AROUND THE CIRCUIT : April 2011

28-04-2011 | Liz Fletcher

I shall start this month’s column by letting everyone know that Tricia is on the road to recovery, however she will not be back playing competitive darts for at least another few months as she is having a lot off physio to help strengthen her muscles and to enable her to be able to throw darts the way we all know she can. I would like to mention that, despite the rumours, Tricia is still a BDO member and not a PDPA/PDC player. Tricia declined the latter membership for various reasons.

Now onto other news and events that have been happening around the circuit,
I did not travel with London to their away game at County Durham. London have been holding their own in the county tables and looking good for promotion into the Premier Division. A superb display came from both the Ladies A and B and they can hold their heads up with that London pride.

They did what was asked and even if one or two of their players under performed they still showed an amazing amount of team spirit winning 7 of the 12 games. We expected the same results from the men’s squad, but alas that was not to be. It was one of the worst displays from a lot of the men players and to be honest they need to take a big step back and think about where it all went wrong ( doubles. The men won 5 out of 24 games - some of those defeats were understandable with debuts and players stepping up to the A team for the first time but without naming names there were way too many from the London contingent who never stepped up to the mark. Johnny Stefano made his debut game in the B – he lost but I am sure that he will be back to get his first win. There are others who have more experience on the stage who quite simply didn’t turn up. You all know you are there to win dart matches. As harsh as this may sound, it just didn’t look likely in most cases. Get your darting heads back on and start taking out the doubles again - there is no excuse from the experienced players.

Now for the very few positives, I’ve already mentioned the Ladies and they have a right to feel despondent after giving the men a platform to play from. Alan Hardy has to be commended for his comfortable win; it actually put us back on the front foot. However, the rest of the team didn’t take advantage of that. Jason Wiles was a welcome return because his enthusiasm is addictive for the whole team. Lee Cocks finally showed on the County stage what everyone has been seeing in Super league all season (he has earned his call up to the A team the hard way, but he is there now and will do very well at the higher level). Paul Wright always leads by example and his win should have got the A men started but it didn’t through no fault of his. George Killington was again magnificent despite his defeat, and there are many things that can be learned by his game from many of those that lost, Lewis McGurn pretty much had to play two separate games after the debacle of the Durham scoring fiasco and Richie Buckell fought all the way in his defeat to Phil Nixon.
London played Derbyshire in their 2nd County game in consecutive weeks, following on from the resounding loss to County Durham and with that defeat fresh in everyone’s minds London were determined to get back to winning ways but the day didn’t start well with the Derbyshire side turning up at Greensides two hours behind schedule, everyone from London playing on the Saturday would have to keep their focus for the task ahead.

London Ladies started well with Lynne Biondini (16.41) making her 100th appearance in a London shirt and getting a 3-2 win this was followed by Ged Carney (17.73) losing 2-3, Dee Belcher (17.60) fought back well with some heavy scoring after losing the 1st leg to Rebecca Hoyland (17.18) to take a 3-1 win and gaining the Lady of the Match award for London, Andrea Walker (14.97) won 3-1 Lisa Dunford (17.53) found herself on the wrong end of a 0-3 defeat, Tina Hamilton (15.90) was a 3-2 winner against Kerri Buckley (13.86) to give the Ladies B a well deserved 4-2 overall win.
Onto the men’s B matches to which I can say is that they drew 6 all (a better performance from the B side, however Johnny Stefano (18.47) stepped up for his 1st home appearance and managed to grind out a 3-2 win in a close game against Andy Wheeldon (18.26), representing London is a very proud thing, but to win that point with so much support from everybody was most definitely the icing on the cake for Johnny .Points win games not averages. MOM was Jimmy Foster (24.95)
Ladies (B) 4-2….Men’s (B) 6-6….OVERALL: LONDON 10-8 Derbyshire

Going into the Ladies A games there were wins for Jackie Saunders and Clare Bywaters (25.49) who gained another Lady of the Match award for London with a dominant 3-1 win over Jackie Sweet (18.79), our Ladies lost 2-4 so scores now 12 all and onto the men’s games, the men played far better than what they did the weekend before and were victors by 7-5 MOM was Lewis Mcgurn with a 28.90ave.
Overall score London 22-17

London fought well in this game after what happened up at County Durham, but that game was soon forgotten with some good displays from the Ladies B side, with Lynne Biondini starting us off in her 100th appearance must have been nerve wracking for her but she held her self together to get us off to a great start, to be honest in the Men’s B we need to be stronger but there were outstanding performances from Rob Edwards, John Nelson, Jimmy Foster, Tony Hamit & Jason Wiles, Johnny’s performance wasn’t exactly outstanding but he fought hard with every dart to get that point for the team, what was surprising on the Sunday was the amount of missed doubles that plagued the Ladies game, It was great to see Dickie Angelo win his first game on his home debut, he’s such a great addition to the London County side and has the skill and most importantly the character to be awesome at this level and Lewis McGurn getting the man of the match award, taking his win ration this season to 8 out of 8 is great, best of luck to him in the final game against Middlesex, The final game of the season is on the 7th /8th May away to Middlesex and it looks like Middlesex will be playing their darts in the 2nd Division next season, it will be a ‘derby game’ atmosphere at Tithe Farm and they have a good few ex-London players in their team that will be wanting to prove a point or get one over on their local rivals, London will need a vocal support for sure in this one and I urge as many players/supporters to be there for both days, the games only in Middlesex so make the commitment to go and support London to what I hope will be a good win, it won’t be easy in such an atmosphere.
The British internationals have now finished and congratulations to The England Men and Ladies on retaining the titles they won last season well done everyone.

Good luck to everyone who is attending the Sittingbourne Open to which I shall comment in my next column.

The first monthly St Peters Open was won by Shane Edwards who picked up £200 and the runner up was Frankie Pedlow. The semi-finalists were Lewis Venes and Phil Watham. Money was paid down to the quarter finalist and there was also a payment for the furthest lady. Attendance was good and we are hoping that Easter Sunday will show an even better attendance. Thanks go to Brian and Doreen for their help with setting the club up and doing the hot and cold food. Also to Tricia and Jane Johnson for their hard work. Thank you Jane and Richard for the use of the printer and laptop.
The next competition at St Peters will be held on Sunday 24th April (Easter Sunday) the address is Bishopsford Road Social Club, Carshalton, Surrey SM4 6BH (rear of St Peters Church). They have agreed to set up monthly knockouts from that venue - the club has spacious room and at least 10 darts boards; hot and cold food will be on offer all day long - they also have Sky sports for the football enthusiasts. Many players in and around Surrey know where this venue is so we hope to see you all there for the next one and we do hope that you will pass this info around to everyone concerned. Doors open 11.30am Open pairs register from 11.30am -12.45 £8.00 money in money out. Open Singles £7.00 best of 7 - 501 pay-outs will be down to quarter finalists and furthest lady depending on entrants there will also be a Ladies competition if enough ladies turn up which will be money in money out. Please ring the club for more information on 0208 640 0877 or Tricia on 07958975087. Future dates will be Sunday 29th May 2011, 19th June 2011, 10th July 2011, 21st August 2011, 25th September 2011, 23rd October 2011, 27th November 2011, and 18th December 2011.

If you are looking for competitions to attend please visit the various websites below. The Darts World tournament site at http://www.dartsworld.com/ is well worth a visit to find out events taking place in your area this month.
Also worth a mention is http://www.bdoforums.co.uk/ in the competition section for those of you that do not know the details please contact me on ejf170@googlemail.com and check out my website on http://www.lizfletcherdarts.com/

Yours in the Sport of Darts