McDonald set to checkout of darts after a life surviving parachute falls and Thatcher

HE BROKE his neck in a parachute jump over Salisbury Plain and wished he'd died when he woke up in hospital fearing he was paralysed.

- BY MIKE WALTERS

Later he reinvented himself as a photographer and was embedded in 10 Downing Street when Maggie Thatcher won a third term as Prime Minister.

And for the best part of 20 years, John McDonald has been the first face you see as master of ceremonies introducing the players on stage when darts pitches its big top at Alexandra Palace.

But for 65-year-old McDonald, the Paddy Power PDC World Championship final on January 3 will be the end of an era.

He is retiring to spend more time with his eight grandchildren.

His debut as a darts MC, at the 2004 Showdown between Phil Taylor and Andy Fordham at the Circus Tavern, was inauspicious.

When he had to announce the match was abandoned, after the 'Viking' retired hurt on medical advice, he had to dodge flying food when the crowd took it badly.

McDonald has since been the ringmaster at Taylor's “record-breaking, history-making” collection of 16 world titles, Michael 'Bully Boy' Smith's perfect leg in the final and, of course, Luke Littler's teenage rampage.