What a difference a day makes for me at Crawley
Last Friday evening I went along to the Heathfield Park Cricket Club for the annual Rob Cannings Memorial Cup.
Rob was a great young dart player, and I had the privilege of being his team mate whilst playing for the Runt in Tun. When I played in the Heathfield League, I helped to organise the initial event, and it is a competition that I shall always attend.
It was good to catch up with some old faces, and the event had attracted over 60 entrants, made up from players in the Heathfield League, along with friends and members of Rob's family.
My first match of the evening was against a young lad, George Davidson. As I stepped up to throw, I felt like the "baddie" in a pantomime! Lots of good natured booing and hissing was ringing around the hall.
I've got to admit, I actually felt a bit nervous, I was in a potential banana skin situation. George beat me in nearest the bull, and threw first. I stepped up, and was aware that my hand was shaking a bit... weird, because that doesn't happen when I'm playing on the PDC Tour!
I threw my first three darts, and hit a 180 – that went down well. I found myself with 80 left, more booing, and I hit a five, leaving 75.
I stepped back and thought for a minute about which way to check out, and settled upon 25 followed by bullseye. Probably not the most popular outshot to hit, but they are all there to be hit... luckily it worked!
The evening progressed, and at one point a huge shout went up when Malcolm 'Motormouth' Love checked out a 154 against Gary Gamlin.
I made it to the final, where I met another young player – Sam Cole.
Sam had played really well all night, He had shots to win the first leg, but I checked out, and followed up with the second leg, and took the title.
Saturday saw us off to Crawleys K2 Centre, for a PDC Players Championship. I drew Lee Williams, and for some reason, just couldn't get comfortable with my throw. Lee won the match, and went on to beat Robert Thornton, and then 2010 Players Championship Champion – Paul Nicholson. Lee was obviously on form!
Sunday was a UK Open qualifier, and I was drawn against Irishman Jim McKevitt. What a difference 24 hours makes, I was hitting everything. I did not miss one shot at a double checking out a 129, and won the match by taking out 118. A six nil win was just what I needed.
Next up was world number 12, Mark Walsh. The standard in this match was awesome, both trading ton plus scores all the way through. My best leg was an 11 darter, and there wasn't a leg over 18 darts.
I lost the match 6 – 3, but considering Mark has won a Players Championship this year by beating Mr Taylor in the final, I'll take a lot of positives from my performance. It's a great feeling when spectators congratulate you on your game.
On Tuesday, I went down to Wales to visit my new equipment sponsors – Red Dragon Darts. What a fantastic day, I was given an insight into the background of the company by Simon Hall, their head of marketing, and then taken to meet their engineer, Lee. In a very impressive workshop, I was shown the whole process from start to finish, of how darts are made. Not as straightforward as you think.
We went through my ideas for a design in great detail, and whilst having some games against Simon on the workshops 'test' board, Lee produced my first set of bespoke darts. Simon even hit his fifth ever 180 against me, why do I bring out the best in people?
It was a great feeling throwing my darts for the first time, knowing that the man behind them had made darts for many world champions. I felt extremely honoured. I now have to practice with them for a week, and let them know what changes I would like made before I get the 'perfect set'.
It is only fair that I promote my sponsors now, so if you are looking for any darts equipment, you can get absolutely everything from the Red Dragon Website. It is a great website. You can click onto it here or to request a brochure, click here.
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Weather for Lewes
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -2 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -0 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North east
