zealand – so we have some incredible dart players that live locally, but they don’t play locally because we don’t have a darts club here.

“My intention will be in future that this club will turn into a local club for all – but for now we’re leaving it to the youth.

“For Term 2, we’re going to keep things fairly simple to try and gauge interest from the community, but eventually we will limit numbers.”

She is also planning a have-go-day in the near future.

“We’ll just see how it goes in Term 2; then from Term 3 onwards it will be up and running officially.”

To register for Term 2, email: [email protected]