Darts – The Return Of The Prodigal Son!

I couldn’t help but feel there were some religious overtones to tonight’s darts gathering. Firstly in the morning I spoke to Papa who told me he was too far away to play tonight, which meant we had lost a bad boy in the wilderness. Then it rained and rained and rained, the water levels were rising and as I stood outside the hut this evening looking at its wooden majesty through even more tumultuous rain I couldn’t help but think it was perhaps a little like Noah’s Ark sat upon the top of the hill waiting to float away.

Next a pair of bad boys entered the ark; Doddy and Rushers. The three of us were just about to set sail to the land of Mickey Mouse when a miracle happened. Another person came scampering up the ladder and collapsed wet, exhausted and dartless. It was Steve, the prodigal son had returned after eleven weeks in the wilderness.

After some inevitable piss taking the teams were ready for action: Pete and Doddy ‘v’ Ian and Steve.

We set off at a fair lick and although the first few games were well contested Peds and the Doddmeister managed to crack off the first three bouts. Ian and Steve had definitely been getting the bit between their collective teeth and although they narrowly missed the third they were bang on for the fourth, they looked like taking the fifth but it went to the opposition.

Mothy and Pikey then took the sixth game and were looking favourites for the seventh but after their early lead Petronius and Mike took the honours.

This produced a final score line of: PD 12357 / 46 IS

Notable Events:

Doddy had a double Bull! Ian and Pete had double Semis. I think there was a bull + semi as well but can’t remember who it was, may even have been me.

There were several Shanghais, Both Ian and Steve had double trebles.

For the first time in a couple of years we found a game anomaly that requires a new ‘local rule’ to be declared. Either Pete or Doddy failed to put a line through a number after they knocked it off. Consequently Steve played for the number thinking it was still live, after a bit of discussion he re-threw the dart that he had thrown at the dead number.

I reckon this is the first time we have had this happen and it not be noticed before throwing, we have had folks fail to put a cross up before but it hasn’t really affected the game. To make sure that it can’t happen again please observe the following...

Local Rule: When checking the scoreboard before your turn take a look at the number of crosses on both sides of a number, if you see six crosses without a line through it is still off as both sides have scored three hits. It is the number of crosses that take precedence not the line.

Bull Wars: Doddy 3, Peter 2, Ian 1, Steve 1. This makes Doddy the bullmeister and after an excellent evening’s darts MOTM.

Chart Changes: Pete gains a half % putting him back in the top spot, which moves CM down to second. Ian drops just under 1% but stays in third place. Doddy jump up 2.5%! Steve drops around 2%, This means that Steve and Doddy swap places, The Doddmeister moving up to eighth place.

A top evening, a pleasure to see Steve in the hut again and that’s about it until next week!

Game On!

Peter x

Darts – The Power Struggle!

It was a lovely summers evening as I awaited the arrival of the bad boys who were playing tonight. First up was CM followed by John, then Doddy and close behind the Moth Killer. Well, when I say it was a lovely summers evening I mean outside of the hut of course, inside the hut it was slightly gloomy, why I hear you ask?

As is often traditional in these parts of Nailsworth we are regularly (but the first time during a darts fixture) treated to a power cut for no apparent reason. So when the lads arrived the hut was lit with night light candles much like Santa’s Grotto!

Obviously the dartboard needed proper illumination; this was taken care of (dimly but just about adequately) by lodging a torch in the rafters and aiming it at the board. We managed one and a half games like this before the power returned. Notably we ALL had to walk to the board to double check our scores before we were sure what we had got and (I at least) had to ask partners to tell me what was on the scoreboard!

Anyway, on to the darts proper from the start! We flipped and then peered in the candlelight to find that the first flip of the flipometers had chosen teams of Peter, Casablanca and the Doddmeister ‘v’ Mothston and Livingstone.

Rushers and Johnny boy wasted no time in pilling on the agony in the first round leaving us several bulls behind, however we nearly caught the buggers and in the end they only won by a semi. This was more often than not the way of the evening with many matches hard fought and down to the wire. That said Ian and John played better and deserved to win, John was particularly consistent and earned himself MOTM (second time in a row).

The final score line was IJ 1235 / 46 PCMD.

Notable Events: Playing in the friggin’ dark! Hats off to all the Bad Boys for just getting on with it despite the poor conditions.

Several folks had double treble scoring throws and I believe john and CM managed bull-semi turns and john a double semi.

Rushers splatted another moth, so the hut now has a second winged Turin Shroud.

Bull Wars: CM 2, Doddy 2, Peds 1.

Chart Changes: None, some gaps narrow, but not enough to make a move.

So it is still GAME ON!

Peter x

Darts – A Rum Tale?

Another exciting and entertaining evening was had at Bad Boys, the turns for the evening were Pete, Papa, John, Doddy and Wushers. One flip of the flipometers decided that Papa, Ian and John would challenge Doddy and Peter.

This seemed like a remarkably interesting pairing when you consider that Doddy and I represent both ends of the (active) player charts and that Ian, Papa and John are third, fourth and fifth respectively, what would happen with the evening’s honours?

Well I knew what I thought would happen; Doddy and I would get a sound thrashing! Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a slur by me on Doddy’s potential performance for the night. I had seen my own practice session and the results were grim! Anyway, we girded our loins and prepared for action.

Speaking of loins Papa has a very strange object as a key ring fob, it looks like some gruesome, grubby, decomposing testicle. However Papa insists that it is a well worn miniature rugby ball. Take a look for yourself if you get a chance, just ask Papa for a look at his funny shaped ball. I digress.

We cracked in to the first game and much to my amazement Mr D and I won it! We congratulated ourselves on avoiding a whitewash and moved on to the second game. This was duly taken by Papa and company. Doddy and I found ourselves having to celebrate again as we took the third game. Ian’s mob took the fourth game. By the end of the fifth game Mike and I were looking at each other in disbelief as we had bagged a third game. John’s team then took the sixth game; clearly they wanted all the even numbers! Then they got greedy and took an odd numbered game as well.

This left us with a final score line of PD 135 / 2467 PPIJ being a 4-3 victory to Papa, Ian and John.

I think it is fair to say that all the players had some very useless moments as well as flashes of absolute brilliance!

Notable Events:

Some criminal darts from Pete and Doddy, you would have thought we had been on the rum with some throws.

Several players had scoring Shang-hi’s

Several players had Bull-Semi finishes

John had a three semi turn, along with the previous items I think this probably entitles him to be MOTM.

Bull Wars: Doddy 4, John 2, Papa 1, Ian 1, Peter 1. Making Doddy this week’s Bullmeister.

Chart Changes: I am knocked off the top spot leaving CM back in first place. Ian and Papa improve their %’s very modestly. Doddy and John improve by half a %+. So, no massive shake-ups this week.

Cheers

Peter x

Darts – Another Bad Boy First!

Greeting pop pickers, another gloriously exciting evening’s darts, along with a highly anticipated first (no not the triple bull!), but more of that later.

It was a horrible rainy evening but that didn’t stop the four assigned conquistadors arriving ready to do battle. Pedros had opened the base camp and was duly joined by Johnny Boy, Jelly Shirt, and The Rushers.

Jelly arm managed to add yet another jelly variation to His Jelly Arm, Jelly Brain franchise by turning up with a lump of jizz style jelly on his shirt. Gentlemen, we give you ‘Jelly Shirt!’

After a bit of Forest Green banter from JN and JS we broke out the flippers and in no time at all we had sides of Peter and Rushers ‘v’ John and Jizz Shirt.

Mr Jelly was daft enough to ask all assembled if they thought he had been hard done by for not getting a certificate last week for gross misconduct (or great darts as he still seems to believe they were). After he was given short shrift by all he thankfully settled down and was ready to play some darts.

The middle for diddle went to Pete and Ian, despite getting first crack the initial game went to John and Mike, the second and third went to Peds and the Moth Man.

Then something rather stunning happened. The next game was an absolute draw, I believe the first in Bad Boy history, we have been close before but this was the real thing. Both sides had a score of 222 points, (John and Mike had been behind on score but had caught up on bulls while Ian and I were trying to finish our required three crosses). This meant that we couldn’t score and the best we could do was force a draw before J&M could win by hitting a scoring semi. We were lucky enough to get one in forcing the game to be discounted from the evening’s tally. Ian and Peds went on to take the next two games making the evening’s score line: JJS 1X / 23X45 PI, being a 4 – 1 victory to PI

It has to be said that John and Mike were very unlucky not to claim the drawn game and one or two others, again this week most games were hotly contended and came down to bulls.

Notable events:

The aforementioned Draw!

The aforementioned Shirt!

Both Pete and Mike had Bull semi turns.

There were several high scoring shanghai’s

Bull Wars: JS 3, Pete 2, John 1 making Jelly Shirt the Bullmeister!

Chart Changes: Peter takes pole position for the first time this year, forcing CM down to second place, we are incredibly close though, only %0.08 in it. Jelly shirt goes back down a spot and John moves up one; reversing their recent swap. These two are even closer with a minute gap of %0.06!

So it is definitely Game On!

Peter X

Darts – Jelly Arm goes Jelly Brained!

Greetings Bad Boys and Darts Enthusiasts! It was a four handed game this evening, on the starting blocks were Pete, John, Papa and Jelly Arm. We all had a bit of practice and then let fly the flipometers; they immediately chose Pete and Mike-D ‘V’ Stanley and Papa.

We proceeded to work our way through eight games and by god they were close games! Six of the eight games came down to one semi to win finishes, another had twenty-eight points in it, the first game was the only one with a decent margin, so very hard fought and exciting bouts.

Jelly Arm and Peter were quick off the mark and managed to take three games on the trot and were beginning to eye up a big score for the evening (although in truth we knew it was probably only a matter of time before it became a game of two halves; as they say). Papa and John broke our winning streak by taking the fourth, luckily we then scrabbled back to the top of the pile for the fifth, after that the honours were taken in turns, giving a final score line of PMD 12357 / JP 468 securing Pete and Jelly Arm a 5 – 3 victory.

As you can see it could easily have gone either way, but JA and I just managed to keep our noses in front enough to claim a couple of extra games, mind you we were made to work hard for it!

Notable Events:

Papa had a bull-semi finish

Jelly Arm went Jelly Brained on 11’s and 14’s - Absolutely bizarre, the 14’s were dead Papa and John were holding three elevens, we had two and it was JA’s turn. He stepped up to the oche and planted his first dart in the treble eleven. Mere mortals would have felt it was time to move on particularly as we were trailing a little, but not Jelly Brain, he planted his second dart in the treble eleven, not satisfied with this he then pierced the treble with his third arrow! Having bagged nine elevens, (eight of which were worth fuck all to us) the cheeky bugger asked me if he would be getting a certificate for his efforts, with much pleasure I had to decline!

Well, that moment of madness apart I have to say it was a real pleasure to partner JB for the evening, he played some excellent darts with only a couple of self-talking-to’s.

Bull Wars: Papa 3, Peter 3, John 2, JB 2. No bullmeister tonight, but a five a side tally!

Chart Changes: Mike-D gained a hefty 2.5% which moves him up to fifth position swapping places with John. Both Papa and John lose about 0.8% on the night while Peter increases by a minute 0.3% leaving him around half a % behind CM.

Anyone who hasn’t let me have August AND September dates yet please let me know ASAP, Cheers....

Game On!

Peter x