UNTIL late 2024 there was no darts team at Solent University, now fast forward two years and the Solent Darts team head into the 2026/27 season looking to defend their UDUK South League title.
In their debut competitive league season, the Solent Darts A team romped to the league title, a feat that would have been in society founder and president, Max Parsons-Williams’ wildest dreams.
“I’m not exactly the most negative minded person and I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself but no – didn’t think it would be as big as it is today.”
Max also explained why he wanted to form the university’s first ever darts society.
“[I was] relatively bored in my first year to be fair and wanted [to join] a society and there wasn’t a darts one… so I thought yeah I’d give it a go.”
Within just 18 months of its inception, the Solent Darts Society had grown to more than 50 members and since then, numbers have continued to soar with the society boasting three competitive teams.
Speaking again, Max Parsons-Williams highlighted how the darts society could be benefitting from the difficulty there is to make it into other university sports teams.
“I think it’s really hard with our uni – we’re a uni that specialises in sport and arts – so a lot of the sports students that don’t get into the BUCS teams for football, rugby and other areas find themselves coming to us.”
Society vice president, Josh Spencer, spoke on defending the league title from last year and how the team has replaced members that have graduated from university.
“I’m really confident in us defending the title this year. We’re quite lucky, we’ve had a young lad called Finn come in and he is absolutely brilliant – a star player. So we are really confident ahead of this year.”
One thing for certain, is that the Solent Darts Society is growing from strength to strength and after matchday one of the new season, the A team already sit top of the league.
