A WEST FIFE darts player is preparing to step up to the oche and make history this weekend on the global stage.

Jay Thomson, who lives in Blairhall, will make his international bow for Northern Ireland at the World Disability Darts Association (WDDA) World Cup and World Championship, which begins today (Thursday) in West Lothian.

Originally from Belfast, the 47-year-old only took up the sport earlier this year having been inspired by the story of a member of Disability Darts Scotland that began playing after being the victim of a knife attack that caused him to suffer a stroke.

In 2018, Jay suffered two strokes, the first of which was caused by an aneurysm, having lost his fiancée to cancer, a month and a day before they were due to tie the knot.

Although he learned to walk again, and even completed a 5K walk/jog nine weeks after the first, the second stroke left him visually impaired, with tremors in his left arm, and with what he described as "really bad fatigue".

However, Jay didn't let that stop him from not only joining a prestigious bowling club in his native city, which has produced a number of Irish internationals, but becoming their first visually-impaired player.

After moving to West Fife last year, however, he made contact with Disability Darts Scotland and, after becoming a registered player, began competing in tournaments that have now led him to the World Cup, in which he will be the first visually-impaired player to compete.

"This is our equivalent of the Paralympics; this is the highest level of our sport," Jay told Press Sport.

"Owen Miller, who lives down the street from me, he gets to go to Tokyo – I get to go half an hour down the road!

"It's unbelievable. I found out in the middle of July and I just can't accept that I've achieved this in such a short space of time.

"I only started playing disability darts with Disability Darts Scotland in February this year so I've been doing well in my ranking tournaments in Scotland. Then, to get the call from Northern Ireland, I wasn't expecting this.

"I was looking more ahead to possibly having a slight chance of the British Championships in October down in England. I thought I might have an outside chance of those so to get the call to be in the World Cup team and the World Championship team is hard to take in.

"It's been a long road."

Jay, who is joining the darts team at his local pub, the White Gates, said that he has grown to love where he now lives so much that he thought at one point he'd "love to play for Scotland" but continued: "Once you get that call-up for your home country, you realise how much it means to you.

"All my ranking points from those tournaments got sent over to the co-ordinator for Northern Ireland so she was keeping a track of my results along with their own players in Northern Ireland.

"It took me four days before I could turn around and say to somebody that I've been selected to play for Northern Ireland without breaking down and crying.

"I've been through quite a bit but I've come out the other side."

The WDDA World Cup and World Championship takes place at the Hillcroft Hotel, in Whitburn, and runs until Sunday.