Peter Wachiuri pumped his fists as he sensed victory at the Jacaranda showground in the Kenyan city of Nakuru. Leading his opponent, James Kamama, in the final of the main event, Wachiuri approached the oche again, picked a dart from his left hand, leaned forward with an intense gaze on the dartboard, and threw double 10.
“Game shot!” the announcer’s voice boomed across the hall. Cheers erupted in the crowd, gospel music played out of the speakers and Wachiuri launched into a celebratory on-stage dance.
Match Play 2, a two-day tournament, had drawn 161 participants from around the country. “The tournament was excellent and all the players were great,” a jubilant Wachiuri said from the stage before the awards ceremony.
After years in the doldrums, darts is enjoying a resurgence in Kenya. The groundwork was laid by darts development and marketing organisations that began to establish leagues and tournaments three years ago, professionalising the sport. As Dann Karori, a co-founder of Sirua Darts, which organised the Nakuru event, said: “We want to make Kenya the capital of darts in Africa.”
The lift-off moment occurred last year when David Munyua, a veterinarian, became the first Kenyan to qualify for the sport’s showpiece event, the PDC World Darts Championship, held at Alexandra Palace in London. Not only did he qualify, Munyua went on to win his first-round match against the Belgian 18th seed, Mike De Decker, in one of the tournament’s biggest ever shocks.
“There was a very big tsunami after everyone watched Munyua play,” said Manpreet Kalsi, 42, a mall general manager and the top-ranked player in the first season of the Sirua Darts Circuit (SDC) league. “[People thought] ‘these guys can do it, why can’t we?’”
Wachiuri discovered darts at a bar in Ngong, the town where he lives, and initially played to pass the time. He fell in love with the sport when he started making enough money to feed his family by betting on his own matches.
Nicknamed “Kenyan King”, he later quit his job as a lorry driver to focus on darts and he is today one of the most accomplished players in the country, his achievements opening the door for others.
In 2024, the year before Munyua’s breakthrough, Wachuiri was one dart away from making it to the world championship himself, missing his target by millimetres at the African qualifiers in Nairobi.
Kalsi has been playing since the 1990s when his family held matches on Sundays over barbecues at their home in Nairobi. He won his first children’s tournament when he was about 14, then took a break from the sport, returning to it only 10 years ago and eventually being recruited by the Mang darts club in Nairobi, which played in competitions organised by the amateur-focused Kenya Darts Association.
Nicknamed “The Prince”, like Wachiuri he has played at the Modus Super Series, a weekly competition held in Portsmouth on England’s south coast for non-PDC tour card holders.
And like many other Kenyan players, Wachiuri and Kalsi participate in competitions organised by Sirua and the African Darts Group, a development and marketing organisation founded by South African player Devon Petersen.
Long a staple of bar culture and social clubs, the first heyday of Kenyan darts came in the 1980s and 90s, largely thanks to the airing of a darts tournament called KBL Festival of Darts on the national broadcaster .
The country’s best players started gracing the international stage. They included Robert Ngirigacha, John Munyui, Anne Wairimu and Mary Njogu, who all appeared at the World Darts Federation World Cup.
But poor management and a dearth of corporate sponsorship meant that by the early 2000s, interest had waned.
Sirua Darts is one of the organisations leading the recent resurgence. It was founded in 2022 by three darts enthusiasts – Karori, Penny Mubea and Jeff Muriithi – who felt Kenyan talent could excel anywhere with the right structure and support.
Sirua runs a 12-week league featuring 20 teams from different parts of the country, with a total of 300 players. It also holds tournaments and partners with international bodies to grow the sport.
The fans at the Nakuru event were mostly players themselves, but Karori said Sirua was working to develop the fanbase holistically, for instance by incorporating music and food at tournaments and marketing the sport externally.
Karori lamented that the sport had “been lost in the country for 20 years”, meaning gen Z was never introduced to it. In order to reach that market, he added, “we need to make the games very exciting”.
The effort is bearing fruit. On the day Wachiuri faced off with Kamama, who is from Naivasha town, the rhythmic thud of darts hitting boards filled the room as dozens of men and women in colourful kits battled it out in matches and chalkers swiftly wrote the scores on tablets.
Outside, participants bantered around tables as they awaited their turns, while others sharpened their darts or sipped their beers.
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Left: Benard Muiruri, a member of the APPA Estates team, speaks with his teammate Victoria Wangu. Right: a player sharpens his dart
In the women’s category, Millicent Wangui beat her fellow Nakuru resident Daisy Kipyator. Both the men’s and women’s finals had energised crowds, ecstatic walk-ons, and expert analysis via a YouTube livestream.
Wangui, a police officer, said: “The spirit of darts is very strong these days and everybody is determined to win these tournaments because they can give us opportunities to compete abroad.”
She dreams of playing in the women’s tournaments of the PDC and the Modus Super Series.
Everyone involved in the higher echelons of the sport agrees that attracting more player sponsorship to fund overseas travel, in particular, is the key next step. After the competition in Nakuru, there was a fundraiser for Benson Ngari, who had upset Wachiuri in the final of a qualifier in May for a spot at the Modus Super Series next week.
“Since I started this game, I’ve been wanting to go play abroad. And I can say time has come, so I’m very happy,” said Ngari, a 45-year-old motorcycle taxi rider based in Nairobi, on the sidelines of the tournament. “I’m ready, though I still need support in terms of finances.”
Ngari eventually secured sponsorship and was to leave for the UK today, but was denied a visa.
At the grassroots level, teams have sprung up in neighbourhoods in towns and cities to participate in SDC leagues.
On a recent Friday evening at a bar and restaurant in Ruaka town, just outside Nairobi, players from the G9 Mnazini team played a wager game that doubled as practice for SDC matches. Down the road in Ndenderu on a Wednesday night, the Oche Addicts team played matches at a lounge and restaurant.
The Morans team played their opening matches of the new SDC season at a commercial and residential blockin the Nairobi neighbourhood of Parklands one Friday evening, as amapiano played in the background.
The scene was a microcosm of how far the sport has come, and where it could be heading next.
Munyui, who left darts in the early 2000s and returned to it three years ago, was playing. Now in his 60s, he said: “It’s good that Sirua has come and collected darts from where it was.”
Also in the room was 14-year-old Aryan Khalsa, who finished 25th in the SDC last season and has been described by fellow players as the sport’s future. “I hope to be picked to go play international events and one day go to PDC,” he said.
