Diabetic, blind in one eye, but Jamie (Jabba) Caven can see a Palace world crown

The 31-year-old from Leicestershire does not think it strange that he has made a career as a darts player even though he is blind in one eye.

'Can you imagine how good I would be if I could see out of both of them?' he said with a smile.

These are changing times in the world of arrows.

An Essex nightclub has been replaced by an iconic venue in north London for the Ladbrokes.com World Championships, translators are needed for almost every press conference such is the international flavour and Phil 'The Power' Taylor might not even make the final if he repeats his first- round vulnerability.

But, as the Alexandra Palace prepares for a daily influx of 5,000 spectators, a crop-haired former Inland Revenue employee, who has to inject himself with insulin four times a day and whose pals have nicknamed him Jabba, is enjoying the spotlight.

When he takes to the oche, Caven looks like every other player, except, perhaps, for his pencil-thin frame.

His right foot rests against the raised stage, 7ft 9in from the board, he lifts his right hand and, more often than not, the dart lands in the region of a treble 20.

Caven is blind in his right eye, yet not only does he throw on that side, he has reached the second round of these Championships after knocking out Wes Newton, the No 24 seed, with a performance which included a 121 check-out.

When you ask how he has achieved it, he says: 'I am not sure. I cannot see my dart until I have thrown it. I don't know where I am throwing or how. It is just natural.'

Tomorrow night he meets No 9 seed Wayne 'Hawaii 501' Mardle in round two. Should he progress, he would be guaranteed at least £10,500.

But Caven knows one thing for sure. It will not be spent trying to correct his vision.

Caven has not been able to see out of his right eye since he was a few months old after he had been taken out in his pushchair by an uncle.

'I am told I started screaming,' he says. 'Nobody is sure what happened.

It is probable that I was stung by a bee and that did the damage, or something else might have gone in my eye.

But it has meant I have never known anything different than to have cycloptic vision.

'If I had the money, would I spend it on trying to see if something could be done? I don't think so because if I had 20-20 vision it would probably knock me off balance in doing everyday things.

'When I throw a dart with my right hand while being able to see out of only my left eye, it lands where I hope it will because that is the way I have been brought up.

'I have never even thought of trying to throw left-handed because I have never needed to. I line myself up with my left eye and it is a formula that works.'

Despite his handicap, Caven played for his school football team and won the World Youth Darts Championship at Earl's Court aged 13.

He has to think hard about the biggest problem he confronts because of his blindness.

'Probably driving,' he says. 'Yet I could do that because I know someone who has sight in just one eye who drives.

'It's just that the insurance is so expensive. But I don't need to drive. I have lots of friends and they take me around.'

Caven started throwing darts before he hit double figures himself. His father, Neil, was a good club player and Jamie used to launch the plastic, safety version before moving to the real tungsten.

As a child, his growth was not so much matched by a height chart on the wall of his old family home but where the dart board was placed on the back of a door.

'You could see all the marks from when I was young until it was over 5ft,' he says. 'My dad said he should have kept the door because it could have been worth something one day.'

Even more by tomorrow. Caven is here to stay in the darts world. At the end of last year Taylor, the 13-time world champion, was competing in an exhibition match. Caven went along and beat The Power over a leg.

'Phil told me I should give the game a go because there is a lot of money involved in it,' says Caven, who quit his job at the Revenue's general enquiries' department and set about taking up a career in the sport.

Caven, who lives with girlfriend Debbie, knows his progress here will take him into the world's top 80 and he will use his prize money to tour the darts circuit.

But when he packs his bags for each tournament, alongside his darts will be his insulin.

It was in 1996 that he discovered he was diabetic after another incredible trauma.

He says: 'I kept blacking out. I was taken into hospital and the doctors found out I had tumours around my pancreas.

'They were benign. But it showed that I was blacking out because my body was not producing enough insulin.

'I had my pancreas removed and I knew I would be diabetic after that.'

In a sport which has The Pie Man, The Muffin Man, The Limestone Cowboy, Darth Maple and Jaws, maybe the player known as Jabba should be called the Iron Man.

He is a player who refuses to let anything break him.

FORMER World champion Dennis Priestley was last night knocked out in the first round of the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championships by a 400-1 outsider.

Priestley, the 1994 champion, was beaten 3-1 by Southend's Steve Maish at the Alexandra Palace.

Priestley will go into hospital for a prostate cancer operation on January 2 — the day after the Championships end — and he said: 'It would have been a fairytale to have reached the final, but you have to be good enough to make the fairytale happen.

'I remember when Bob Champion won the Grand National after having cancer and I was hoping for something like that here. But it was not to be.'

Andy Hamilton overcame the pain of a foot injury to reach the second round.

He beat Dutchman Leroy Kwaidjk 3-1 despite slipping down stairs on Wednesday.