Jocky Wilson

Jocky Wilson, who has died aged 62 after several years of ill health, was a former world champion darts player whose professional peak coincided with the game enjoying unprecedented popularity on television.

The key to understanding Wilson, darts commentator Sid Waddell once said, was that he went to an orphanage. Speaking in August 2007, a time when Wilson had long retired from the game and become a recluse, Waddell said: "He was 10, and his brother was eight, when his dad went to prison. His mother couldn't handle it and so they ended up in this orphanage for five years. Jocky suppressed it but when he got mortal, when he got p***** and started effing and blinding, that was him raging against those years."

Born John Thomas Wilson in St Andrews, he had a range of early jobs, including working as a miner at Kirkcaldy's Seafield Colliery. He honed his talent for darts at the town's Lister's Bar and turned professional in 1979. Between then and his retirement in 1996, he enjoyed a remarkable career, reaching at least the quarter-finals of every World Championship between 1979 and 1991.

In 1982 he beat John Lowe to take the Embassy World Championship and, after numerous other career highlights, regained the title in 1989 after an unforgettable match with Eric Bristow. The rotund Scot, aged 36, had sailed into a 5-0 lead before almost being pegged back by Bristow, but he held his nerve to win 6-4.

"To beat Eric, the greatest name in darts, in the final is something I will never forget,'' said an emotional Wilson as he collected £20,000 in prize money. Ten months later, as he prepared for the 1990 tournament, he recalled of that final: "That was quite an experience, and one I remember with some pride.''

Not content with these headline-grabbing achievements, which helped endear him to television viewers and non-darts fans alike, Wilson also won the British Professional Championship on four occasions between 1981 and 1988, and the Scottish Masters title three times.

In the words of Tommy Cox, his manager between 1988 and 1996, Wilson "transcended the whole spectrum of life in the UK – in the 1980s there wasn't a person in the country who didn't know who Jocky Wilson was". He was a genuine character, admired by fans and fellow professionals.

Wilson often relied on substantial quantities of drink to get himself fired up for competition, but nothing seemed to impair his eye for the double-top. Some of his English rivals noted, too, that he "hated" the English, and always raised his game against them.

In an interview in The Herald in 1995, Wilson looked back at his career, his prodigious drinking (though by that time he had been dry for nine months), his diabetes and his role in the top players' split in the early 1990s with the British Darts Organisation, which led to the setting-up of the World Darts Council (now the Professional Darts Corporation).

"I could have been better, I know that, but I drank too much," he reflected. "I have done a lot of daft things, but at the end of the day I have thoroughly enjoyed my life. How many people can say that?"

He retired in 1996, relocating to Kirkcaldy from Tyne and Wear. In December 2009 the Professional Darts Corporation staged the Jocky Wilson Cup in Glasgow, an event that gave rise to the World Cup of Darts Pairs. Following his retirement, Wilson – who married Argentinian-born Malvina and had three children, a daughter, Anne Marie, and two sons, John and William – withdrew from public life.

The documentary maker, Julian Schwanitz, shot a 17-minute documentary, Kirkcaldy Man, on his fruitless search for Wilson. Last Thursday, Wilson's 62nd birthday, Schwanitz won a Scottish BAFTA New Talent award for it. He was planning to send Wilson the award and a copy of the film, which he had never seen.

"Now I've woken up to the news that he has gone," Schwanitz said. "It is very sad." He takes the view that Wilson immortalised himself years ago by disappearing from the public gaze; to his fans, he effectively "died" years ago, but his achievements ensure he will not be forgotten. The film has prompted enthusiastic comments from fans who see the complex Scot as a genuine hero.