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Success Quote by Eric Bristow

"All this cuddling and kissing on stage these days, well it's all right in football when someone scores a goal, but not when you're playing darts"

About this Quote

Bristow’s line lands because it treats “cuddling and kissing” like a contagious fad that’s spilled across the boundary between a sport built on collision and one built on concentration. The joke isn’t prudishness; it’s misplacement. Football’s celebrations are an extension of the game’s logic: bodies in motion, adrenaline spiking, the crowd roaring you into a kind of communal frenzy. In darts, the whole ritual runs the other way. It’s stillness, precision, a tight little theatre of nerve where a millimeter is the difference between legend and shrug.

The intent is a classic Bristow move: policing the culture of his sport while making it sound like common sense. He frames affection as appropriate only when it matches the genre. That’s why the punchline works: the image of two players smothering each other in hugs after a checkout is absurd, like applause breaking out mid-chess match. He’s not just complaining about behavior; he’s defending a code - darts as pub-born, no-nonsense, allergic to performative sentiment.

Subtextually, it’s also about television. As darts moved from smoky back rooms to bright stages, it picked up the grammar of mainstream sports entertainment: walk-on music, personas, camera-friendly emotion. Bristow’s quip needles that transition, suggesting the sport risks becoming cosplay for athletes rather than a mind game for specialists. He’s funny because he’s half-right and fully irritated, using a tidy comparison to shame excess without sounding like a scold.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Bristow, Eric. (2026, January 17). All this cuddling and kissing on stage these days, well it's all right in football when someone scores a goal, but not when you're playing darts. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-this-cuddling-and-kissing-on-stage-these-days-50886/

Chicago Style
Bristow, Eric. "All this cuddling and kissing on stage these days, well it's all right in football when someone scores a goal, but not when you're playing darts." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-this-cuddling-and-kissing-on-stage-these-days-50886/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"All this cuddling and kissing on stage these days, well it's all right in football when someone scores a goal, but not when you're playing darts." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-this-cuddling-and-kissing-on-stage-these-days-50886/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Eric Bristow (April 27, 1957 - April 5, 2018) was a Celebrity from USA.

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