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Sunday Morning Prayers

As this is the Surrey Column in Darts World, we’re obviously going to start this month’s report by discussing Surrey’s latest defeat to Middlesex in the Inter-Counties Championship … with reference to the merits or otherwise of one of Elton John’s 70s Top Ten Hits, classic 80s Rugby Union commentators, and Tiswas.

And before you think that to avoid this nonsense, you can just roll your eyes, throw your hands in the air and turn the page to re-read the repercussions of the current spat between Robert Holmes & Pro Life, I must warn you that thanks to the amount of CCTV cameras around these days, it will be noticed, and one of Elton’s roadies, a 20 stone prop forward, and the Phantom Flan Flinger, will be despatched to your door forthwith. In other words, just go with this OK?

It all dates back to the decision by Sport England to classify darts as a sport. Although the newly-appointed head of Sport UK has apparently now qualified our little game as being ‘Sports Entertainment’ (as endorsed by BDO World Champ Martin Adams), we can still get that warm feeling of being able to participate in that ‘Saturday feeling’ associated with so many other sports.

Elton John once sang about Saturday night being all right for fighting but in sports terms he was very wrong, Saturdays are about jubilation and partying. International rugby wins were famously greeted by 80s BBC rugby commentator, Ian Robertson, with predictions of celebration in the thoroughfares of the capital city involved, which was hilariously lampooned by Sky’s Jeff Stelling when he cynically talked about there being “… dancing on the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight” as a heavily-sponsored Welsh football team won the Welsh league.

Saturdays sound like fun if you’re involved in sport, don’t they? Well, yeah, I suppose they do. Unfortunately, it seems that winning is one of the key factors in this enjoyment and whilst Surrey’s 3-15 Saturday collapse against Middlesex may have seen players imitating Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers in the streets of Harrow & Hounslow, I’m afraid that the general mood in Epsom & Esher was rather more subdued!

Now, I’m of an age where I can happily admit to spending Saturday mornings watching Tiswas, which was an acronym for “Today Is Saturday Watch And Smile” but I certainly can’t admit to smiling much, as Middlesex players on the Saturday of the match took the stage & almost unanimously proceeded to fling a metaphorical flan in the face of our Mens & Ladies B team.

As caller for some of the latter matches, it seemed as if every male Middlesex player that climbed the steps took on the likeness of a grinning Chris Tarrant, which I’m sure you will agree is a horrendous experience. I tried to envisage Sally James instead, but it’s hard to do so when, for example, little Steve ‘Gollum’ Hyatt emerges from the crowd and toes the oche! Instead, as Surrey went 9-0 down in the mens game, it was the Tarrant monstrosity that seemed to appear regularly, offering a cheque with a BICC point on it before taking it away & triumphantly declaring “… but we don’t want to give you that!”.

It had all started off so well though as Angie ‘Baby’ Frewin (17.71) won the first point of the weekend for Surrey, but that was followed by a crushing sequence of 14 Middlesex wins during which Surrey only managed to take 11 legs!

It was James Turner (25.05) who stopped the rot as he had done at Dorset the previous month, again taking a well-deserved Man of the Match, with Terry Dersley (23.86) adding a precious last gasp point to slightly soothe the bruises of another Surrey Saturday spanking.

As mentioned in last month’s column, it would be nice if, to steal from another cheesy retro pop song, our A teams could turn up & feel “easy like Sunday morning” but faced with a deficit of 12 points, they probably felt more like following Elton John’s lead & breaking out the knuckle-dusters!

Fortunately, the Sunday saw a more competitive display from Surrey, as first the Ladies A drew 3-3 with a Lady of the Division performance from Apylee Jones (25.05) and a fine win from Laura Power (20.59). The Mens A also drew but not before early success from Middlesex that saw a salvo from the visitors result in Surrey being 5-1 down. Captain Jason Kelly (23.91) steadied the ship to encourage our County to take 5 of the last 6 matches, culminating in victories from Aaron Turner (26.39) & final set Man of the Match winner Richard ‘Jugs’ McLaughlin (27.83).

Surrey are now in the strange position of being leaders in one of the Div 1 A team tables & second top in the other, whilst simultaneously being bottom of one of the B team tables & second bottom in the other. It’s something of a paradox and one that means that relegation, although unlikely, can’t be discounted. If we could just get a reasonable result on a Saturday, all would be fine, so let’s hope we’ll be emulating Wayne Sleep on the streets of Northwich when we play at Cheshire at the end of March, and if the spectre of Tarrant turns up again, that we have buckets of water at the ready.

A Club Classic

Following an idea from Surrey Mens Team Manager Tony Cartwright, we seem to have stumbled into a bit of a gem of a Competition in the first ever “Surrey Super League Classic”, held at Epsom British Legion in February. The Competition was open only to registered players in the Surrey Super League, limited to 64 entrants, and carried a £400 first prize. And boy, did those places go quick!

It made for a great Sunday Competition which will no doubt be repeated. Dave Askew took the main prize, with Richie Blake pocketing £150 as Runner-Up (for all the results, Click Here). The story of the day though, was undoubtedly Nick Holman, who sponsored the highest checkout prize of £50 and refused to be knocked out of the event until he had hit the highest finish to get his money back. It took him to the Semis as he finally achieved a 154 in the Quarters. Rumours that he keeps a mousetrap in his wallet are rather exaggerated … well actually, I can’t lie, they’re true.

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