2011 Welsh Darts Open

18-05-2011 | Paul James

2nd year at prestatyn for me started at getting to euston station on the 12.10 to prestatyn, managed to book these tickets on trainline 2 months ago.

got a good deal and the onward journey was 1st class, waded in to the freebies on offer and was a good journey up.

arrived at pontins by 3pm the usual siberian winds and rain greeted us, but checked into a chalet and got prepared for the weekends onslaught.

got phone call from elaine kearns to say she was in chalet 5 and had someone there who wanted to meet me and to pop over.

weather so bad we went straight to venue , met elaine there and got an intro to the forum legend  aka lurgan couldnt understand a word he was saying but gathered he liked a drink hic.

serious stuff now left my lady with £10 spending money and went off to play pairs with fellow forum member jorgen, had a little chat with him and he announced our tactics should be , i do all the scoring and finishing and he would do the rest! this was not looking good ,our draw was against rhian edwards dad and his mate,.

i thought a chance to restore some family honour after detas defeat to rhian at lakeside, our masterplan nearly  worked a treat when they were on 20 and we were slightly behind on........................357 i saw fear in their eyes (jorgen was a bit wayward) they had a bit of double trouble and jorgen hit a breathtaking 36 to leave me on 36! unfortunately they hit double 1 to win 1 st leg, now we were flying and in the 2nd leg wasnt 1 dart out of the board and were on 40 when they checked out.

dissappointing result but at least the reputation of WCDPA was restored .

left the mens room and headed over to the ladies venue to see how my tall lady was getting on.

ladies pairs started and deta and karen started off well and were making steady progress, had to explain to lurgan that ladies in the uk dont play best of 1 leg 101 and finish on double 1.

the ladies got to the semi where they were to play rhian edwards and michelle webber told deta it was her turn to get revenge for my earlier defeat, this match was awesome deta and karen took the first leg then the welsh ladies went beserk 140,140,100,140 and 81 in 4 darts to make it 1/1.

deciding leg was tense but deta and karen checked out to silence a very loud but fair and sporting crowd.

the final was against lou carroll and my fav chalker bev martin girls played steady D and K missed several darts each at double in 1st leg and bev checked out , 2nd leg much the same deta missed 2 at d8 and loise checked out to win the title on ............................double 1.

retired the to the bar with detas winnings but sportingly gave her £30 to play the machines whilst me lurgan and barry gilbey put the darts world to rights, by now with the aid of several lagers i could understand lurgan fluently.

my lovely lady came back with machine winnings of 120 quid and better still gave me 60 of it. my luckiest day of my life was meeting this incredible lady.

didnt see the mens final but david pallet and ash kayat won it, saw ash win the england masters last year a remarkable performance especially as he had lost his glasses, staggered off to bed and apparantely snored............lots.

saturday is welsh inter county day so walked into town! this is actually detarish for lets find the bookies.

met few of the darts lads who had similar ideas the yorkshire lads had text scott waites and said they had a tip for a horse, scott asked what was it and they said it was "I LOVE ME " the wind up by passed scott and he wanted £20 on it.

the other lads followed suit and it ended up 13/8 fav and lost in a photo finish.

headed back to the chalet so i could watch cup final which is paulish for a beer and a kip.

mixed pairs robbie and deta had an easy board lol 32 boards and there board had 5 players from lakeside  and 7 internationals , played dean and lorraine 3rd round and scraped a high class match 2/1 played in the manner darts should be played in.

next round board final against andy beardmore and emma pearce a carbon copy of the last match but this time result was reversed, well done andy and emma both lovely people.

wandered around venue saw apylee jones and kurtis atkins playing well but unluckily not getting through, final between emma and andy against and irina armstrong and some bloke from kent who runs a forum, irina won it virtually single handed lol sorry steve. well done it was a deserved victory.

woke up with a fuzz head (thanks lurgan) but deta was in a good mood so i cant have been to bad, as i was obviously in the good books i cooked her the singles day brekky of 2 sausage,2 bacon, 2 eggs, mushrooms,toms ,beans and toast! domestic god that i am.

Went to venue at 12 in time for madam to have practice as she was on at 2.20 . disaster no jacques at the bar so bulmers pear for deta and lager for me, tommy t and the lovely lesley turned up , then a big thrill for me was meeting dart legend alan glazier what a nice man, i bored him with tales of the indoor league etc.

deta started her group and made good progress to the board final only losing 1 leg , sarah thornbury awaited her there but my lady won 3/0.

in the last 8 she was to meet welsh legend and winmau master julie gore, a tense game was won 3/1 by deta mainly due to clinical finishing .

now we had to switch venues for the semis and were joined by maciek and some of the polish lads from the forum, lurgan asked maciek what part of poland do you come from....... maciek thought then answered SWINDON this was the only time lurgan was silenced all weekend.

deta had never won welsh open before and her chances werent helped when her semi final game was against world champion trina gulliver, deta quickly went 2/0 up and i sensed it was her day the double went in for 3/0 and yours truely jumped up giving it large and couldnt work out why nobody else was cheering.............sat down sheepishly realising it was best of 7 ! what a plank i felt.

trina showed her class and came back to 3/2 and was in control of 6th 100 in front of deta, when my gorgeous lady went 100,100,and checked out the next 100 in 2 darts.

from here my memory fades somewhat drinking with lurgan and meeting 1 of my heroes alan glazier took its toll, i know deta won as i cheered 4times (4/1) and a few beers later i was slightly enebriated but very happy.

congrats to ross for winning the mens have a lot of time for ross and i still owe him a drink.

this was a great weekend met so many lovely people its definately an event to pencil into your diaries.

would like to thank my old girl so pleased now she has had her good name and job back she is getting her form back , isle of man , german and now the welsh open in 2 months is a brilliant effort which i think has secured her lakeside spot.........