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A darts hero dubbed 'The Pie Man’ says he needs a new nickname following a dramatic body transformation.
Andy Smith, a former World Grand Prix quarter-finalist, was renowned for his chunky physique during the height of his career in the 2000s, which featured a victory over darting GOAT Phil Taylor. During one tournament, as fans serenaded him with unflattering chants about his size, he was given the Pie Man moniker by darts legend Bobby George, and the name stuck.
However, with Smith, now 56, pondering a comeback on the World Seniors Tour, a new nickname will be required after he lost a staggering seven stone.
“When you’re playing darts, you’re drinking and you’re eating,” he told Daily Star Sport of his darting heyday. “You’re not doing a lot of exercise, you’re going to bed late, then getting up and having a full English breakfast.”
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Up until the last couple of years, Smith was still weighing well in excess of 20 stone, but the influence of a good woman changed his lifestyle for the better.
“I met my new girlfriend, Allison, and I gradually started to lose weight. She bought me some shirts and they were like a boob tube on me! I said ‘I can’t wear them, you’ll have to send them back’. She said ‘no, you’ll fit into them by September’. This was in June. I just cut down on all the bad things.
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“I’d been looking after my dad, who’s passed away now. He was a diabetic. If his blood sugar was low, he had to eat sweet stuff. He was having cakes and stuff. So every time he had a cake, I’d have one. I was just eating all the wrong things.
“Gradually I started to lose weight. It’s taken a while but I’m chuffed. I can now get into 34 [waist] jeans. I’ve gone from 23 stone to just under 16.
“I can now go into a shop and buy a T-shirt that fits me instead of going to a fatman shop where everything was four or five X’s. That feels rewarding. It’s down to Allison, she made me cut down.
“Instead of drinking pints, I drink Barcardi and coke when we go out on a Saturday. I’ll have a couple of pints sometimes but not like I use to.
“I’ve cut out on the chocolate and the cakes. If I go to the chippy, I’ll just have a fish. I think I’ve done it the right way. I’ve done it slowly and I’ve kept it off. If you go on a crash diet, you just put it back on again.”
Smith lost his PDC Tour card in 2016 and has suffered several injury problems, including tearing a bicep tendon.
“I could probably still hit a 180 but I’m not consistent enough. I just need to practice, but I haven’t got round to that yet,” said Smith, who works as a logger.
He is tempered to try his hand at the burgeoning World Seniors Tour, where Taylor and other legends of the game are still strutting their stuff.
“I wouldn’t mind coming back into the Seniors and giving some of them a bit of a bashing,” he declared. “I miss the players but not the travelling. I miss the money. I was earning 50-60 grand a year and I wasn’t even in the top 16. I was in the top 32.
“Everybody still knows me as the Pie Man but I would probably need a new nickname now!”
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