The trend isn’t limited to London. In Sheffield, Luke Faulkner has been running a monthly darts club since summer 2025. It started out as a few mates throwing arrows, then grew to the degree where they’d bring their own darts, touring boards in city pubs to find the best one. Now, Lord of the Darts, a walk-on night held monthly, has a permanent home at Gut Level, a queer-led DIY event space in the city centre.
“Lord of the Darts is a chaotic mess, still in its infancy, but we wanted to open the sport up to more than older men,” Faulkner says. Gen Z and younger millennials are famously abandoning British pubs in favour of the gym and sportier pastimes, but at the same time, the 36 per cent of young people who do socialise in pubs don’t tend to be there for the alcohol, and prefer to visit for events like quizzes. Pub darts hits the bullseye. “Darts gets you and your friends together, without the need to drink booze if you don’t want to,” says Faulkner. “It gives you a purpose for meeting up and having fun.”
In Stockport, Craig Ballinger is also on a mission to return young people to the pub. After spending time living in Italy, he and his wife developed a taste for the card game scopa, which is played with a 40-card deck and has various complex rules you’re really best off exploring for yourself. “In Italy, it was the old men in bars playing scopa. It looked really interesting; they’re not the usual suits,” says Ballinger. They brought it back to their bar, Reddish Ale, a space designed to be “an exciting place from both a business and community-focused perspective.”
As someone who openly confesses to “hating” card games, Ballinger was won over. “Scopa is extremely easy,” he says. The first night was mostly people in their 30s, and a big success. “It’s something to relax into, keeps your hands off your drink and gives a focus away from other thoughts,” he says. Given the overwhelmingly positive reaction so far, more scopa nights are well, on the cards imminently.