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Promotion Hopes Well & Truly Fudged Up

After a draw against London & an away win at Norfolk, the unbeaten Surrey side, handily poised in fourth place in Division One, embarked on the long journey down to the South West to face Cornwall with whom we were level on points … and Boy! Did we make a right Cornish Fudge of the weekend!

Ahhh – Cornwall. Picturesque jewel of the West Country. Famous for its ghost stories & Clotted Cream, its Cornish Pasties & fabled Piskeys. Well, the only ghosts that will haunt Surrey players are those of the opportunities that they missed aplenty in this match, and the only cream they will want is Double Cream in the hope that the cream of Surrey might hit some doubles! And personally, I didn’t see any Cornish Piskeys either, just a lot of pesky Cornwall players making our lot look like Cornish Patsies!

Surrey’s playing personnel converged by road, rail & air on the match in St Austell, which is almost in the shadow of the Eden Project; an acclaimed attraction that features huge biospheres that re-create the atmosphere of different parts of the World using giant hexagonal panes of glass through each of which, I am reliably informed, you could drive a London Black Cab. I don’t know why they bothered. Just down the road at the Mount Charles Social Club, there was plenty of atmosphere … and you could drive the QE2 through the Surrey teams’ finishing skills if you wanted to!

It was clear that the weekend would be difficult when the Ladies B side went down 1-5 to our hosts. Jane Johnson (18.29) produced a very late match-winning spurt in her final leg of five, finishing 220 in 7 darts to take Lady of the Match, but this was a rare piece of clinical finishing on a day that was littered with missed chances.

Initially, it seemed as if the Mens B might repair the damage as Darren Everett (25.37), pictured left, led off the team with a tidy 3-1 victory which would earn him his second Man of the Match award in as many months, but again, shocking finishing put paid to that idea, and at the halfway point, the B side found themselves 1-5 down! A saving grace to the day was a doggedly determined display from Ray Elnaugh (25.17) in the last match of the afternoon which rescued some pride for the visitors, but it was a sheepish bunch that headed off to the Newquay hotel on the back of a Saturday 13-5 deficit.

Now, the view from a hotel overlooking one of Cornwall’s archetypal craggy cliff-enclosed bays is probably a beautiful sight in the summer. But in the gloom of a November rain-swept twilight, with the waves crashing ominously against the stark grey rocks, after you’ve just taken a right hammering, it more resembles a scene from the opening credits of a Hammer Film starring Christopher Lee … especially when some of those assembled start becoming strangely ill! Conspiracy theorists began pointing accusing fingers at the evening meal, suggesting that it only affected those that chose the Roast Chicken. Yes, the headline “Bird Flu found in Buxted Butter-Basted Frozen Poultry” would probably set pulses racing at the Sunday Sport, but then seeing as almost no-one chose the Haddock, the coincidence was hardly surprising was it? Perhaps A team player Andy Gillam turning up bereft of energy, looking like Frankenstein’s monster on a bad day, and making a point of talking to EVERYONE, may have had more to do with the sudden outbreak.

So the Sunday began with a mountain to climb in the match, a squad that weren’t feeling great, an early start & a very long journey home to contemplate. But were we Downhearted? Err, well, yes a little bit. And even more so once the Ladies A matched their female counterparts in the B with another crushing 1-5 defeat. Leading off for the Ladies, Chrissy Skehan (18.28) couldn’t match the heights of her marvellous match in Norfolk where she nearly overcame Dawn Standley in a truly memorable single, and her defeat set the tone again as Cornwall systematically took Surrey apart. Even Apylee Jones (25.34) had to pull out her best darts as Cornwall’s Jane Cummings took her the full distance, with Ap finally triumphing with a majestic 156 checkout.

The Cornwall victory was safe after they won the first Mens A point, but then Surrey staged an exercise in restoring pride following a tense five leg success from Spike Harris (26.37). There followed 4 successive winning points for the away side to put us 5-2 up, including another Man of the Match display from Steve Lovett (26.87) before Cornwall again dashed hopes by taking a salvo of their own to win the Mens A 7-5 & the weekend by a painful 25-11 scoreline. Ouch!

As County weekends go, this could by no means be described as a happy one by Surrey players or supporters, especially as it effectively kills off any hopes we had of promotion, leaving us instead firmly in relegation territory. To give you an idea of how bad this result was for Surrey, do you remember that traditional Cornish ballad “The Floral Dance” that was sung by Terry Wogan, an Irishman, accompanied by the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band from … err … Yorkshire? Well, this result was almost as awful as that!

But We CAN Play … Honest!

Surrey’s County side may well have crashed harder than one of Tony Blair’s Terrorism Bills, but there was still much to be proud of from Surrey players in BDO & PDC events this month, most notably from Apylee Jones.

Apylee’s progress is well-documented on these pages, but then it’s almost impossible NOT to notice her these days as her exploits seem to cut deep into the fabric of almost every Competition she enters. Following on from a superb Semi-Final berth at the British Open, the Chessington-based School Bus driver again placed herself in the forefront of the BDO web-site’s coverage of a Major event by making it to the Semi-Finals of the World Masters, finally going down to eventual Champion Trina Gulliver by 4 legs to 2. Current Gold Cup Champion Apylee is now knocking so hard on the door of the top BDO places that the wood is getting worn & the hinges are starting to give way! Major invites & more prestigious Titles are no doubt on the visible horizon for Apylee, who is one of the hardest working Lady players on the circuit … she’s the spitting image of Andy Pandy too, once dressed up, as you can see!

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