Bounty hunters put on a five-star show
Last updated 13:34, Friday, 16 May 2008
THE iconic darts tournament at Maryport’s Bounty Inn started its latest season last Sunday.
It will run over the next seven Sundays, culminating in a very fine play-off as usual. The first 22 entrants last week laid down a marker for the standards which will have to be reached for the qualifiers.
John Madine had a couple of 12-dart legs of 501 and a maximum, Willie Hoskins had a 12-darter and a 140 finish and there were a couple of 13-dart efforts from Rob McCoubrey who also had a hat-trick of 180s.
Scanner Bone had a leg in five sets of darts and Benny Boa also registered a 180.
In the top half of the draw Rob beat Steve Stevenson to get to the heat final while Stivi, who played well up to the latter hurdles, went out to John in the bottom half of the draw.
In the excellent final of the first heat Rob beat John by the decoding leg of three.
It will be heat two tomorrow evening and I would anticipate a big entry.
n Portland Club: Sadly there were only 11 players in each half of the draw last Saturday but the heat still supplied a couple of winners who will pose a threat when finals’ night comes around.
Brian Stedman and Mark Storey went through the night without being beaten and, and as they were the only two players left when the final tie came around they went through without having to play each other.
In one half of the semi- finals Brian beat Mike Brown in one and Barry Mitchell in the other. Brian had a 180 and a 114 finish.
In the other half, Mark had victories over John Bell in one and Marvin Dobson in the other – Marvin had a 101 out with the only other 180 of the night coming from Kevin Dobson. I believe it is heat six tonight and we could do with a bit better support!
n Robin Hood, Smithfield: Not the best of turnouts for the latest heat at Smithfield but again there were a couple of good winners in Chris O’Prey and Pigsy Petrie.
No further details are available at the time of writing but if anyone made it into the Robin Hood Brush Club we will be sure to find out next week.
n Station Inn: I tried to find out at least the names of the winners from the singles and mixed pairs from this week but the phone does not accept incoming calls. I will not be here to open the e-mail from Sas in the morning so we will catch up next week on all the results from The Station then.
n A very long way for a game of darts: Sadly the fixture list for next season’s Inter Counties Darts Championship has handed Cumbria five away matches with a huge number of miles to cover to fulfil the fixture list.
At a time when the price of fuel is going up almost by the day I really do question the wisdom of delegates at the AGM of the Inter Counties who rejected a motion to regionalise the event.
I believe that a near neighbour county are in the process of telling the BDO that they are not able to travel to the Isle of Wight because they find the cost prohibitive – we should watch that space perhaps.
The season starts on the weekend of September 13/14 with Cumbria travelling the length of the country to Somerset. There’s a home match with Nottingham on October 4/5 and then it is on the road again, to Bedford on November 1/2 and then again on 29/30 to Lincolnshire – how nice is that? East Anglia in just about December.
The new year starts with a home match to Norfolk on January 17/18 then away to London on February 14/15.
We are then home to Bucks on March 7/8 but away again to Sussex on 28/29 with the last match at home on April 26/27 to Berkshire.
Red Dragon Welsh Open: This weekend sees a huge gathering of darters from all over the mainland and Europe to compete for the Welsh Open title with more than 1,000 men in the singles event alone and there are several Cumbria players there.
Talk about the luck of the draw. In the women’s event Anita Ward has a match with a Trina Gulliver - that is in group two.
Michelle Jackson takes to the board in group five with an opener against Kath Conway, Pam Hind plays Sarah Greenway first in group 14 and Heather Draper will play Alana Allsopp in group 16.
In the men’s section, Sean McGimpsey faces Sean Barrett in group six with Paul facing Darren Owen in group nine, the same group as Gary Anderson.
Andrew Foster is in group 10 and he will play John Murphy with Pecker Woods in group 13 where he will face Mick Nixon.
Best of luck to all of them. All the household names in BDO darts are there.
Blue Square Open: The heats are all over and sadly there was no Cumbrian success at The Leigh Miner’s Welfare venue where the Ladies’ World Champion Anastasia Dobromyslova became only the third woman to qualify for the Rebok Finals after Crissy and Deta Hedman.
The World Master Robert Thornton also got through along with six others. Former Cumbria player Mal Smallshaw lost the chance to play at the Reebok at the last hurdle.
Players qualifying from other venues include England’s Scott Waites, London player Nicky Turner, who has qualified previously, and fromer PDC man Paul Whitworth.
The finals will be played over four days from June 5 to 8 at Bolton’s football stadium where Raymond Barneveld will be keen to defend his title.
West Street Social Club: Now here is some really good news for competition darts with the club in Wigton up and running again - and running one of their excellent darts tournaments.
This one starts on Friday, May 23, and will run for eight weeks with the finals on July 18 – that is for those who can afford a holiday.
It is 501 double in and out over the best of three legs with £300 added to the prize fund.
It’s a fiver for an entry in each half of the draw with two players going through to the final pool from each heat. Further details on 016973 42116.
And finally: Because of other things I will miss the e-mail from Kirky in the morning but we will be updated next weekend.
