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The Deliciously Dirty Dozen

As darts fans, you may well subscribe to Sky Sports to watch the PDC Competitions. And while you have Sky on your TV, you might as well watch other stuff right? Don’t panic, I’m not going to reveal to the world that you’ve been tuning into the late night output of Men & Motors or anything (even though you have), or if you are female, that you have mortgaged the house in favour of the jewellery offerings on QVC (even though you have!).

It’s just that there is a programme called Soccer AM, shown on Sky Sports on Saturday mornings, featuring darts presenter Helen Chamberlain, that you may have come across. If you have, you will know of the principle of ‘bouncebackability’.

For those that are baffled by this term, it is the practice of coming back from devastating disappointment & proving one’s mettle by putting your past problems behind you and hitting back … hard! I don’t think it has been included in the Collins Concise dictionary yet, but if it is, it will probably be entered as “noun: Some nutty word made up by ex-QPR Manager Ian Holloway”

I’d like to think of a more grammatically correct way of describing the latter stages of Surrey’s latest Inter-County excursion but there really isn’t one as our Mens A side very nearly snatched glorious victory from the jaws of abject failure at the Shamrock Club in Hertfordshire.

Let’s start from the beginning. There was no inkling of the drama to come as Surrey’s Ladies B gained a 4-2 win, their first of the current season. Mel Henry (17.28) earned her third Lady of the Match award in as many matches since transferring from Berkshire to put us 3-0 up, before Billie Auzins (15.05) confirmed the win with a tense success.

But it all went horribly wrong as the Mens B collapsed from a 2-3 scoreline to an eventual 3-9 match score. One could even argue that the result was flattering as Paul ‘Moonbeam’ Moreton (21.64) staggered his way to a fortunate victory before Sean Ryan (24.48) took the match award on a bad day for the Saturday lads.

11-7 down on the Sunday morning wasn’t cause for worry though as Surrey’s Ladies A have been imperious for a couple of years now, getting the County out of many a scrape with good results, and that trend looked set to continue as Apylee Jones (22.43) whitewashed the very dangerous Kathy Ovens with near perfect finishing. However, in almost taunting fashion, the rest of the side seemed to put their feet up, light a cigarette, and challenge the Mens A to do the hard work for a change as Herts took the Ladies match 5-1 and land what seemed an inescapable defeat in the lap of the Surrey contingent.

Step forward Surrey Mens A’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ (coached by our very own Telly Savalas character, Spike Harris, who cheered & cajoled the County through every dart of the weekend!) and one of the most exciting matches, from a Surrey perspective, that has been seen since the days when Keith Chegwin was considered ‘cool’!

Aaron Turner (30.67) started things off with a fine Man of the Match display & it seemed to set the tone as Richard McLaughlin (29.06), Keith Holmes (27.67 on his 6th Wedding Anniversary) & Steve Lovett (28.97) helped the side to a 7-0 lead! When veteran Keith Benson (27.18) overcame his senile dementia and chronic arthritis to defeat Herts’ highest averaging Peter Kosmalski & the score quickly moved to 9-0, there was a belief that this could be the biggest escape since Steve McQueen donned the baseball glove & planned on nicking a German bike!

Cruelly, Herts’ first point of the match came from Preben Krabben who edged the fiercely loyal Spike Harris (26.53) in five legs, and although there was still a chance of sneaking a victory, Surrey ended with a draw that would have seemed almost impossible before the Mens A’s exciting 10-2 victory.

In the 60’s film ‘The Dirty Dozen’, 12 ne’er do wells took on the opposition with little chance of success … the Surrey Mens dozen faced the same gloomy prospect but managed to emerge with fewer casualties. The irony, of course, is that they did so without their absent Captain, Aldershot based Jason Kelly, the only player to have actually served time in the army … as a pin-up boy for the Parachute Regiment!

The Odd Leg

It was a case of what could have been as 8 Surrey Super League players comprised the field for the PDPA World Championship Qualifiers at Villa Park. 4-5 defeats were the norm as each of our representatives put up a solid display on the day.

Closest to qualifying was Jason Roberts, who finally yielded to Alan Caves in the qualifying match, after beating three previous opponents with the loss of just two legs. JR had previously beaten Jimmy Dunlop 5-0 after Redhill’s Ben Burton had narrowly missed out on meeting his Surrey colleague by losing to Dunlop 4-5.

Gary Creamer took out a familiar name Peter Evison, before also overcoming Paul Dillon, another with TV experience, but lost, as many did, by the odd leg in his next match. Jimmy Mann, Mark Tiller & Aaron Turner all lost 4-5 in their matches, whilst Jason Clark failed to qualify as he has done twice before, in a 3-5 defeat to eventual qualifier Mark Lawrence.

That just leaves two Surrey based players in the Ladbrokes showpiece at the end of December, the automatically-qualified Dave Askew & Lionel Sams, one of whom is rumoured to soon be moving up north anyway (I’ll give you a clue, the letters L-I-O-N appear in his name).

A Funny Thing Happened at the Kebab Shop

Finally, a short story of three of our farther flung players who, after purchasing a late night Turkish cuisine experience (otherwise known as a kebab), were minding their own business as an egg unerringly hit Frimley player, ‘Dirty’ Gary Eastwood square in the chest from a speeding car over 30 yards away.

Obviously amazed, the players promptly gave chase to the moving vehicle. Unfortunately, they couldn’t catch the perpetrator … which is a shame as they hadn’t seen anyone throw that accurately for years and they had a pen and a registration form on them at the time!

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