Darts – JA Likes It The Hard Way!

What a glorious evening’s darts! I have to say reporting Bad Boys matches can be very frustrating. Trying to faithfully capture the events and mood of the evening can be extremely difficult, the records produced here can only ever be a ‘flavour’ of the night, and worse still probably only a flavour according to me, although I am often told I have got it about right. And of course I am trying to remember quite a bit of this stuff while chucking ‘arrows’ myself. So please forgive any inaccuracies!

It was a four man game tonight as sadly Papa had to drop out due to a nasty bout of man flu (No! Seriously he sounded awful, I hope he is better for boule on Thursday, man it is going to ‘glub’ weather!).

And so it was that Pedro, Mike D, Rushers and CM gathered in the Nailsworthian sub zero temperature to do battle! A few flips of the ‘ometers’ pitched Pete and CM against Ian and JA.

I am going to start with the final score line and work backwards this week.... PCM 123456 / 7 IJA

The score line suggests an awful lot that really isn’t accurate, for my money tonight’s match was one of the closest and hard fought of this year. Mike and Ian were very unlucky to walk away with only one victory, every game played was finished in a battle for bulls and the difference was a maximum of three and mostly two.

If Casablanca and I had an advantage for the evening it was probably on clearing up the centres faster than the opposition.

MOTM? Mike JA Davies was definitely MOTM, it may well be that his star is rising again after an extended drought; he was on fire, particularly in the latter half of the evening. Perhaps we will see JA return to the form we know he can produce in 2009!

Notable Events:

Several double semis turns, trebles-a-plenty and an awesome Shang-hi, frustratingly I can’t remember if it was Ian or JA!

On hearing that Casablanca Mike had got three nineteen’s ‘the hard way’ Mike-D announced that he also likes to do it the hard way, there was a general suggestion that he spoke to Joan about this rather than cause an incident with other players.

Bull Wars: Mike-D 1, Pedro 1.

Chart Changes: Mike W and Ian flip flop again, it appears these two may battle it out right to the end of the season! Sadly, despite playing well and being MOTM JA has slipped behind Colin (Ohhh er missus!)

This seems somewhat unfair, in fact as Caeser, (sorry Colin) hasn’t attended since literally ‘The Ides Of March’ and only has four attendances this year I am discounting his average for the year, which means Mike stays where he was and Malc moves up one!

The final month of this season starts with next week’s fixture, so I will be chasing you for January’s dates in due course. Along with the new season we will also be welcoming a new Bad Boy, John Nutting will be joining us in the hut to ‘chuck arrows’.

That’s all for now folks... Game On!

Peter x

Darts – Where have all the heroes gone?

Greetings Bad Boy Watchers....

Mercifully it wasn’t a freezing night at the Bad Boys Emporium, no doubt the halogen heaters will be in full play soon! We had a full house, Doddy, Dave, Teddy, CM, Liquorice and Pete.

Luckily (for a six man evening) the flipometers decided the teams in one flip, three greens: Pete, Ian and Dave, three reds: Casablanca, Doddy and Malc.

Well, what can I say about tonight? Hmmm.... Well firstly and most importantly, we all had fun, there was some great banter going on, but you know what? I can’t say the same for the darts!

Let’s be clear, I am not dissing anyone’s performance, just everyone’s performance! From a darts point of view it was weird, we all had some good spells, but we all had plenty of bad spells... So workman like darts with some great periodic bull and occasional treble action, but nothing that set the world on fire like most fixtures. I reckon that the fact we only managed five games tells quite a lot about the play.

None the less! There were clear winners..... The final score line was PID 12345 / WW CMDM

WW? I think this is probably the first time we have seen this, It isn’t as it first looks, meaning two games white washed, but one game white washed and all matches lost. I have to say I think that was a moderately unfair result, CMDM should have been WW-less.

Notable Events:

Malc , despite not getting a bull was semi-tastic on several occasions.

Several people were treble-tastic on several occasions.

Apparently (although I didn’t see) Malc was ‘mince-tastic’ approaching the board!

Bull Wars: CM 2, Doddy 2, Dave 2, Pete 1

Chart Changes: Bugger Me! There has been a significant change before the end of the season! Ian is back in second place, 2.01% ahead of CM. Dave is also just 1.3% behind CM.

Tonight’s flipping and result is the kind of thing I have been talking about in terms of possible end of season changes. There is still plenty to play for!

Game On!

Peter

Darts – Do The Papa Shuffle!

A merry xmas to you all. Oh, it isn’t xmas yet? Well you wouldn’t know it from the supermarkets that are already pushing xmas bollocks at us, so I thought I would get in early with the seasonal greetings. Mind you, as the Bad Boys left the hut tonight there was definitely a frost in the air, so maybe we should keep an eye on the sky for Santa’s sled.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves; let’s start with the Bad Boys arriving! On the oche tonight were your Humble Narrator, Teddy Rushton, Casablanca Mike, Pikey Steve and Papa Fruin.

Practice started and as is now traditional we started waiting for TR to get a double 11 before we moved on, however tradition isn’t what it was as I reckon every bugger but Teddy got D11. So we started anyway. A swift flip teamed Pete, Ian and Papa ‘V’ CM and Steve.

PIP had a fairly good showing in the first game and slackened a bit for the second, but we still managed to get the first pair of games under our belts. The third was a different affair with Mike and Steve taking the honours. The fourth was well contested, Steve and Mike took an early lead but PIP managed to steal the win, following with a win in game five.

Casablanca and Pikey then took the sixth game robbing the other team of a major victory for the evening. PIP girded their loins and fought back to take the seventh. By now it was five to ten and there was a call for an eighth game and as is sometimes the case (well when Steve is playing) there is some discussion from the disadvantaged side if it is wise to play the extra game, but sportsmanship prevailed and the last game was played and totally owned by Steve and CM.

Leaving a final score line of: PIP 12457 / 368 CMS which was pretty fair reflection of the darts played over the evening. Steve was on fire in the last game and although it was just the one game I reckon he definitely deserves MOTM.

Notable Events:

Several players have now taken up the Bad Boys dance we call ‘The Papa Shuffle’, Mr Weaver was the latest practitioner, doing a very nimble ballet step from the score board to avoid one of Papa’s famous rebounds. So far Papa has only drawn blood once, I must learn to walk away from the scoreboard backwards when Papa is throwing after me.

Both Papa and Casablanca Mike scored Shanghai.

Teddy had a Bull - Semi finish.

Steve wore a jumper with bullet holes in, but hey, it was so soft!

Steve also wore his ‘Eric Morecambe’s’in the hut for the first time.

Bull Wars: Ian 3, CM 2, Pete 2, Papa 1, Steve 1.

Chart Changes: None, but Papa and Steve are now very close as are Ian and CM and Malc and Colin, there are definitely possibilities here for a late season chart change!

Game On!

Peter x

Darts - The Return Of The Bullmeister!

After last week’s fixture cancellation it was great to have the hut buzzing again, five bad boys were present to re-start the proceedings. Several flips of the much loved red and green flipometers decreed that the night’s teams would be Peter and Dave ‘v‘ Casablanca Mike, Doddy and Ian.

Fairly even sides you would think? And indeed it was very much the case. Dave and Pete got a little behind in the first game but managed to catch up and sneak a win. We then went on to take the second and were beginning to wonder if we could be in for a big evening.

Doddy and company upped their pace in the third leg leaving us to ponder if this was just a blip or the tides had turned? Dave and I took the fourth but we just couldn’t keep the opposition down and they took the fifth and sixth legs making it three games apiece by about ten to ten. Needless to say we had to have a decider. Dave and I found our form again and took the seventh convincingly. This left the final score line as PD 1247 / 356 CMDI.

There were some excellent darts thrown by all players Doddy had some great spells on trebles and bulls. Dave however was really on form and showing top of the table performance, earning him MOTM.

Notable Events:

Doddy had a lot of treble action in the evening along with a rather nice pair of semis in one turn.

Dave showed some stunning bull form, getting two bulls and a semi in one turn. A photo of this now replaces the previous one by Peter. I think this is the second time Dave has done it. Surely the triple bull’s eye can’t be far away? If not this year then I think we might well see it in 2009!

Dave also managed a ‘Robin Hood’.

Bull Wars: Dave 4, Peter 3, Doddy 2, CM 1

Chart Changes: None, some tiny blips in both directions for various players but not enough to change any positions. However, a quick look at the %’s will tell you there are still possibilities before the end of the season.

A New Local Rule?

Not a rule but a convention that maybe we should adopt. Most of the Badboys also play boule up at Teddy Rushton’s boule emporium, where the end of the evening tradition is that all players present shake each other hands in a jolly sporting manner. The same thing seems to have become the norm at darts after every game. Now with six players playing six to eight matches the number of handshakes is becoming exponential!

My suggestion is that we try and cut it down a little. I am certainly not suggesting it should stop altogether, when I win a game I am certainly going to shake the hands of my team mates or a winning opponent if he has thrown a stunning dart. But I don’t think anyone is going to be offended if we don’t all shake every players hand after every leg. So shake as you please, but don’t feel obliged to shake every buggers hand every five minutes, unless of course you are really trying to crush your opponents throwing hand.

Thanks for getting all your November dates to me, Liquorice Malc has even started on December! So if you want to book early for the festive season just let me know.

Game On!

Peter