WE love our local heroes at The Northern Echo and Phill Nixon - The Ferryhill Flyer - certainly emerged as a local hero from the World Darts Championships.

We had a feeling about The Flyer from early on in the championships and decided to get behind him.

This was a story that had everything - the 50-year-old 150-1 outsider who'd tried to get to the world finals for 20 years and finally made it when redundancy gave him more time to practise on the board in his kitchen.

We plastered "Come On Nixy" posters across Ferryhill, reported his every throw, and backed it up with website videos of Ferryhill's darts fever. They even created a dartboard pizza at the local takeaway.

Phill didn't win the title but he couldn't have been a more heroic runner-up, coming back from 6-0 down to level the final against world number one Martin Adams, before finally missing out 7-6.

It was mesmerising, nail-biting stuff but should a newspaper like The Northern Echo have led its front page on a darts match in the midst of wars, political crises and assorted tragedies?

It was a question put to me by a loyal and respected reader last week after the South Durham edition of the paper led with The Flyer's gallant defeat under the headline "Drama as Phill takes final right to the wire".

Maybe we got carried away but here was a man from our heartland who'd had millions of television viewers on the edge of their seats. Isn't there room now and again to lead the paper with such a story?

The idea of trying to arrange an open-topped bus tour of Ferryhill for The Flyer may have been over enthuisam, too, but we tried our hardest.

The Whitby Town Tour Bus company, which had supplied the vehicle for Middlesbrough FC's Carling Cup parade, was especially enthusiastic but, sadly, their bus was laid up for the winter, awaiting its MoT. There's not much call for open-topped buses in the bleak mid-winter.

What about a stretch limo, with The Flyer waving at the folk of Ferryhill through the sunroof? John Stephenson, owner of Ferryhill-based AK Limousines was up for the job but Durham Constabulary said we couldn't do it.

For safety reasons, roads would have to be blocked off, bus stops moved, and special signs erected. It would have been a logistical nightmare.

In the end, all we could do was arrange for The Flyer to travel in style to Friday's civic reception at Ferryhill Town Hall. He went by limo but had to sit down all the way.

At least we tried. Forgive us for getting a bit carried away.

THE only downside of the World Darts Championships was the punctuation. "Let's play darts," was the tournament slogan. The announcer shouted it out before the start of each match and the crowd obediently joined in. They were even given official placards - bearing the call to arms - to hold up at the appropriate moment.

Sadly, there wasn't an apostrophe to be seen. Lets hope for an improvement next year.

OUR headline writers try really hard - sometimes too hard. Last week, there was a story about a shortage of sperm donors in the North-East and an appeal for more volunteers.

A sub-editor, who shall remain nameless, suggested a headline which fitted perfectly: "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

Naturally, it could never find its way into a family newspaper like The Northern Echo. That's what editors are for.