After a leisurely rise from slumber, a breakfastless but emotional farewell is bade to the George Hotel to which I will most certainly return. It is a gloriously sunny morning, affording a jacketless trundle up the High Street and into the Crawley suburbs before reaching K2 Leisure Centre at 11.41am, an outrageous 19 minutes early, but none-the-less allowing little time to dwindle on any fatigue possibilities.
Today I have been assigned to Board 14, and the following matches :
Round 1 (Round of 128)
James Wade 6 Matt Jackson 2
James doesn’t seem to be in the greatest of form, humour-wise, these days – cheer up Jimmy!, but he is perfectly pleasant during today’s proceedings and even cracks a joke later on in the day. The first 4 legs were shared here but James then upped the tempo somewhat to register a comfortable win.
Mark Frost 6 Devon Peterson 3
Having marked Mark before, I was pleasantly surprised at how much his game has improved – his Treble 20 hit-rate has significantly upped in particular. It was my first time to mark South African Devon and he’s a chirpy quirky character. He also performed an entertaining if somewhat dangerous stunt during the match when he caught his own bounce-out dart. He then proceeded to throw it again after his 3rd dart – cue uproarious bursts of unbridled merriment! Mark’s higher scoring got him first to the finish which was the ultimate deciding factor in this match.
Wayne Jones 6 Michael van Gerwen 3
Michael’s dreadful form continues, keeping pace with ever-solid Wayne to start with but then collapsing score-wise and looking thoroughly unhappy with his current game.
Ian White 6 Ryan Harrington 3
This was the first time for me to mark both of these players, in what was a largely low-scoring affair. Ryan plays at a slowish pace and scored very poorly until he got to the 150-200 stage at which point he produced a 140 or 180 to leave a nice 1-dart finish. But often his first 15 darts did the damage and Ian took advantage with a solid if not spectacular display.
Round 2 (Round of 64)
James Wade 6 Mark Frost 3
With a win under his belt, James was ever so slightly more chipper in this match, and when a double set-up went horribly wrong, he declared it to be “innovative darts,” eliciting a hearty chortle from me. Frosty seemed to freeze (snigger) somewhat at playing a big-name opponent, and with a little more self-belief definitely had the beating of James on his current form but it was not to be.
Wayne Jones 6 Ian White 4
A very tight contest this, although the averages were slightly on the low side.
Round 3 (Round of 32)
Wayne Jones 6 James Wade 1
James’ scoring collapsed further in this one throwing several scores of 60 and less in a row. It was almost 6-0 but a rare lapse of finishing from Wayne let James in to give the score a very slightly brighter hue from a Machine viewpoint.
Round 4 (Round of 16)
Wayne Jones 6 Ronnie Baxter 4
Ronnie continued to outline his desired handshake format to each player before the match, and it is likely this may continue until he has played everyone on the circuit. Wayne’s reaction indicated utter accommodation with the idea and he proceeded to edge this one to achieve one of his better days of late.
That concluded marking for the weekend, so time to sit back relax and enjoy the final contests of the day, armed with just a couple of hair-of-the-dog Fosters, brilliantly suggested and initiated by Essex Mark. In his semi-final with Justin Pipe, Paul Nicholson came lunging at me with a pound coin – what did it all mean? It meant he was thirsty and needed a bottle of water. Possibly because I looked all too comfortable in my chair, Essex Mark relieved me of the coin and returned with the water that was devoured upon receipt by Nicho. Essex Mark and I then began to greedily muse upon the percentage of winnings that this heroic deed would entitle us to, but then remembered that Paul is in fact a Geordie. Anyhoo, on he went to the final where he lost for the first time that weekend, to Wes Newton.
Time for a taxi to Gatwick with Brendan Dolan, Mickey Mansell, John Magowan, Aodhagan O’Neill and Essex Mark, splitting the cost nicely. Brendan wasn’t in great form as he had suffered two narrow 1st Round defeats at the weekend, whilst the others were just about pleased with the few hundred quid that each had amassed on average. Essex Mark headed to his train and the Ulster posse were heading to the North Terminal, leaving me frightened and alone in the South Terminal. It’s 6.33pm so time for breakfast!, which consisted of a complimentary Big Mac, won in their Monopoly promotion the previous Wednesday and a Chicken Legend meal. It certainly hit the spot, and pleasingly I didn’t have the customary post-McDonald’s “I wish I hadn’t eaten that” syndrome later.
Wetherspoon’s was visited merely for its quiz machine, and a £1 investment yielded a £4 return – phenomenal dividend! The Ruinair flight home was again buffoon-free apart from the air hostess who insisted on loudly reading incessant impersonal prepared texts on the mike in utterly mangled English. Via the QuickPark shuttle and Al the Almera, the Lighthouse was reached just after 11pm.
Contentment : 13 / 25
Excitement : 3.5 / 10
Memorability : 4.5 / 15
Overall : 42% (22nd out of 86)
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