Winmau
Winmau (pronunciation like "Win-more") is a British manufacturer of dartboards and other articles for the sport of darts and is a sponsor of the oldest regular dart tournament, the Winmau World Masters .
In 2002 the company was taken over by its main competitor Nodor , but both brands continue to use their existing brand names that have been established in darts. The company is based in Bridgend , Mid- Glamorgan , while the sisal discs are manufactured in Kenya .
Origins
Winmau was founded in 1945 as "HA Kicks", named after the company founder Harry Kicks. The original elm dartboards were still hand-painted, from 1952 the fields and numbers were then printed on.
Kicks subsequently produced paper discs, which he sold under the name "Keep Dry". The name "Keep Dry" came from the fact that these discs, unlike the well-known elm discs, did not have to be watered. In 1960 the brand name "Keep Dry" was sold to Scotts Dartboards of Southend, a company that had just specialized in paper targets.
In the early 1960s, the founder's two sons (Harry Jr. and Ian) joined the company. Around the same time, the Nodor company's patent on sisal discs expired and the production of sisal discs (bristle boards) began. The company name (company) was changed to "HA Kicks and Sons".
In 1973 the company's founder Harry Kicks Senior managed to negotiate a sponsorship contract with the British Darts Organization (BDO): HAKicks dartboards were now the official BDO boards and were thus represented in many international competitions. In the mid-1970s, Kicks changed the company to Winmau (an acronym for his wife's name, Winifred Maud).
Financial difficulties
When darts boomed in the 1980s, Winmau also benefited significantly from this boom. Kicks senior died in 1984 and his five sons continued to run the company together. However, the company experienced financial losses for a number of years and got into trouble. In addition, the company's headquarters had to be relocated to Haverhill , Suffolk in 1989 .
In 1993, the company Accudart, which sold Winmau in the US, was asked for financial help to keep the company liquid. Ron Kurtz, owner of Accudart, agreed and subsequently became the majority owner of the company. He led the company back into the black within two years.
The competition with Nodor
Nodor was founded in 1919 by the chemist Ted Leggatt as a company for the production of clay-like modeling clay. The company name came from the fact that the mass was odorless (English "No Odor"). In 1923 a clay dartboard was produced, which, however, could not prevail against the usual elm boards (made by Winmau), so that after about a year they also started making elm dartboards. In 1928 the production of brass arrows was added.
In 1931 Frank Dabbs Leggatt presented his idea for a new dartboard construction, namely that of making the surface out of individual fibers. Leggatt and Dabbs finally brought the idea to patent maturity, and in 1935 the "Nodor Original Bristle Dartboard" was presented, the first sisal disc as it is standard today. At around the same time, the "pattern" with which the target fields are attached to the target established itself as the international standard.
Nodor continued to develop the sisal discs, up to the shape known today with the clipless bulls-eye, but was technically overtaken by the competitor Puma Darts for the so-called blade constructions (wires embedded in the board).
takeover
After 30 years of tough competition, Nodor finally took over Winmau in 2002. Since Nodor had already relocated the production of the sisal discs to Kenya in 1999, Winmau followed suit a year after the takeover and also relocated the sisal production to Kenya.
Both brands kept their established brand names in darts. They also sponsored athletes like Andy Fordham and Trina Gulliver , as well as major tournaments like the Lakeside World Championship and Winmau World Masters .