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A Last Gasp Rescue Too Far

Surrey’s Ladies & Mens A sides have been akin to Marvel comic heroes of late with some incredible turnarounds this season. At time of writing, a poll on the County web-site had selected The Mens A 10-2 result against Hertfordshire, to snatch a weekend draw, as the highlight of 2006 for Surrey. Subsequent matches have followed the same pattern with a deficit on the Saturday being made good on the Sunday, but that was all to change in the trip to Dorset.

The first of two quickfire Surrey matches this month saw Gwent hosted at Epsom Legion, complete with Welsh pride and a couple of cuddly toy mascots, one of which seemed incapable of staying upright for longer than a minute … insert your own comparison about a darts player you know, here.

Jane Lewis (15.05) & Lady of the Match Tania Blake (17.06) got the Ladies B off to a good start but a rally from Gwent led to a 2-4 defeat. The Mens B were to suffer similarly with Jason Roberts (30.06) rounding up the day’s play with a Man of the Match performance in a 5-7 loss. The A sides were therefore faced with a 4 point handicap as has been customary this season.

Apylee Jones (23.86) led off for the Ladies A with a 3-0 success & a 4-2 victory lessened the burden on the Mens A but there was still work to be done. And work they did as Captain Jason Kelly (26.45) took an early Man of the Match followed shortly by a good display by Roger Kitching (25.90) on the way to an 8-4 scoreline that turned the weekend into a 19-17 win and three welcome bonus points.

In the glossy world of Marvel, this would have the ‘baddie’ twirling his evil tache, muttering “Foiled again!” & vowing revenge. Unfortunately, in Surrey’s case, the ever-increasing pressure laid at the feet of the ‘goodies’ seems to be emanating from our own as the away match at Dorset set a Sunday comeback target too much even for our Dynamic Dozen & Half-dozen.

To be fair, it was a stunning Saturday performance by the Dorset Mens B as they took a 9-0 lead despite some great games from Surrey’s representatives. James Turner (26.49) finally stopped the rot to take Man of the Match and Dave Webb (23.88) added a much welcome final point for Surrey. The Ladies B had earlier repeated the Gwent sequence of events as Helen Cullip (15.32) & Lady of the Match Billie Auzins (18.06) had put us 2 up before Dorset had comeback to win the match 4-2.

So the Sunday in Dorchester required the Surrey A teams to produce a positive result from a 10 points deficit. Perhaps a repeat of the Superman 3 scene whereby the hero changed time (along with the accepted laws of Physics) by flying backwards around the World might have done the trick, but it wasn’t going to happen here. Apylee Jones (21.28) gained Surrey’s first point after the Ladies had gone 3-0 down, and Sharon Cullip (25.47) was inspired to seal a 3-3 draw but Dorset were resolute to deny our Men from performing another miraculous escape.

Roger “Super-Gnome” Kitching (30.13) took Man of the Match to celebrate his 50th birthday, after Neville “Farmer-Boy” Wright (26.55) had earned a classy point & Keith “The Six Million Year Old Man” Benson (26.55) also won well, prompting a stage dance which we thought his arthritic bones were incapable of! However, the miracle was not to be as the 6-6 result saw Surrey suffer their heaviest defeat of the season by 23 points to 13.

This result puts Surrey’s season into a new light with a star-studded Cheshire still to play. Promotion seemed a possibility but a battle for mid-table may now be more realistic. Of course, talking of superheroes, we could always take the lead from the ever-optimistic Buzz Lightyear & boldly declare “To the Premier, and beyond!” … my guess is that we could crash embarrassingly to the floor but who knows? All we have to do is wear our pants outside our trousers and anything is possible, right?

Playing the Board

The old adage about darts is that one should ‘Play the Board’ and not your opponent. This seems a very elusive skill for many but Surrey player Aaron Turner appears to have cracked it! Azza’s superb concentration helped him comfortably defeat Dorset’s Kevin Hobson and after the customary congratulations & handshakes, the Surrey player adjourned to answer the call of nature.

He was soon joined by a player in a Dorset shirt & so Aaron, to break the ice, asked “How did you get on mate?”. To which the reply came “You’ve just played me”. Now THAT is the epitome of blocking out all distractions during your match! Aaron was last seen, face in hands, head between his knees, begging for the ground to open up & swallow him!

Festival Fun

Surrey players enjoyed a fair amount of success on the annual jolly down to the seaside for the Eastbourne Festival of darts at the Winter Gardens.

As mentioned before in this column, our picturesque & peaceful leafy Surrey suburbs (and also Croydon) are generally vacated by the darts playing population of our County for this weekend, and although this year saw the event dropped from the PDC ranking calendar, the delegation from Surrey was still substantial.

Apylee Jones took the Ladies Title as she has done in the past and she was joined as a winner by the Mixed Triples team of Jason Kelly, Graham Hollis & Sharon Cullip. Phil Milburn was Runner-Up in the Saturday singles Competition, whilst Mark Tiller was doing battle with the Pros in the 128 event, reaching the Quarter Finals.

The Sunday saw Steve Lovett reach the Semi Finals of the John Smiths event, losing to eventual Champion Dennis Smith, whilst Jason Roberts also fared well, reaching the Quarters. All in all, it seemed worth their effort trotting along the A22 for a couple of days I reckon, it must have been a busy time for all our players, as not one came back with a stick of Eastbourne rock or a ‘Kiss Me Quick’ hat!

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