Another week, another match and a visit to Kirkley Sports and Social Club. Always a difficult place to visit not aided by the overall feeling that the heating had been switched off in favour of air conditioning! An interesting week of good darts and new nicknames started with the first pairing of Paul (Fester) Gallagher and Steve (Yiddo) Northfield. A quick start was supported by Paul in inspired form seemingly unable to miss the 20. Three consecutive throws of 60 and a 125. Paul was in such a scoring zone that he even managed to score 74 when he only needed 40! (a wide into a 1, another wide into a 16 and a treble 19). The boys had played well and Steve stepped up for 23 only needing to hit a 7, 19 or 3 to leave a good double. Doing it his own way he hit a 17, leaving an awkward double 3 but Fester rounded off an excellent personal game by taking it straight out. Next up was the dream team of Bungle and Mother Gooch with a change of tactics this week. A great 116 start from Bill, a good game down the board and a quick double out from Trev took us to 2 up. They were followed by Eagle Eyes Moyse and the first new nickname of the night – Paul (Clint) Tyler. For so long he has been the man with no nickname, (man with no name, Clint Eastwood). He doesn’t seem to mind this but is concerned that we spell it right (don’t miss the n out!). This proved to be a terrific battle with Kim Buckingham and Peter Baldry with Paul hitting score of 121 and 125 before Steve finished on 60. Last doubles was Shoot em up and Ozzie (mincer) [hence the pink wrting]. Yes I know this is another new nickname and one he does not seem quite so happy with but you should have seen the walk back from the toilet, a sort of power mince cross between Peter Kay’s Amarillo and Julian Clary! Unfortunately they struggled to start and couldn’t recover so the score went to 3-1. First up in the singles was Shoot em up who took us to 4-1 by taking advantage of his opponent’s slow start and hitting a 140 and a 54 finish. Clint was next and yet another solid leg from our most in-form player hitting a 140 on the way. Mincer (got to refine this nickname) was next and after I decided to go out and stop watching again, he clicked into gear finishing 117 in 5 darts (he threw 6 but one was out of the board between the t20 and the t17). Mother Gooch was up next and despite a prediction from his partner, Mystic Bill, that he would play a good game and not be able to finish, he played well to beat Kim Buckingham. Next up was Little Joe (Hos, Bonanza, Little Joe – you probably need to be an old git to get the link) with another fine win and a 140 and all this drinking orange juice! Wally was next but unable to replicate recent form lost the leg (mind you his opponent played well, he did play well, he was good, he played well, ok we get it!). Eagle eyes Moyse then went on and joined the nights 140 club and even felt confident enough to try a bit of showboating by going treble 9 double 9 for 45. Of course he didn’t get it but he held on to win the leg. Last up was Bungle Bennett. On a night when we had a new nickname of Clint, we’d had the Good (Paul Gallagher) we’d had the Bad (come on Wally it wasn’t that good even if your opponent played well, he did play well, he was good) now it was time for the Ugly. Haven’t got a clue what he was doing but he doesn’t normally throw for 20’s and hit 2 12’s. Our visiting patron the (Darren) King of Bahrain summed it up with comment “even if he threw a pitchfork he would still hit a 1”. Needless to say he lost the leg against a good opponent but this still left us with a fine 9-3 win. I have to say this was the best team performance of the season so far, 10 high scores and quick finishing all night. We now have 6 points out of 6 for the first three games of the second half, 4 more than we had at the same stage in the first half. Lets keep it going boys and see if we can have a great season. One final point, my ability to write the report was nearly hampered by inability to see the board due to my own team blocking the view (I cant stand up) On numerous occasions I had to move them out of the way, as Bill pointed out a bit like parting the Red Sea. I feel another nickname coming on.
All the best MOSES
