Just their names evoke an era of smoky taverns and bad hair and worse moustaches. A time when men were men, styled by C&A and reeking of Brut. Calorie counting was effeminate, Tom Selleck was a sex symbol; Ted Hankey and Steve Beaton, at the Grand Slam, was an old fashioned brawl.

They were two household names of council darts, the kind of darts you used to get for free on your council telly. No Sky subscription required. So when Ted and Steve met at the Grand Slam, there was an enjoyably low-rent, retro, feel to the occasion. This one wasn’t on council telly, of course, it was updated for an era where all telly sport is bought and paid for.

But the walk-on-girls, and Sky/PDC fanfare, couldn’t disguise the mucky BDO feel of this clash. It was council darts at its finest when these two former BDO World Champs met at the Wolverhampton Civic.

In fact the whole tournament has been enjoyably retro. Is there another sport that has so enthusiastically embraced the Movember movement? Those few players not participating in the annual men’s health campaign were conspicuous. Phil Taylor, Mervyn King, Co Stompe, Dean Winstanley, to name a few, all had some serious bum fluff above their top lips.

Even Russ Bray, the sandpaper-larynxed announcer, was sporting a feathery little flavour saver. This is what darts players are supposed to look like; 80s throwbacks, when men were men, fat and hairy, an antidote to the manicured modern world.

With the panoply of taches at the Slam we returned to the working-class masculinity of the sport’s pre-split 80s heyday. And the Slam is the one tournament a year where the stars of both codes compete in a telly tournament. Only with better darts and better lighting than the 80s pomp.

Movember must have been put together because the Slam is held in November, it’s an alternate reality tournament where there’s no split, and everyone is tached. It’s the 1980s!

Steve Beaton, the Bronzed Adonis, so monikered because of his striking classical beauty. Like Michelangelo's David crossed with David Hasselhoff. Almost painfully beautiful, sometimes it hurts to observe him; because deep down, you know he’ll never truly be yours. Such beauty can never be possessed by another.

Steve needs no encouragement to tache up. Come rain or shine, year round, no matter the season; his upper lip is adorned the way a man’s upper lip should be adorned: with a moustache. Chuck Norris, Burt Reynolds, Super Mario. Each of them a tough son of a gun, a moustachioed action star. Add Beaton to the list.

And like any classical hero Steve came up against an archetypal villain. Not an HBO villain though, like a bad guy from the Wire: nuanced, with some shading; a bad guy but only because of his environment, he’s got to put food on the table. Nothing is black and white, I can relate to this guy.

No, Ted Hankey is not like that. There’s no grey area, you can’t relate to him. He’s a monster, a monster I tell you. He doesn’t like his opponents, he doesn’t like the crowd. He doesn’t like you. You, personally. The person reading this. Mate, Ted Hankey knows who you are and he hates your guts. Don’t shoot the messenger, he does, he just does.

(Disclaimer: he’s actually very nice, it’s all a stage persona. I think)

At one point when the two council chuckers were going at it, Ted chucked a winning dart, turned to the crowd - and this was all captured in perfect slow-mo detail - thrust his fists at them in celebration, releasing a roar and a globule of spittle big enough to fill a pint glass. It was the scene in Raging Bull where the saliva is knocked out of De Niro’s gob, only more graphic.

It was minging.

It was a pretty thrilling and enjoyable match for the old school darts fan. Ted’s first victory over Beaton in 25 years. He won it 5-3, taking the third leg with an otherworldly 161 checkout and refinding, for most of the match, some of the finishing that had abandoned him in his first match versus Robert Thornton, in which the Scot whitewashed the evil Count.

Ted did his usual routine, he gave it the full treatment - with one exception I’ll come to - the growling, the gurning, the seething, the withering glances, the world-weary disdain. All the good stuff. But he also, at times, chucked some pretty astounding tungsten. Something he is capable of now and again, but not as often as us fans of the other stuff would like.

Because in order to see him gurn at audience members - one of the most moving sights in sport - he’s got to qualify for tournaments to begin with.

He also shouted the word, “Woohah!” at the end of his post-match interview.

Ted said in that interview he was going to play his own game, let the chips fall where they may, instead of trying to slow his opponents down, employing gamesmanship to win matches. That was the one thing missing from the full Teddy routine.

He won without the - always amusing - nonsense. But he wasn’t the only winner when Steve met Ted. As corny as it sounds: the audience were the real winners; everyone loves a bit of council darts.