DARTS : Ace sees mind doctor to save career

DARTS : Ace sees mind doctor to save career

Jan 22 2009 By Paul Warburton, London Informer

Jason Clark has taken on a leading sports psychologist in a last-ditch bid to get back among the big boys of darts.

Clark has consulted £90-an-hour Andy Barton, who^s massaged the minds of the great and good in top sport, in the hope he can turn around a wretched year into a new lease of life.

Just before Christmas 2007, the Shepherd^s Bush ace was this close to knocking world number one Raymond van Barneveld out of the PDC World Championship.

A couple of weeks later, he earned even more notoriety after being suspended by the PDC for a fracas outside The Dorchester in Park Lane - ironically as Clark was picking up an award for joining the elite club of nine-dart finishers.

But even when he was allowed back on the oche six months later, his shoulder gave way, not that he knew it through a painful Autumn after first getting a dodgy diagnosis.

In some ways, the sore shoulder was better than the inner turmoil now besetting a man once ranked in the world top 40.

The shoulder is better - the mind is not."I need to come up against a couple of players I can^t stand to fire me up," Clark explained.

"At the moment I^m playing old mates - and it^s so what? I need the proverbial kick up the a*** and that^s where the psychologist comes in."

Clark has given himself until the weekend beginning March 8 before drawing a line under a career that^s seen him pocket winnings of around £40,000 over the last three years.

The date is significant because it^s the Cockney Jock^s return to his spiritual home to contest the UK Open/Players Championship.

Another ^so what?^ day and Clark is not sure he wants to try and frighten van Barneveld

again. He said: "I^ve had times when money has been tight, but now my floor-laying business has started to take off. "If I can find the spark, then let^s keep going.